The 38th Edition of the annual BFI Flare: London LGBTIQ+ Film Festival is just about to kick-off at Southbank. It’s one of QUEERGURU’S favorite queer film fests …… not just because it is the biggest in Europe but also because it’s in one of QUEERGURU’s global home bases.
BFI Flare is divided into three thematic programme strands: Hearts, Bodies and Minds and this year presents 33 World Premieres (across features and shorts) with 57 features and 81 shorts from 41 countries.s. Aside from these live screenings there is also a selection of titles on BFI Player for UK-wide audiences/
As usual, Queerguru’s London-based Contributing Editors Andrew Hebden and Ris Fatah will literally be camped out at BFI Flare for the duration to bring you the best reviews and news during the Festival: Meanwhile, our US-based Editor in Chief has scoured the program to give you our
TOP PICKS FOR FILMS NOT TO BE MISSED
Andrew Haigh’s tour-de-force ALL OF US STRANGERS combines beautiful sunlit cinematography with outstanding performances by the cast to examine grief, family, love, and loneliness. The thoughtful script is enhanced by Andrew Scott’s genius body language and expressive face which say as much as his words. The film effortlessly skips from 1987 to the present day, showing us how far queer lives have developed and enhanced since those dark, trauma-filled, days of the 1980s, yet also highlighting the incomplete youth had by many. Of course, homophobia is still rife throughout the world but it’s heartening to see that queer coming-of-age joy can be felt at any age. The film is also an interesting exploration of what might happen if we got to spend time again with deceased loved ones. Would this actually be good for our mental health? Maybe there are good reasons we didn’t have the conversations we feel we should have had. The level of detail in this film is incredible. A moving, must-see work of genius.
CHASING CHASING AMY is an interesting documentary that takes a deep dive into the complex legacy of Kevin Smith’s 1997 indie film Chasing Amy, its effect on queer people, and its life-saving impact on director Sav Rodgers.
The original film is a romantic comedy starring Ben Affleck, Joey Lauren Adams and Jason Lee. The film is about a male comic artist (Affleck) who falls in love with a lesbian/sexually fluid woman (Adams), to the displeasure of his best friend (Lee). The film was originally inspired by a brief scene in the cult 90s lesbian film Go Fish. In Guinevere Turner’s Go Fish, one of the lesbian characters imagines her friends passing judgment on her for selling out by sleeping with a man. Rodgers’ film is a love letter to film-making, his wife, and to Chasing Amy. His charismatic energy is infectious. Keep an eye on him.
From one of Queerguru’s favorite documentarians, the Emmy Award winner Jeffrey Schwarz (Boulevard! A Hollywood Story, Tab Hunter Confidential, I Am Divine etc) comes his latest must-see film. Set against a rich Hollywood backdrop, “Commitment to Life” documents the true story of the fight against HIV/AIDS in Los Angeles – and how an intrepid group of people living with HIV/AIDS, doctors, movie stars, studio moguls and activists changed the course of the epidemic. Essential viewing for those who want to know all about our community’s history.
“Can a vagina be masculine?” This, and many more thought-provoking questions, are posed by interviewer/director Jules Rosskam, in his innovative new documentary Desire Lines, which examines the lives of trans men who also became gay men after transitioning. Rosskam’s film, combines drama with documentary.
Iranian-American trans man Ahmad, 60, (Aden Hakimi) visits a queer archive to examine the lives of his ‘trans-cestors’, with the hope of better understanding his queer trans self. The archive is staffed by Kieran (Theo Germaine), who connects with Ahmad and gently guides him through the archive. He introduces Ahmad to the life and work of Lou Sullivan, one of the first high-profile trans men who was also gay. In a series of letters and TV interviews from the 1980s Lou details his life and thoughts, mentoring other trans-masculine people along the way. Ahmad also spends time in gay saunas/bathhouses exploring his identity with other gay trans-men. The bathhouse corridors lead off from the archive, blurring the lines between the quest for sex and the quest for knowledge.
HIDDEN MASTER – The Legacy of George Platt Lynes : the name of George Platt Lynes is one not to be overlooked and it is a happy coincidence to learn about his life and art thanks to the documentary directed by Sam Shahid. The film shows the shadows and lights in the life of this visionary creator, who made visual statements decades before Richard Avedon, Irving Penn and particularly, Robert Mapplethorpe.
Platt Lynes died in New York, he was 48 years old. He was one of the first photographers to portray frontal nudes that transmitted the joy of sexuality and its bonds with the gay community that lived in the shadows in those days.
When Queerguru interviewed out and proud queer Iraqi drag queen/activist/writer/actor/journalist Amrou Al-Kahdi in 2017 it was obvious to us that our paths would cross again. Based in London at the time they were known as Glamrou and the founder and star of Denim the drag superstar group, and managed to make short films as well.
Now they have written + directed their debut feature-length movie, an uplifting and edgy queer love story called LAYLA which created quite a buzz when it premiered in Sundance. Layla is the tale of a non-binary Muslim drag queen (an award-worthy performance by Bilal Hasna) who lives in a small cluttered apartment in London’s Soho with a coterie of very colorful drag friends. It’s a vivacious sight and is part of the uplifting energy that Al-Khadi has imbued with throughout the whole film.
Orlando, My Political Biography is a fantastic, award-winning documentary film by Spanish philosopher/director Paul Preciado. The documentary is a homage to trans/non-binary lives and Virginia Woolf’s classic 1928 novel, Orlando, A Biography. The original novel is based on the wild family history of Woolf’s lover, the aristocratic poet and novelist, Vita Sackville-West. The core story is about a male thirty-something poet, Orlando, alive during the reign of Elizabeth I, who falls asleep for a week and then wakes up as a woman. She then survives for hundreds of years without aging and meets key figures of English literary history along the way. It’s considered a feminist/trans classic.
Written and directed by Benjamin Howard, Riley is a beautiful coming-of-age tale set in contemporary, suburban Southern California.
Life appears good for middle-class high-school football athlete Dakota Riley (Jake Holley). Under the watchful eye of his ambitious, ex-league player, coach/father, Carson (Rib Hillis), he’s successful, has a large group of friends, a close family, and a girlfriend, and is doing well in his senior year at high school. He’s in control of all areas of his life except one, his sexuality. He’s gay but tries his best to deny it to himself. He maintains a façade with his girlfriend and his friends, and teammates in the locker room, but his youthful raging hormones get in the way, especially when surrounded by his ripped team-mates wearing very little. We follow Riley as he navigates his way through the turmoil to try and live authentically and find peace with himself.
Studio One Forever is a documentary about the infamous Studio One nightclub in West Hollywood, known for its racist and sexist door policies as much as anything else. Launched in 1974, the club ran for 19 years until 1993. Why Studio One decided to have racist and sexist door policies is not made clear in the film. They required black patrons to provide up to three forms of ID to gain entrance, compared to one or no ID required for white attendees. Arbitrary rules were set in place to deter women too, for example, randomly enforced no open-toed shoe rules. Founder Scott Forbes brushed off criticism of his door policies at the time, citing a need to deter gang members and ‘bad people’ from coming to the club and insisting that his white customers would be uneasy with too many black people or women in the club. This is rather ironic given that the music the mostly shirtless white men were dancing to was largely by black or female artists. The Advocate covered Studio One’s racism issue several times and the LA Times ran a front-page story on the controversy in 1976. It would have been obvious to anyone that the racial mix of the dancefloor didn’t match that of the city. The club itself was a mecca for gay men seeking acceptance from the homophobic outside world, so it must have been a double blow for black queer men to receive a knock-back on the door.
The Summer with Carmen is a delightfully sexy and charming comedy that envelops you in a warm embrace While at Athens’ queer beach, best friends Demos and Nikitas consider turning a recent summer into a screenplay for Nikitas’ feature debut. Imagining their lives as a film, they face pending conflicts in their colorful friendship. There’s no shortage of lust and relationship drama, but the platonic friendship at the center is irresistibly electric.
A stunning debut film by Fawzia Mirza The Queen of My Dreams whose human insights are entertainingly luminous. For a film that is set around the death of a father and husband and the funeral that follows it, The Queen of My Dreams is so fresh, and super saturated in color that its vim, sparkle, and humor cannot help but shine through. The conflict between a mother and a daughter is shown, but rather than trudge predictably towards reconciliation the more interesting story of the parallels between their lives is shown.
BFI FLARE Film Fest will begin on 3/13 and end on 3/26. To see the whole program and book tickets check out https://www.bfi.org.uk/
for full reviews on over 1800 queer films check out www.queerguru.com and whilst you are there be sure to subscribe to get all the latest raves and rants on queer cinema ...best of all its FREE
