London-based Queer East film festival is one of Queerguru’s most favorite LGBTQ+ events as it showcases rarely-seen queer cinema from East and Southeast Asia. Seeking to amplify the voices of Asian communities in the UK, the festival explores the forces that have shaped the current queer landscape in Asia, and aims to encourage more inclusive narratives.
We love that its eclectic program schedules brand new queer movies and a selection of favorites from the past that need to be seen again. The second edition of Queer East Film Festival takes place in different venues around London from 15 to 26 September….. and here are a few MUST SEES that the QUEERGURU team of reviews have picked out. Here they are in alphabetical order.
CLOSE KNIT Japanese writer/director Naoko Ogigami’s latest movie is a delightfully sensitive family story that puts a refreshing slant on the continuing dialogue about the transgender community that is the focus of more and more films these days.
11-year-old Tomo (an enchanting and rather sanguine Rin Kakihara) has a single-parent mother who has a habit of suddenly taking off on a bender with a new man for months at a time leaving her young daughter to defend for herself. Tomo usually counts on her uncle Maiko (Kenta Kiritani) to take her in, and on this latest occasion he tells his niece that his girlfriend Rinka (Toma Ikuta) has now moved in with him and warns that she is ‘unusual’.
Dear Tenant: the Closing night film making its UK premiere is a heartbreaking queer drama from Tawainese filmmaker Cheng Yu-Chieh. It’s a touching story that reminds you that love doesn’t conquer all (especially when it’s queer) and that the struggle for full equality for our community is far from over. Take a box of tissues when you view this excellent film
Goodbye Mother is one of those cases of don’t judge a book (or in this case movie) by its cover. Having wrongly assumed that this was a straightforward story of a closeted gay man taking a boyfriend home to Vietnam for the first time, and being forced to choose between his conservative family or the new love of his life. It surprisingly had more depth dealing with the whole ramifications of an extended family still coping with the changes brought about by the ending of the Vietnam war.
QUEER JAPAN. The LA-based Canadian filmmaker Graham Kolbeins set himself an impossible task with his new documentary. Although it is both intriguing and thoroughly entertaining it is also very obvious that 90 minutes is certainly not long enough to comprehensively cover the whole spectrum of LGBTQ culture in Japan. Although somewhat uneven in parts, Kolbein’s glimpse at how traditional Japanese society is slowly embracing the queer community does have some fascinating glimpses into the lives of a few of the more outrageous and larger-than-life characters in the community.
Shinjuku Boys is an award-winning film from 1995 film by Brit filmmaker Kim Longinotto and Jano Williams. It explores the fascinating lives of three transgender men (known as onnabes) who work at the New Marilyn Club in Tokyo, Japan. All of them date women but refuse to be classified as lesbians and they generously allow the cameras to follow them at work and home
The First Conversation Between Frank and I this intriguing film totally captured our attention because of the odd premise behind it all. It’s the story of Frank a 19-year-old infantryman in the US Army who claims to be straight but gets involved in an online ‘relationship” with a queer Thai filmmaker in NY who he goes AWOL to visit. This 8 min documentary plays alongside some other great short films
Global events in the past year, from Covid-19-related anti-Asian attacks to the Black Lives Matter movement, have once again reminded us how vital fair and authentic racial and sexual representation is for our society. Film is one of the most direct and accessible mediums able to shine a light on issues and situations that people just weren’t aware of before.
15th -21st September 2021 https://queereast.org.uk/festival-2021/
