With lots of topical and engaging titles, we’ve picked some highlights from this year’s Queer East film programme.
Opening Gala UK Premiere: Kubi (Japan, 2023)
Starting off with a bang. Brutal passions and vengeful betrayals reign in Takeshi Kitano’s (Battle Royale, Zatoichi) latest historical epic (see feature image). A darkly comic perspective on the political intrigue and homoerotic desire, this strikingly violent film comprehensively debunks the myths of masculinity, ethics and honour that have defined the samurai genre onscreen.
Closing Gala UK Premiere: Edhi Alice (Korea, 2024)
Edhi Alice is an intimate and affecting documentary from award-winning South Korean filmmaker and queer activist Ilrhan Kim interrogating how documentaries about trans communities are made: the creative decisions, relationships, and ethical questions involved. Delicate, powerful, and visually stunning. This thought-provoking documentary brings this year’s festival to a heartfelt end.
Festival Programme Highlights:
Extremely Unique Dynamic UK Premiere (USA, 2024)
Ryan and Daniel are two childhood best friends and aspiring actors, and they are spending one final weekend together before Ryan moves to Canada with his fiancée. In an effort to create one lasting memory, they decide to make a movie about two friends making a movie. The film, a coming-out story and meta-comedy, stars Harrison Xu and Ivan Leung.
Come Dance With Me UK Premiere (China, 2022)
Before it closed in 2018, Lai Lai Ballroom was well-known among Shanghai’s gay community, particularly popular with middle-aged and elderly gay men. This documentary gently explores this sanctuary and the sense of community it fostered for the lonely individuals who used to gather there.
We Are Here (China, 2015)
Both directors are pioneering LGBT activists and this activist documentary revisits the 1995 United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women, which was hosted in Beijing and attended by 300 lesbian women from around the world. The gathering helped spearhead the birth of the queer lala movement in China.
Love and Videotapes UK Premiere (Philippines, 2023)
In the summer of 2001, in a small town in the Philippines, 16-year-old Andoy becomes immersed in watching VHS tapes, which fuel his sexual awakening and burgeoning queer desires. Ryan Machado’s dreamlike coming-of-age story employs magical realism to illustrate the teenager’s journey of self-discovery, tenderly capturing the essence of the Philippines’ nostalgic VHS culture.
When the cloud catches colours (Theatre)
Innovative and emotive theatre exploring the experience of two queer Singaporeans as they grow older.
aWokening (Performance)
Come and be transported to a place between reality and imagination, where food becomes both a cultural anchor and a means of exploring collective memory.
Queer East Festival 2025 takes place 23 April – 18 May across venues in London
Venues: BFI Southbank, Barbican Centre, ICA, Sauna Social Club, Centre 151, Rio Cinema, Garden Cinema, Rich Mix, The Common Press, Somerset House, The Place, Museum of the Home, UCL East Community Cinema, ESEA Community Centre, QUEERCIRCLE.
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