Inside The Arzner, the UK’s first dedicated LGBTQ+ cinema

Walking to Bermondsey from London Bridge, you pass through a long tunnel. ​“Am I going the right way?” you might think to yourself, but you forge on, eventually emerging from the darkness, out into the open. The same principle can be applied to your destination at the other end: The Arzner. As the UK’s first LGBTQ-focused cinema, The Arzner provides a dedicated space for queer representation on screen, a dark screening room in which greater understanding of yourself and others can come to light.

An inviting presence in the centre of Bermondsey Square, The Arzner opened its doors in April. Through its floor-to-ceiling windows, a stylish, spacious and homely bar area can be seen, and it’s evident at first glance that they’re proud to be so visible. This building has a long history as a cinema space, and part of the site conditions is that it remains one. ​“I live around the corner, and I used to come here when it was a cinema before” says co-founder Simon Burke, whose background is in hospitality. Piers Greenlees, the other half of the equation, comes from the film world. On the festival circuit over the years, he would see great LGBTQ+ films debut and resonate with audiences, and yet they’d fail to filter down to general audiences. ​“Queer films will always struggle to get onto the big screen, because studios don’t believe that there’ll be an audience for them,” reflects Greenlees. ​“They’ve got to be packed with big names or massive stories – they can’t just be simple, relatable stories that a lot of audiences can connect to”.

The pair’s first venture – nearby queer-focused pub and events space The Rising – opened last year to warm reception. When the opportunity to do something with the Bermondsey Square cinema site came up, it was a no-brainer. ​“Film is a tough business, but the added focus on this being a cocktail bar makes it a more commercially viable space, which I think is what the previous management struggled with.” says Burke. Alongside the expected staples, The Arzner serves up a formidable selection of charmingly-themed cocktails, each named after important figures in LGBTQ+ cinema history, ranging from Marlene Dietrich to Wong Kar-wai.

The Arzner – both the house cocktail and the venue – are named after Dorothy Arzner, a seminal figure who from 1927 to 1943 was the only female director in Hollywood. The decision to christen the venue after her came after a lot of thought and consideration. ​“It was important for us to have a lesbian voice,” says Burke. ​“No queer cinema is widely distributed enough, but lesbian films haven’t been as celebrated as those focusing on the gay male experience. Dorothy Arzner was publicly out for her entire career, and that was important to me, along with how much of an impact she had”.

Greenlees and Burke haven’t come across a similarly LGBTQ-dedicated cinema venue anywhere in the UK, or even in the US, and no one that they’ve spoken to knows of an equivalent space either. ​“In the same way as you have a dedicated French cinema in London in the Institut Français, you have us for queer cinema” says Greenlees. 

Collaboration and conversation are at the core of what the Arzner team is building, having already fostered strong relationships with distributors that focus on queer titles such as Peccadillo, Outplay, and TLA – and they’ve begun dialogues with London’s coterie of queer cinema specialists about future possibilities. The key to The Arzner’s dream, and the likelihood of their success, is that they don’t want to supplant what’s already been built in the capital by film clubs such as Pink Palace, Bar Trash, and Funeral Parade, but instead to provide a home for queer cinema that exists year-round.

The permanence of the Arzner’s project means that Pride Month hasn’t been a big focus for them – ​“We’re showing this stuff all the time, so there’s only so proud we can be” laughs Greenlees. The team’s eyes light up as they elaborate on their upcoming Trans+ Pride season. The Arzner will be screening expected films such as I Saw The TV Glow and recent festival successes such as Trans Memoria, but Greenlees and Deputy Film Programmer Harry Warren are keen to look beyond the expected in their curation. Warren has taken the unconventional approach of working his way through the Letterboxd Top 250 to find the queer gems within – whether they were originally envisioned that way by their authors, or have been taken up by a queer fanbase. It’s an exciting proposition that welcomes curious mainstream audiences and breaks down the walls of established canon.

The team’s vision for The Arzner’s future is ambitious, yet feels remarkably feasible – there’s a ​“why not” attitude that pervades our relaxed and friendly conversation. ​“We want to be the go-to place for queer production companies and directors to launch their films” says Burke, ​“for this to be the home for queer cinema not just in London, but in the UK – and hopefully beyond. We’ve already had a few people from overseas come in – they wanted to see what it was like.” 

Greenlees concurs. ​“The vision is to be synonymous with queer cinema,” he says. ​“That when people talk about queer cinema it’s like, ​‘oh, there’s somewhere dedicated to that’. Internationally, we’re also a resource – our Instagram and Letterboxd accounts archive what we’ve screened.”

For Burke and Greenlees, the mission is clear. ​“To me, it’s about representation,” says Burke. ​“It’s about the ability to see both tragic and happy stories on screen that represent you and your lived experience. Film is a powerful medium for broadcasting lives that the generation before us had to hide.” He pauses, then smiles. ​“Not that long ago, you wouldn’t have had a queer venue that had a big glass window overlooking a square. We’re not hiding. We’re here.”