Flare started life as Gays’ Own Pictures in 1986, before changing to the London Lesbian and Gay Film Festival two years later, and eventually BFI Flare LGBTQIA+ Film Festival. The name changes indicate how queer cinema has changed over the years, becoming more inclusive. It’s an honour to programme the 40th anniversary of the festival.
The Watermelon Woman
Cheryl Dunye’s landmark film, thought to be the first feature film directed by a Black lesbian, turns 30 this year. We’ve teamed up with Frameline Film Festival, the oldest LGBTQIA+ film festival in the world, to screen it. It’s still so funny, incisive and unique after all this time.
March 20, 12.55pm
No Salgas
We’ve supported the brilliant Dominican director Victoria Linares Villegas at both Flare and the London Film Festival over the years, and we’re thrilled to have her back with her third feature film – a horror in which a mysterious entity is hunting down queer people.
March 19, 5.50pm, & March 20, 8.45pm
Jaripeo
We’re screening this documentary fresh from this year’s Sundance and Berlinale film festivals. A dreamlike, meditative film, Jaripeo follows filmmaker Efraín Mojica returning to the small-town Mexican rodeos they grew up surrounded by – hypermasculine spaces that also offer surprising possibilities for queer community.
March 21, 6.40pm, & March 22, 4.40pm
Lunar Sway
Nick Butler’s debut film is exactly the kind that goes down a storm at Flare. It’s a big, kooky American coming-of-age story about a small-town misfit who embarks on a series of wacky misadventures after the arrival of his birth mother.
March 22, 1.10pm, & March 23, 8.30pm
Washed Up
This delightful debut from Isabel Daly is a romantic comedy with a twist: aspiring artist Morwenna has a meet-cute on a Cornish beach with the enigmatic Inga. The only problem? Inga is a selkie, a mythical creature with the ability to shapeshift between human and seal.
March 25, 8.50pm, & March 28, 12.45pm
BFI Flare runs from March 18 to 19 at BFI Southbank.
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This article first appeared in the third issue of Broadsheet London's magazine. Here's where to find a copy.
