The British Council, the UK’s international organisation for cultural and educational opportunities, and the BFI (British Film Institute) have announced the five short films from the 30th BFI Flare: London LGBT Film Festival, that will be made available online for free on 17th March for audiences across the world as part of this year’s fiveFilms4freedom, an online film festival which celebrates love and diversity.

Following the success of last year’s fiveFilms4freedom, the online festival is back as a 24-hour campaign asking people everywhere to watch a film together over the course of one single day. fiveFilms4freedom is the world’s first digital, global, LGBT film festival and will be promoted through the British Council’s network in more than 50 countries and regions, reaching audiences across the Americas, China, India, Israel, Kosovo, Poland, Turkey, Ukraine and the Middle East. It’s a chance for audiences, wherever they are, to enjoy LGBT cinema; to find out a little bit more about emerging LGBT filmmakers from around the world; and most importantly, to show support for freedom and equality everywhere.

Alan Gemmell, director of fiveFilms4freedom at the British Council comments, “fiveFilms4freedom is a ground-breaking LGBT film festival supporting freedom and equality all over the world. For our second year we are showcasing some of our finest short film makers to help celebrate love and diversity through one of the world’s most powerful and accessible cultural forms: film. By bringing together the British Council and films from BFI Flare we are promoting LGBT cinema in countries that make up half of the world’s population.”

Tricia Tuttle, Deputy Director of Festivals at the British Film Institute adds, “LGBT film festivals are great spaces for nurturing new film talents and creating dialogue between filmmakers and audiences. In this, our 30th edition of BFI Flare, we are thrilled to present a rich and diverse programme which shows LGBT cinema to be in great shape. And it’s fantastic to work with British Council to connect filmmakers to a truly global community united in a love of film and a belief that love is a basic fundamental human right.”

From travelling communities to Easter bonnets to the wonderment of growing up, the five films tell a range of affecting stories about contemporary LGBT life in countries including Brazil, Ireland, Spain, the Philippines and the UK.

The five films are:
• SWIRL Two girls, young and in love, move backwards through the city in Peterson Varga’s lyrical short from the Philippines.
• XAVIER is a film by Brazilian director Ricky Mastro about a father who notices that his 11-year-old son pays a lot of attention to slightly older boys.
• BREATHE is a British-Irish film by James Doherty, about an Irish traveller is increasingly concerned that his son is ‘soft’, so sets about toughening him up.
• TAKE YOUR PARTNERS In this British short film by director Siri Rodnes, Miss Paterson expects Ollie to make an Easter bonnet like the other girls. But Ollie is not like the other girls.
• THE ORCHID A man has something important to tell his son, but can only get through to his voicemail in this film by Spanish director Ferran Navarro-Beltrán.

The five films will be available to watch online on 17th March on the British Council website and BFI player.

NakedSword is best known for producing hardcore gay sex, but every so often it’s delved into something a little different, such as when it funded and produced Travis Mathews excellent short film I Want Your Love. The short was still extremely explicit but concentrated on the meaning of casual sex between friends, rather than purely the pumping and grinding.

Now NakedSword is taking that further by launching NakedSword Film Works – aka NSFW – which has a mission to make films that look at gay sex but go beyond the purely titillating. As reported by NewNowNext, NakedSword says, “NSFW films do not need to have explicit sex, or even nudity, only further the conversation about gay sex.”

“We wanted to get back to the original sense of adult,” says I Want Your Love producer Jack Shamama, who is curating NWFW with NewFest programmer Adam Baran. “Not in the explicit sense, though we don’t shy away from that, but as something complex and and mature and interesting.”

“We have a large, engaged audience hungry for creative original stories.” said NakedSword founder Tim Valenti, “Hardcore is everywhere, but films that deal with sex and sexuality in a frank manner are much harder to find. Most distributors find sexual subjects difficult to handle, and we’re in a unique position to change that.”

The first three films have now been released. 100 Boyfriends Mixtape Veteran sees ‘Bay Area performer and artist Brontez Purnell make his directorial debut with this semi-autobiographical “video mix tape”, which was filmed on digital video, VHS and 8 MM film. Relying on his punk rock aesthetic to give the world a peek into his singularly unique perspective, “100 Boyfriends Mixtape” takes the viewer on an unforgettable ride that’s as audacious and hardcore as it is experimental.’

That’s been followed by Hattie Goes Cruising, which takes us into the world of ‘ Hank Major, a 70-year-old gay African-American gentleman from Philadelphia, picking up guys on the street or at old-school cruising grounds is still very much a way of life. In Konstantin Bock’s charming, funny, and poignant short documentary, the perennially horny Major, whose friends have nicknamed Hattie Louise, takes us back in time, through a turbulent life full of cruising.’

There’s also Catharsis, which is set ‘After a painful breakup, a twenty-something gay Brooklynite finds himself through the men he sleeps with and memories of what he went through. Film Festivals: LA Indie Film Festival NewFest: New York LGBT Film Festival’

You will need a NakedSword subscription to watch the films, but it’s certainly a good idea for those who sometimes want some about sex, but which isn’t your typical gay porn. It’ll be interesting to see whether it can find some traction, as while gay films have tended to be more frank about sex that straight movies, they’re rarely the pure focus or properly discussed in its own right.