This weekend sees the opening of the BFI Flare festival in the Southbank Centre in London. I managed to ask the programmer a couple of questions about this years schedule...
Could you talk a little about the
three different strands this year? (Heart, Body, Mind)
BR: We launched the new
structure last year and it’s a way of dividing up what can seem like an
overwhelming number of films. In Hearts, films
about love, romance and friendship include some of the films that have created
the most anticipation. Dramas such as Sarah Prefers to Run, Reaching for the Moon, G.B.F. and Last Summer. The world premiere of Derek Jarman’s Will You Dance
With Me?, a video test piece filmed in Benjy’s nightclub in 1984 is another
highlight.
Bodies has an interesting range
of films about sex, identity and transformation including Bruce LaBruce’s Gerontophilia
about physical obsession between a young man and older man; a fabulous lesbian
comedy in Who’s Afraid of Vagina Wolf?
and a documentary on London’s infamous leather bar The Hoist called Age of Consent.
Minds
features
reflections on art, politics and community, which means that there are a lot of
documentaries including The Abominable
Crime, a powerful film about the struggle for LGBT equality in Jamaica,
folk singer Rae Spoon in My Prairie Home
and Kate Bornstein is a Queer and
Pleasant Danger, a fantastic insight into the life of a gender outlaw.
How have you balanced the fiction
vs. non-fiction programming?
BR: We do aim to try for equal
fiction to non-fiction but it’s not an exact science and we really just try to
pick the best films. There are fewer
dramas to chose from and lesbian dramas are the hardest to find.
The festival is almost entirely
sold out (as usual). Have you ever considered using bigger venues?
BR: It might seem like it’s all
sold out but there are always tickets available on the day. Sponsors and press often return their tickets
and on every day in the festival there are screenings with tickets available. Matinees are also much easier to get into so
it’s worth trying for the afternoon screenings if you can afford the time (plus
they are cheaper).
We have in previous years
had an opening in a Leicester Square cinema but two screenings in NFT1 is
actually more tickets than would be available in a single screening there.
Cost is also a huge issue
in using other venues. We love the
compactness of keeping the festival in one place so you can get easily between
screenings but we may explore other venues next year. One innovation this year is that the BFI
online VOD service has expanded to include a BFI Flare collection with some
films being released at the same time as they are in the festival. Recordings of Q&As and events are always
being made available on the BFI Player as well.
How have you incorporated the
facilities available at the BFI into the structure of the festival?
BR: We are able to screen
almost any digital or film format and our projectors are state of the art,
which means that the viewing experience is excellent. We try to use all the available space at BFI
Southbank so there’s a lesbian feminist art installation in the Atrium
throughout the festival.
We have club nights with
DJs and themed parties (Queer Bollywood and Caged Lesbians this year) as well
as our family fun workshop around animation and The Muppets that offers
something for children. The BFI Reuben
Library has a display of queer themed books and you can enjoy the Beautiful
Things collection in the Mediatheque.
You have films from all over the
world. Could you say a little about how the programme was sourced?
BR: We go to international
festivals like Cannes and Berlin and other big LGBT festivals in North/South
America and Europe and see films there. We
scour the programmes of other festivals to find films we think would work for
our audiences. Because we are
internationally quite a well-known festival, filmmakers do also send us their
films (or increasingly give us a code to watch their film online). We try very
hard to have a wide range of cultures and histories represented in the
festival.
Do you still feel any backlash
against an openly LGBT film festival?
BR: There may not be quite the
level of overt hostility that we used to experience but the fact that there are
so few other places to see the full range of LGBT film-making in the UK in
spite of the obvious demand from audiences makes me think that there is still
an undercurrent which does not wholly embrace the idea of an LGBT film
festival. Mainstream media are nowadays
much more interested in the festival which is very cheering.
Are there any particular films
that you are looking forward to seeing?
BR: I’ve seen most of the films
already but it’s really great seeing a film with an audience in a festival like
ours. I’m really looking forward to seeing Who’s
Afraid of Vagina Wolf?
We also bring in lots of filmmakers
and it’s great to hear about their experiences of making a film.
 |
| Brian Robinson |
BFI Flare runs from 20th-30th of March 2014 - more information about the films is available here
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