CHRIS SEARLE recommends a work of love and deep admiration for a great musician
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A Flare for sexual freedom and diversity
ABIGAIL YARTEY picks out the highlights of the BFI festival celebrating LGBTIQ+ films
FANTASY SPACE: Tribute
KENNY MacASKILL relishes a fictionalised account of the life and death of the principled Irish anti-colonialist, executed for betraying his English imperial masters
FIONA O’CONNOR admires an ambitious first novel that loosens South Africa’s rainbow collective to examine the racial tensions within
Aussie mining corporation murder, Liverpudlian ex-cop amnesia, a naive vigilante tries to reset capitalism, and the riddle of the dead psychoanalyst
SYLVIA HIKINS is persuaded by an entertaining play that the true miracle of Lourdes would be for attitudes toward disability to change
JAMIE BRITTON recommends this fine analysis of the architectural, ecological and infrastructural destruction of the Gaza Strip
FOLLOWING the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, the British Film Institute’s Flare festival of LGBTIQ+ films moved online and drew an enthusiastic response from audiences.
Celebrating the sixth year of the #fivefilmsforfreedom campaign, Flare highlighted some of the most compelling LGBTIQ+ narratives broadcast internationally, including countries where LGBTIQ+ rights are not recognised.
By moving online, the festival drew people together in a time of anxiety to celebrate talent, spark debate and promote sexual freedom. With independent film-makers now facing something of an existential threat globally, some of the films such as Queer Qorma and Drag Ball have not yet been released but are still worth watching out for in future.
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