15/02/2024 - Several European premieres feature in the rich programme of the London event celebrating queer cinema

Following its premiere at the Sundance Film Festival, Layla, the debut feature from British-Iraqi director and writer Amrou Al-Kadhi, will open the 38th edition of BFI Flare. The queer cinema event, taking place at the BFI Southbank in London from 13 to 24 March, will feature 33 world premieres (across features and shorts) across its programme, divided into three thematic strands called Hearts, Bodies and Minds.

Among the European world premieres, we can count UK title Lady Like, directed by Luke Willis and billed as a docu-fiction telling the rags-to-riches story of London-born, San Francisco-based drag queen Lady Camden, aka Rex Wheeler, as she is catapulted into the spotlight on RuPaul’s Drag Race season 14. Also from the UK, Jasmine Johnson’s debut feature What’s Safe, What’s Gross, What’s Selfish And What’s Stupid centres on members of the London queer community talking in depth about “what it means to create a family.” From Austria, Kat Rohrer’s What a Feeling [+see also:
film review
film profile] centres on two women who meet in a lesbian bar and is described as a romantic comedy exploring migration, class and sexuality in Austria. Meanwhile the Greek documentary Lesvia, directed by Tzeli Hadjidimitriou, focuses on the island of Lesbos, birthplace of Sappho and meeting place for lesbians since the 1970s. 

The programme also presents a selection of films that will first be seen at other festivals, such as Crossing [+see also:
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interview: Levan Akin
film profile] by Swedish-Georgian director Levan Akin and Baldiga - Unlocked Heart [+see also:
film review
film profile], Markus Stein’s documentary about German photographer Jürgen Baldiga, illuminating the AIDS crisis in 1980s underground Berlin, both opening in Berlinale’s Panorama. Coming straight from the Berlinale Forum will be Reas [+see also:
film review
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interview: Lola Arias
film profile], the documentary-musical hybrid by Argentinian filmmaker Lola Arias centred on a group of female inmates singing and dancing about their lives and sentences.

British director Rose Glass will be coming home with her Sundance and Berlinale selection Love Lies Bleeding [+see also:
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trailer
film profile], a body-building love story starring Kristen Stewart. Additionally, the BFI Flare programme includes two European-backed titles first unveiled at Toronto: Carolina Markowicz’s Rome Film Fest winner Toll [+see also:
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film profile], and Sally El Hosaini and James Krishna Floyd’s Unicorns. From last year’s Venice, we find Malgorzata Szumowska’s Woman Of [+see also:
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interview: Małgorzata Szumowska, Micha…
film profile], Zacharias Mavroeidis’ The Summer with Carmen [+see also:
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interview: Zacharias Mavroeidis
film profile] and Julia Fuhr Mann’s Life Is Not a Competition, But I’m Winning [+see also:
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interview: Julia Fuhr Mann
film profile]; and from last year’s Berlinale, Estibaliz Urresola Solaguren’s 20,000 Species of Bees [+see also:
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interview: Estíbaliz Urresola
film profile], Sacha Polak’s Silver Haze [+see also:
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film profile]; and Paul B. Preciado’s Orlando, My Political Biography [+see also:
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interview: Paul B Preciado
film profile].

Also among the European titles playing at the festival are Andrew Haigh’s All of Us Strangers [+see also:
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film profile], which will be making an appearance alongside other acclaimed queer films released in the UK over the past year; and Apollo Bakopoulos’ Aligned, centred on two male dancers who forge an artistic and sexual bond while training in Greece. Worth pointing out as well are three documentaries: Polish director Marek Kozakiewicz’s We Are Perfect [+see also:
trailer
interview: Marek Kozakiewicz
film profile], which follows an open audition for a rare trans masculine role in a Netflix film; Code of Fear, in which Appolain Siewe returns to his home country of Cameroon to investigate the roots of homophobia; and Stuart Pollit’s Don’t Ever Stop, which tells the story of Tony de Vit, a DJ and record producer who kept people dancing during the AIDS epidemic.

In the festival’s series offering, we find Tops by Amy Pennington, which captures the spirit of 90s British television while focusing on four trans interviewees; and French series Split by Iris Brey, which stars Alma Jodorowsky as a stunt-woman who falls in love with the actress she’s a stand-in for.

The festival’s star event will be the European Premiere of Close To You, directed by Dominic Savage and starring trans actor and activist Elliot Page, who will be at BFI Southbank on 15 March for a Screen Talk discussing his career.

Regarding the industry side of the event, the festival will also see the 10th edition of BFI Flare x BAFTA in partnership with BFI NETWORK, a professional development programme for LGBTQIA+ UK filmmakers returning this year with a new cohort of six participants. The BFI Flare Industry Day on Saturday 16 March will include panel discussions and industry networking events for professionals working in film production, distribution or exhibition.