The 39th edition of BFI Flare, London’s leading LGBTQIA+ film festival, arrives at BFI Southbank on March 19th – bringing with it a wave of new UK and international titles portraying the queer experience.
Of the titles screening during the longstanding festival, which takes place until March 30th, 34 will receive their world premiere. 56 features, 1 series and 81 shorts (from over 40 countries) are set to be shown, including work from both emerging talent and established filmmakers.
A continuation of previous years, the festival’s films have been split into three categories: Hearts, Bodies and Minds.
“Flare is a place for community, thoughts and discussion through film and this year we have an abundance of cinematic riches and events to spark endless conversation,” the programming team of this year’s festival said. “We can’t wait to welcome talents from the UK and across the globe to share these incredible stories with audiences this March.”
With such an array of films to choose from, we’ve included a list of our highlights from this year’s programme below.
Hearts
Drip Like Coffee
Representation of Black, queer, femme love can be hard to come by in the film world. But Drip Like Coffee changes that, offering an unexpected, caffeine-fuelled romance centring around a pair of baristas working together in Brooklyn. Feeling weighed down by her needy boyfriend, something changes when aspiring photographer Mel starts working at Kali’s cafe. Soon, there’s more than the scent of coffee beans and ham and cheese toasties wafting through the air as the pair’s tender romance grows stronger and stronger behind the bar.
Drive Back Home
Family provides the backbone of many queer stories, often focusing on the chosen families we choose to surround ourselves with as opposed to our biological ones. Michael Clowater explores the tensions that form in our bloodlines with Drive Back Home, a Canadian drama set in the 1970s which sees Weldon (Charlie Creed-Miles) embark on a roadtrip to bail out his estranged brother Perley (Alan Cumming) after he’s been arrested for having gay sex in a public park. The film is based on a true story between the director’s great uncle and grandfather, and has been highlighted for portraying the cruel trend of police in the 1970s outing gay men involuntarily to their families.
Bodies
Cherub
Exceedingly strict beauty standards have plagued gay men for decades. Six packs, buffed chests and sharp jawlines are signifiers of worth – leaving Harvey, the star of Devin Shears’ dialogue-free Cherub, left feeling invisible and unlovable. That’s until, on a trip to an adult store, the lonely singleton comes across Cherub magazine, a title exclusively made for ‘big men and their admirers’ which hosts its own ‘Cherub of the Month’ photo competition. Entering the competition, Harvey seizes the opportunity to embark on a stirring journey of self-love, empowerment and body positivity.
Really Happy Someday
Z is a burgeoning musical theatre actor – that is, until the effects of his gender transition wreak havoc on his singing voice, leading him to completely botch an audition he thought he had in the bag. Abandoned by his agent and resorting to bar work to make a living, his dreams seem to be vanishing into thin air. That is until his loved ones – and a very special vocal coach – rally around him as he gets to know his new voice register.
Hot Milk
Rebecca Lenkiewicz makes her directorial debut at this year’s festival with Hot Milk, an adaptation of Deborah Levy’s Booker Prize-nominated novel. Sex Education’s Emma Mackey portrays Sofia, an anthropologist left caring for her overbearing mother Rose (Fiona Shaw) who suffers from a condition which confines her to a wheelchair. Travelling to Spain for Rose to seek a diagnosis from an unconventional local doctor, Sofia sees a chance to find solace from the confines of her mother’s condition in the arms of an enchanting local seamstress named Ingrid.
Minds
I’m Your Venus
Undoubtedly one of the most important documentaries ever made, Paris Is Burning introduced viewers to the incomparable trans ballroom walker Venus Xtravaganza. Watching the seminal piece of queer cinema, you couldn’t help but fall in love with Xtravaganza – she was vivacious, impassionate and unashamedly herself. Her murder at the end of the film (her strangled body was found underneath a hotel bed – the sex work that she supported herself with was documented throughout the film), was a stark reminder of the threats trans women and sex workers face daily. In this touching tribute to the 23-year-old, members of her chosen family, the House of Xtravaganza, work with her biological brothers to seek justice for their sister – reminding themselves of her blazing legacy in the process.
Between Worlds
Running for a total of 96 minutes, Between Worlds is a selection of international queer horror shorts which explore the dark, murky intersections between sleep and consciousness (Ashley Panton’s The Hold), past and present (Irving Ly’s Close the Eye to See) and reality and imagination (Deborah Devyn Chuang’s Strawberrry Shortcake).
SALLY!
Sally Gearhart was one of the most prominent figures during the US lesbian movement in the 1970s and 1980s. She helped to create one of the first women and gender university programmes in the US, protested against California Proposition 6 alongside Harvey Milk and became one of the Bay Area’s most prominent radical feminists. However years on, many don’t even know her name. Director Deborah Craig aims to change that with SALLY!, which tells the story of the late activist’s life and the revolutionary politics that sat at the heart of every speech she gave, every rally she attended and every injustice she fought.
The BFI Flare: London LGBTQIA+ Film Festival will take place at BFI Southbank from March 19th - 30th. Tickets are available now via bfi.org.uk/flare
