Belfast’s 15th OUTBURST QUEER ARTS FESTIVAL maybe at its halfway mark already (and you have missed the extraordinarily legendary performance artist David Holye !!!!!) but the next few days are packed with such goodies you really should not miss.
Here’s Queerguru’s Pick Of The Rest Of The Fest
REBEL DYKES: In the opening minutes of this powerful documentary we hear a voice that says ‘ we were young, working-class and poor: we were dykes NOT lesbians.” It is a statement of fact but there is a slight edge to it which we take as a warning not to misinterpret who this group of queer women really were. The film starts in the early 1980’s when a group of women set up a Camp outside the RAF MILITARY BASE ON GREENHAM COMMON in the UK. They were ostensibly there to protest the fact that the Government was allowing the US Military to store nuclear CRUISE MISSILES there.
Even though the documentary ends with a ‘where are they now’ section and most of the women seemed enveloped in some form of respectability, they still come over as good-spirited and still anarchic and funny(!). It’s just that their fierceness has mellowed. Kudos to filmmakers HARRI SHANAHAN, Sian A. Williams, and SIOBHAN FAHEY for making this fascinating record. Our queer history so needs to be told, so we can all remember the journey that others have made on our behalf.
Sunday 14th November 2021 6:15pm Queens Film Theatre (QFT)
North by Current is a documentary about family reconciliation and premiered very successfully at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival. After the inconclusive death of his young niece Kalla, filmmaker Angelo Madsen Minax returns to his rural Michigan hometown during the bleak winter of 2015. He was originally preparing to make a film about a broken criminal justice system which has resulted in the incorrect arrest of his brother-in-law for the death of Kalla. His family has understandably been traumatized by the death, and they agree to participate in the documentary as a distraction from their grief, and also to counter the injustice. Instead, once filming has started, he pivots to excavate the depths of his family’s generational addiction, Christian Mormon fervor, and trans embodiment – with the aim of his family understanding each other better.
15th November 2021 6:45pm Queens Film Theatre (QFT)
This is the Word Premiere of MASS. Epic in scale and ambition, it is a revolutionary collaboration between Outburst Queer Arts Festival, Belfast Ensemble, and the Ulster Orchestra. Ivor Novello-nominated composer Conor Mitchell premieres his electrifying symphonic queer mass score, live in one of the city’s most iconic empty spaces, the Belfast Telegraph Printworks.
17th-18th November 2021 7:00pm and 9:00pm The Telegraph Building
The exceptionally talented queer artist DAVID WOJANAROWICZ’S name may not easily trip off one’s tongue but at least now thanks to CHRIS MCKIM’S incisive documentary his place in the echelons of queer culture will finally be totally undisputed. Wojanarowicz died of AIDS in 1992 just 37 years old, but this new film makes us all totally aware that the impact of his work is still so powerfully relevant today.
18th November 2021 8:45pm QFT
Poz Vibe is one of the most vital new podcasts to have emerged in recent years. Join your hosts – Dublin cabaret icon Lady Veda and HIV activist and academic Robbie Lawlor for an intimate live recording of their radical new platform for HIV-positive people, our friends, families & allies. This is only the duo’s second-ever live show, so they’re cooking it up fresh but there’ll be laughter and song, with just a little T spilled along the way.
(By T we mean trauma)
18th November 2021 6:00pm Accidental Theatre
For the full program and how to book tickets check https://outburstarts.com/festival/
For the full reviews of these films and over 1250
other queer movies check out
http://c3f.ab6.myftpupload.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 FREELabels: 2021, arts festival, Belfast, Outburst
