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Our pick of the films turning a radical lens on LGBTQ+ life at this year’s event, a highlight of London’s cultural calendar
BFI Flare: London LGBTQIA+ Film Festival is a queer cultural institution. Now in its 39th year, the event lives up to its name by platforming enlightening stories from across the LGBTQ+ spectrum. This year’s programme includes 56 features and 81 shorts from 41 countries – including 34 world premieres – reminding us that queerness transcends borders and cultural norms.
Screenings, panel discussions and DJ events take place at BFI Southbank from March 19 to 30, but many titles will also be streaming on BFI Player. So, here’s our guide to ten must-see features that deserve to find a wider audience after playing at this year’s festival.
This affecting documentary shines a spotlight on Venus Xtravanganza, the young trans woman who made an indelible impression in 1990’s Paris Is Burning. Tragically, she was murdered in unknown circumstances before Jennie Livingston completed her seminal film about New York ball culture, so she never witnessed its success. Now, more than 30 years later, director Kimberly Reed follows Venus’s biological and chosen families as they come together to pursue justice. Featuring re-edited footage from Paris Is Burning, it’s a tender celebration of Venus’s life that doubles as a testament to the trans community’s unflinching resilience.
Women’s football was banned in Brazil until 1983 – the same year directors Francisco C Martins and José Antonio Garcia made this daring comedy-drama. Onda Nova was also banned by the Brazilian dictatorship, but has since been restored in radiant 4K. With laughs, heart and lots of gay abandon, it follows a newly formed women’s soccer team as they take on waves of conservative prejudice before they even make it on to the pitch. Onda Nova has earned comparisons to the work of John Waters and Pedro Almodóvar, so expect a romp that’s equal parts progressive and transgressive.
Burgeoning queer sexuality intersects with generational trauma in this quietly haunting film from director Truong Minh Quý. Coal miners Viêt (Duy Bao Dinh Dao) and Nam (Thanh Hai Pham) conduct their love affair hundreds of metres below ground, where sooty caverns offer a safe boudoir. Set in 2001 and culminating in a quest to find the missing body of Nam’s father, Quý’s film drills into the myriad ways their lives are shaped by the ghosts of the Vietnam war. It’s a smouldering snapshot of a society trying to heal.
Known for his thoughtful shorts about gay sex and cruising, New York filmmaker Charles Lum was a BFI Flare regular. He died of Aids-related lymphoma in 2021, but this inventive film honours his legacy in a suitably sensual way. Blending new Super8 footage with highlights from Lum’s archive, his longtime collaborator Todd Verow crafts a thrillingly carnal meditation on queer sexuality. As an older gay man lies dying in a hospital room, he tries to remember all of his past lovers, with poignant results. Narration is kept to a minimum, allowing the devastatingly erotic visuals to tell a deeper story.
River Gallo made history with their 2019 short Ponyboi by becoming the first openly intersex actor to play an intersex character on film. They also star in this feature-length adaptation as a sex worker who’s having a secret affair with his pimp (Teen Wolf star Dylan O’Brien). When a drug deal goes horribly wrong, Ponyboi finds himself isolated and on the run from the mob. This stylish crime thriller has plenty to recommend it, not least O’Brien’s bold and transformative performance, but it’s driven by Gallo’s fierce screen presence. Their Ponyboi is a queer protagonist you’re really going to root for.
This eye-opening documentary homes in on iconoclastic performance artist Fakir Musafar. Before his death from cancer in 2018, Musafar built a highly influential legacy as a founder of the modern primitive movement, which propagated a range of body modification procedures including piercing, corset training and flesh hook suspension. Director Angelo Madsen uses Musafar’s life story to trace the movement’s development from the 1970s BDSM scene through the 1980s HIV/Aids epidemic and beyond. It’s a riveting insight into a queer pioneer and the thriving subculture he helped to sculpt.
Though this film focuses on two queer icons, April Ashley and Amanda Lear, its title primarily refers to the latter. Ashley, a high-fashion model who passed away three years ago, was awarded an MBE in 2012 for services to trans equality. In her memoir, she claims Lear, a disco diva and muse to Salvador Dalí, is a fellow trans woman who worked with her in 1950s Paris. Others have corroborated Ashley’s version of events, but Lear has always insisted she is cis and maintained a fascinating overall mystique. Director Zachary Drucker tells both women’s stories using archive footage and a new interview with Lear, who remains as elusive as ever. It’s an empathetic documentary that will make you question what truth any of us owes to the world.
In their dazzling second feature, director Shatara Michelle Ford moulds the road-trip movie into a celebration of solidarity among Black queer femmes. When friends Z (Denée Benton), Lauren (Dezi Bing) and Tasha (Sasha Compère) stop hearing from Kel (Mars Storm Rucker), they embark on a two-week drive across the American midwest to find her. Ford’s nebulous narrative doesn’t shy away from the dangers they face, but it also highlights the sense of community they find at a trans poetry event. It’s a warm, moving film about the strength it takes to live a queer creative life at a time of growing economic uncertainty and anti-LGBTQ+ hostility.
Self-funded by a collective of queer working-class filmmakers from Manchester, this comedy-drama takes a frank approach to sex and sexuality. Lloyd Eyre-Morgan (who directs with Neil Ely) plays Benji, a gay man who enters into an intense relationship with Jake (David Tag) after meeting him at an airport checkout gate. It sounds like an idyllic meet-cute, but their initial chemistry soon mutates into something toxic, destructive and difficult to pinpoint. Leavened with lashings of black humour, Departures promises to tell a raw and authentic queer story with real Northern soul.
This French movie musical has the makings of a future cult classic. Directed by Alexis Langlois in his feature debut, it tracks a fractious romantic relationship that develops between two very different singers: scrappy queer punk Billie Kohler (Gio Ventura) and straight-presenting pop starlet Mimi Madamour (Louiza Aura). Set in 2007, Langlois’ film explores early stan culture and 00s homophobia without skimping on campy humour. An absolute bop that Billie and Mimi write together features the immortal hook: “You fisted me to the heart!” You’ll definitely leave the cinema wanting to stream it.
BFI Flare 2025 takes place March 19-30 at BFI Southbank in London and on BFI Player.
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Our pick of the films turning a radical lens on LGBTQ+ life at this year’s event, a highlight of London’s cultural calendar
BFI Flare: London LGBTQIA+ Film Festival is a queer cultural institution. Now in its 39th year, the event lives up to its name by platforming enlightening stories from across the LGBTQ+ spectrum. This year’s programme includes 56 features and 81 shorts from 41 countries – including 34 world premieres – reminding us that queerness transcends borders and cultural norms.
Screenings, panel discussions and DJ events take place at BFI Southbank from March 19 to 30, but many titles will also be streaming on BFI Player. So, here’s our guide to ten must-see features that deserve to find a wider audience after playing at this year’s festival.
This affecting documentary shines a spotlight on Venus Xtravanganza, the young trans woman who made an indelible impression in 1990’s Paris Is Burning. Tragically, she was murdered in unknown circumstances before Jennie Livingston completed her seminal film about New York ball culture, so she never witnessed its success. Now, more than 30 years later, director Kimberly Reed follows Venus’s biological and chosen families as they come together to pursue justice. Featuring re-edited footage from Paris Is Burning, it’s a tender celebration of Venus’s life that doubles as a testament to the trans community’s unflinching resilience.
Women’s football was banned in Brazil until 1983 – the same year directors Francisco C Martins and José Antonio Garcia made this daring comedy-drama. Onda Nova was also banned by the Brazilian dictatorship, but has since been restored in radiant 4K. With laughs, heart and lots of gay abandon, it follows a newly formed women’s soccer team as they take on waves of conservative prejudice before they even make it on to the pitch. Onda Nova has earned comparisons to the work of John Waters and Pedro Almodóvar, so expect a romp that’s equal parts progressive and transgressive.
Burgeoning queer sexuality intersects with generational trauma in this quietly haunting film from director Truong Minh Quý. Coal miners Viêt (Duy Bao Dinh Dao) and Nam (Thanh Hai Pham) conduct their love affair hundreds of metres below ground, where sooty caverns offer a safe boudoir. Set in 2001 and culminating in a quest to find the missing body of Nam’s father, Quý’s film drills into the myriad ways their lives are shaped by the ghosts of the Vietnam war. It’s a smouldering snapshot of a society trying to heal.
Known for his thoughtful shorts about gay sex and cruising, New York filmmaker Charles Lum was a BFI Flare regular. He died of Aids-related lymphoma in 2021, but this inventive film honours his legacy in a suitably sensual way. Blending new Super8 footage with highlights from Lum’s archive, his longtime collaborator Todd Verow crafts a thrillingly carnal meditation on queer sexuality. As an older gay man lies dying in a hospital room, he tries to remember all of his past lovers, with poignant results. Narration is kept to a minimum, allowing the devastatingly erotic visuals to tell a deeper story.
River Gallo made history with their 2019 short Ponyboi by becoming the first openly intersex actor to play an intersex character on film. They also star in this feature-length adaptation as a sex worker who’s having a secret affair with his pimp (Teen Wolf star Dylan O’Brien). When a drug deal goes horribly wrong, Ponyboi finds himself isolated and on the run from the mob. This stylish crime thriller has plenty to recommend it, not least O’Brien’s bold and transformative performance, but it’s driven by Gallo’s fierce screen presence. Their Ponyboi is a queer protagonist you’re really going to root for.
This eye-opening documentary homes in on iconoclastic performance artist Fakir Musafar. Before his death from cancer in 2018, Musafar built a highly influential legacy as a founder of the modern primitive movement, which propagated a range of body modification procedures including piercing, corset training and flesh hook suspension. Director Angelo Madsen uses Musafar’s life story to trace the movement’s development from the 1970s BDSM scene through the 1980s HIV/Aids epidemic and beyond. It’s a riveting insight into a queer pioneer and the thriving subculture he helped to sculpt.
Though this film focuses on two queer icons, April Ashley and Amanda Lear, its title primarily refers to the latter. Ashley, a high-fashion model who passed away three years ago, was awarded an MBE in 2012 for services to trans equality. In her memoir, she claims Lear, a disco diva and muse to Salvador Dalí, is a fellow trans woman who worked with her in 1950s Paris. Others have corroborated Ashley’s version of events, but Lear has always insisted she is cis and maintained a fascinating overall mystique. Director Zachary Drucker tells both women’s stories using archive footage and a new interview with Lear, who remains as elusive as ever. It’s an empathetic documentary that will make you question what truth any of us owes to the world.
In their dazzling second feature, director Shatara Michelle Ford moulds the road-trip movie into a celebration of solidarity among Black queer femmes. When friends Z (Denée Benton), Lauren (Dezi Bing) and Tasha (Sasha Compère) stop hearing from Kel (Mars Storm Rucker), they embark on a two-week drive across the American midwest to find her. Ford’s nebulous narrative doesn’t shy away from the dangers they face, but it also highlights the sense of community they find at a trans poetry event. It’s a warm, moving film about the strength it takes to live a queer creative life at a time of growing economic uncertainty and anti-LGBTQ+ hostility.
Self-funded by a collective of queer working-class filmmakers from Manchester, this comedy-drama takes a frank approach to sex and sexuality. Lloyd Eyre-Morgan (who directs with Neil Ely) plays Benji, a gay man who enters into an intense relationship with Jake (David Tag) after meeting him at an airport checkout gate. It sounds like an idyllic meet-cute, but their initial chemistry soon mutates into something toxic, destructive and difficult to pinpoint. Leavened with lashings of black humour, Departures promises to tell a raw and authentic queer story with real Northern soul.
This French movie musical has the makings of a future cult classic. Directed by Alexis Langlois in his feature debut, it tracks a fractious romantic relationship that develops between two very different singers: scrappy queer punk Billie Kohler (Gio Ventura) and straight-presenting pop starlet Mimi Madamour (Louiza Aura). Set in 2007, Langlois’ film explores early stan culture and 00s homophobia without skimping on campy humour. An absolute bop that Billie and Mimi write together features the immortal hook: “You fisted me to the heart!” You’ll definitely leave the cinema wanting to stream it.
BFI Flare 2025 takes place March 19-30 at BFI Southbank in London and on BFI Player.
and integrate them seamlessly into the new content without adding new tags. Ensure the new content is fashion-related, written entirely in Japanese, and approximately 1500 words. Conclude with a “結論” section and a well-formatted “よくある質問” section. Avoid including an introduction or a note explaining the process.
