North Sea Texas
After revealing a couple of weeks ago that the BFI London Lesbian & Gay Film Festival would open with Cloudburst, starring Oscar-winners Olympia Dukakis and Brenda Fricker, the British Film Institute has now revealed the full festival line-up.
The festival runs from from 23rd March-1st April and will offer a varied programme of feature films, special events, shorts, archive classics, experimental and erotic works. While it will open with Cloudburst, it’s now been revealed that the Festival will close with Bavo Defurne’s North Sea Texas, a compelling tale of teenage longing set in a Belgian coastal town.
There are also two centrepiece screenings of powerful, award-winning dramas. Circumstance is an affecting account of a lesbian coming-of-age in contemporary Tehran, which won the Audience Award at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival, while Absent is the unpredictable tale of a 16-year-old’s attempt to get close to his teacher, which won the Teddy Award at the 2011 Berlin Film Festival.
Other highlights on the programme include The Perfect Family, starring Kathleen Turner as a Catholic woman coming to terms with her daughter’s sexuality, while Gun Hill Road tells the story of an ex-con struggling to accept that his teenage son is transitioning to female, and features a strong performance by young trans actor Harmony Santana.
There’ll also be an eclectic programme of special events, such as Brian Lobel and Aaron Wright’s Cruising for Art, which is a film-themed participatory theatre project. Transgender Representation – Are We Nearly There Yet? will look at the last five years of trans film and television, while Families Like Ours features films that discuss LGBT parenting from the point of view of parents, pupils and teachers.
After budget cuts last year, a wave of popular and industry support has ensured a renewed commitment to the festival’s future, with the 2012 programme 30% larger than the 2011 event, consisting of 53 features and 67 shorts.
You can find the full programme here (click for PDF), which also includes screening of the much praised lesbian drama Pariah, as well as classics with gay themes such as Spartacus and Suddenly Last Summer.
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