Queer peo­ple are stronger togeth­er at BFI Flare 2023

“I think it’s very impor­tant for our move­ments to be inclu­sive and col­lab­o­ra­tive, because divi­sive­ness is tak­ing away a lot of our power.”

So says trail­blaz­ing author Jew­elle Gomez in Jew­elle: A Just Vision, Madeleine Lim’s doc­u­men­tary on the life, work and activism of the woman who gave us Black les­bian vam­pires long before spark­ly straight ones came along.

The film screened this March at BFI Flare 2023, the two-week LGBTQ+ film fes­ti­val at BFI South­bank which couldn’t have come at a more pre­scient time. Anti-LGBTQ bills are clog­ging up the USA, Ugan­da just passed even more dra­con­ian anti-gay laws, and cer­tain UK ​“fem­i­nists” (gay and oth­er­wise) and lit­er­al neo-Nazis final­ly agree on one thing: their hatred of trans peo­ple.

Flare 2023 was a refresh­ing anti­dote to this cli­mate, with its usu­al Hearts, Bod­ies and Minds cat­e­gories show­cas­ing queer art in all its diverse glo­ry. And from dram­e­dy to hor­ror, Brazil to South Korea and from shorts and fea­tures to VR and video games, there real­ly was some­thing for everyone.

The fes­ti­val kicked off with The Stroll, Kris­ten Lovell and Zackary Drucker’s stir­ring doc­u­men­tary about New York’s 14^th Street and the sex work­ers – most of whom, includ­ing Lovell, were trans women of colour – who spent the 1990s there.

“My mis­sion was to tell this sto­ry before we’re all gone,” she says, anchor­ing the film with her own mem­o­ries plus inter­views with oth­ers who walked that street, a colour­ful­ly dressed bunch with razor-sharp street smarts and zero tol­er­ance for bull­shit. Nar­ra­tion, archive footage and ani­ma­tion com­bine to unflinch­ing­ly con­front years of home­less­ness, sex­u­al vio­lence and police bru­tal­i­ty, until mass incar­cer­a­tion and gen­tri­fi­ca­tion final­ly forced them out. Yet their jus­ti­fied hatred for Rudy Giu­liani, Michael Bloomberg and every­one in between is out­done by their courage and cama­raderie. It’s a dif­fi­cult watch, but ulti­mate­ly a hope­ful one, because Lovell and her friends are noth­ing if not survivors.

After­wards, queer women had plen­ty of oth­er con­tent to pour over. The Cham­ber­maid, Mar­i­ana Čen­gel Solčanská’s les­bian love sto­ry set in pre-war Prague, made its UK pre­mière brim­ming with sex­u­al ten­sion which sad­ly can’t make up for sev­er­al ludi­crous char­ac­ter deci­sions, an under­whelm­ing finale and the deci­sion to play the bul­ly­ing-equals-attrac­tion card for no real reason.

More hard­ened view­ers could try Rule 34, Júlia Murat’s delib­er­ate­ly uncom­fort­able study of a bisex­u­al law stu­dent (Sol Miran­da) who becomes obsessed with seek­ing increas­ing­ly dan­ger­ous sex­u­al expe­ri­ences. Next they might relax with Life Unre­hearsed, an under­stat­ed but sweet doc­u­men­tary fol­low­ing an elder­ly Kore­an les­bian cou­ple. Alter­na­tive­ly, Jew­elle: A Just Vision is an uplift­ing watch despite the depress­ing fact that many will have nev­er even heard of Gomez – or her pio­neer­ing Gil­da Sto­ries – until now.

There was also sur­re­al­ist fan­ta­sy and sci-fi in The Five Dev­ils and Uniden­ti­fied Objects, a trans elders’ séance in docu­d­ra­ma The Fab­u­lous Ones, queer Bible nerds in 1946: The Mis­trans­la­tion That Shift­ed Cul­ture, a nuanced plus-size teen pro­tag­o­nist in Big Boys, and any­thing else the aver­age queer film buff could desire.

This year’s fes­ti­val also took care to spot­light the inter­sex com­mu­ni­ty, a group often con­ve­nient­ly for­got­ten by those who love extolling the impor­tance of bio­log­i­cal sex. Atten­dees could start with bub­bly high-school com­e­dy XX+XY, a fun K‑drama which is unfor­tu­nate­ly over two hours long and most assured­ly didn’t need to be.

The real must-watch, how­ev­er, was that year’s Cen­tre­piece Pre­sen­ta­tion Who I Am Not. Com­bin­ing low-key obser­va­tion­al footage with beau­ti­ful cin­e­matog­ra­phy and scene tran­si­tions, the doc­u­men­tary fol­lows new­ly-diag­nosed beau­ty queen Sharon-Rose Khu­ma­lo and sea­soned activist Dimakat­so Sebi­di, as both nav­i­gate the chal­lenges of being inter­sex in South Africa. Cru­cial­ly, though, while direc­tor Tünde Skovrán doesn’t shy away from the dif­fi­cul­ties her sub­jects face, inter­sex life is not pre­sent­ed as a tragedy, as both find solace and joy in their loved ones and each other.

Fans of Call Me By Your Name and Por­trait of a Lady on Fire, mean­while, should enjoy Olivi­er Peyon’s com­pelling dra­ma Lie With Me. The cen­tral gay teen romance is some­what under­de­vel­oped but sweep­ing shots of beau­ti­ful French coun­try­side more than makes up for that, as does a screen­play which has plen­ty of fun­ny moments but will still leave you hold­ing back tears in the final act.

Unfor­tu­nate­ly this doesn’t apply to the clos­ing pro­duc­tion Drifter, Hannes Hirsch’s tale of a young gay man (Lorenz Hochhuth) who embarks on a jour­ney of sex­u­al explo­ration after a break-up in Berlin. Despite its endear­ing lead, the film remains a mean­der­ing, chop­py and frankly under­whelm­ing way to end any film fes­ti­val, but espe­cial­ly one with so many more engag­ing nar­ra­tives on offer.

Instead, end your next queer film marathon with Egghead and Twinkie, the fea­ture debut of direc­tor Sarah Kambe Hol­land. This mov­ing but whole­some com­ing-of-age com­e­dy stars Sab­ri­na Jie-A-Fa as a mixed-Asian les­bian who drags her straight best friend (Louis Tomeo) on a road­trip to meet her online crush. Jie-A-Fa pos­i­tive­ly fizzes with adork­able ​‘baby queer’ ener­gy, and she and Tomeo play off each oth­er well – although some­times the mul­ti­ple romance sub­plots feel a lit­tle con­trived. But thanks to a com­bi­na­tion of good music, whim­si­cal Heart­stop­per-esque ani­ma­tion and excel­lent com­ic tim­ing, most view­ers will enjoy them­selves too much to real­ly care.

Or, for a real­ly mem­o­rable finale, try Byun Sung-bin’s Peafowl. Mak­ing its inter­na­tion­al pre­mière at Flare 2023, this South Kore­an dra­ma doesn’t even have its own IMDb page. What it does have is dancer Hae-jun as Myung, a trans­fem­i­nine ​‘waack­er’ (a form of vogu­ing) who reluc­tant­ly returns to her con­ser­v­a­tive rur­al birth­place to per­form a tra­di­tion­al dance rit­u­al for her father’s funer­al. Hae-jun is elec­tric through­out, pas­sion and lone­li­ness and bit­ter­ness and anger all bat­tling for dom­i­nance. And Myung’s jour­ney is sup­ple­ment­ed by infec­tious music, sol­id edit­ing and extend­ed dance sequences which rev­el in Hae-jun’s skill, and cul­mi­nate in a tri­umphant explo­sion of queer and trans joy.

In short, this film is part­ly about con­nec­tion and rec­on­cil­i­a­tion, but main­ly about unapolo­get­i­cal­ly cel­e­brat­ing who you are – a mes­sage that’s reflect­ed through­out both this fes­ti­val and the entire LGBTQ+ com­mu­ni­ty. For­give the cliché, but we real­ly do have more in com­mon than what divides us. Deny that and you’re miss­ing out on unique cul­tures and beau­ti­ful sto­ries – and frankly, you’re only hurt­ing yourself.