The annual BFI Flare: London’s LGBTIQ+ Film Festival, is the biggest LGBTIQ+ film festival in Europe …… and we think the best too. This, the 36th Edition, will take place in person, and also offer a selection of titles available on BFI Player to UK-wide audiences, and to international audiences via Five Films for Freedom – now in its seventh year, in partnership with The British Council.
This year presents 6 world premieres, 56 features, and 84 shorts from 42 countries that cover nearly all the queer spectrum. And to make sure we miss none of it Queerguru will have two of our Contributing Editors Andrew Hebden and Ris Fatah in London sitting through it all. Watch this space for all their compelling reviews of some great new queer cinema. Here are a few that they have already previewed ….. and fallen in love with
A Distant Place, the debut feature film from Korean filmmaker Kuo-Young Park, and is a remarkable finely nuanced tale that evolved into such an exquisite film as beautiful as the stunning rural setting. It is the first Korean queer film that I have ever seen and I have to confess although I was unsure what to expect ….. this was certainly not it A Distant Place is the story of Jin-Woo (Kang Gil-woo) who lives and works as a farmhand in a remote sheep ranch in the highlands of South Korea very near the border with North Korea. Park who also wrote the script feeds us details sparingly, so it takes us time to work out the setup at Mr. Kim’s ranch.
Being Bebe : Newbie filmmaker EMILY BRANHAM took a shine to BeBe aka MARSHALL NGWA back in 2006 before the world came to know about him. Then the tall good-looking man from Cameron in West Africa was living in Minneapolis Minnesota and doing amateur drag in a local gay bar. Even then he stood out as his costumes and performances were heavily immersed and inspired by his African Culture. After Bebe was the first-ever winner of Ru Paul’s Drag Race she had a roller coaster life of rags to riches and back again which she shares with disarming honesty that makes this doc so compelling and such a sheer joy to watch.
P.S. you may also like to check out Queerguru’s interview with the Star, the Director and the Producer https:// queerguru.com/talking-about-being-bebe/
For many British people, the poetic works of Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen were the only rebukes to British nationalism that they were ever taught in school. Sasson recounted not just the wounds of the Great War but also spoke with contempt of the incompetence of the generals, the jingoism of politicians, and the blindness of the church. In Terence Davies’ Benediction, which tells the life and works of Sassoon, including his relationship with Owen, there is a deep and bitter sense of reproach that seeps through its many layers.
BOULEVARD: A Hollywood Story. In 1950 DICKSON HUGHES and RICHARD STAPLEY, two young songwriters and romantic partners approached GLORIA SWANSON with a new Musical they had written just for her. The 50+-year-old star still glowing in the reception of SUNSET BOULEVARD FILM, had been champing at the bitt as offers of film roles had simply dried up. So she persuaded the couple to change their plans and write a musical based on Sunset Boulevard for her to recreate Norma Desmond. This previously untold story, the latest fascinating doc from Emmy Award Winner Jeffrey Schwarz is what happened to that musical and also the men’s love affair
P.S. Queerguru talks with Emmy Award-Winning filmmaker JEFFREY SCHWARZ talks about BOULEVARD.
Fanny: The Right To Rock is an exhilarating new documentary from Bobbi Jo Hart about the trailblazing all-female rock band from the 197O’s who never ever got the recognition they deserved. These women were pioneers whose musicality and sheer style paved the way for so many female rocks stars who followed.
PS Check out Queergurus; exclusive interview with filmmaker Bobbi J Hart https://queerguru.com/bobbi-jo-hart-talks-about-fanny-the-right-to-rock-the-untold-story-of-one-of-the-greatest-girl-rock-bands-ever/
Canadian trans filmmaker Chase Joynt confidently left the recent Sundance Film Festival clutching two awards, knowing he has been successful in a rare achievement. His sophomore feature-length documentary Framing Agnes is even better than his remarkable debut No Ordinary Man which he had co-directed with Aisling Chin-Yee.
In this new movie, Joynt gently chips away on how being transgender is so widely misunderstood mainly by our sheer ignorance. His film continues an important message to dispel so many long help myths as it gives such dignity and grace as part of a continuing dialogue about the transgender community. ‘
PS You may want to check out Queerguru’s interview with the filmmakers https://queerguru.com/filmmakers-chase-joynt-and-morgan-m-page-talk-about-framing-agnes-one-of-the-very-best-queer-films-at-sundance-2022/
T.J. PARSELL’S fascinating new feature-length documentary INVISIBLE shares the tales of how a group of queer women are still dealing with such a persistent and pernicious form of homophobia that hardly anyone outside the world of country music are ever aware of. He manages to interview a whole roster of female singer/songwriters and although they include a couple of household names such as LINDA RONSTADT and EMMY LOU-HARRIS most of them are unknown talents to us outside of the industry. One after another they share similar tales, that whilst the chances of women breaking into this heavy machismo business were very slim, but if they were lesbian too, they were non-existent.
Manscaping : Having shaved his own head from the age of 13 this reviewer almost coughed up a furball when Queerguru’s Editor in Chief suggested that this documentary about hair was for me. Turns out this one-hour film, ostensibly about the barbershop, has more to say about the breadth of LGBTQ+ experience than you might expect. Manscaping succeeds because it introduces so many elements of the LGBTQ+ experience through a single vantage point. Racism, sexism, economic disadvantage, the struggle for self-love and acceptance are explored via hair without lecturing or condescension.
Since 1996 when East Palace, West Palace was the first Mainland Chinese movie with an explicitly homosexual theme was released, there have been very few films to follow its lead. Like with MONEYBOYS it is deemed too unsafe to make Chinese queer film actually in situ, so filmmakers such as Taiwan/Austrian C.B. Yi use Taiwan as a stand-in location. C.B. Yi’s film shines a light on the less explored area of LGBTQIA+ issues in China which may surprise much of his audience. This is a love story set against a background of survival which for many young men …… gay and straight ……is hustling. It gives these boys born in rural villages a way out of the basic poverty-stricken their families lead.
The Perfect David (El perfecto David) is a tense yet poetic modern-day coming of age story. It accurately reflects an 18-year old’s transition into manhood, trying to fit into his new adult world when life goals, sexuality, and relationships are usually still a bit vague and sometimes temporarily heading in the wrong direction. Premiering at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival, Argentinian writer and director Felipe Gomez Aparicio, along with co-writer Leandro Custo, have drawn on personal experiences to tell a tale of a young man’s pursuit of the perfect body, drawing on themes of perfection, control and co-dependency – issues affecting many of today’s young men.
THE SWIMMER : Erez, a talented young Israeli swimmer, is one of five swimmers selected for a special residential training camp. The swimmers are in competition with each other and the winner will be chosen to join the Israeli Olympic swimming team. Erez (Omer Perelman) meets the beautiful, muscular Nevo (Asaf Jonas), a fellow swimmer at the camp, who slowly awakens subconscious homosexual desires in Erez. However, they both have girlfriends and also have a tough Russian swimming coach (Dima) who does not want the competitors to have friendships with each other. Dima warns Erez to stay away from Nevo, but Erez can’t help himself. Erez and Nevo hang out together at the camp when not training and Erez clumsily attempts to act upon his feelings.
Wildhood is a beautiful queer coming of age story set within Canada’s first nation Mi’kmaq people, a community over 14,000 years old, based in rural Nova Scotia. The road movie introduces us to Link, (Phillip Lewitski), a Two-Spirit, half Mi’kmaq teenager, and his younger half-brother Travis (Avery Winters-Anthony). The term Two-Spirit loosely refers to queer first nation people – a more detailed indigenous definition is the intersection of the relationship to land, gender, sexuality, ceremony, and culture.
BFI Flare: London LGBT Film Festival will begin onWednesday, March 16
and ends on Sunday, March 27.
To see the whole program and book tickets for person and online checkout
https://whatson.bfi.org.uk/flare/Online/
BFI Flare: London LGBT Film Festival will begin onWednesday, March 16
and ends on Sunday, March 27.
To see the whole program and book tickets for person and online checkout
For the full reviews of these films and over 1500 other queer movies check out https://queerguru.com/ and whilst you are there be sure to subscribe to get all the latest raves and rants on queer cinema….. even better IT’s FREE
