BFI Flare: London's LGBTQ film festival programme announced

The BFI has announced the line-up for this year’s Flare festival, a giant LGBTQIA+ film festival held on London’s Southbank.

BFI Flare begins on March 19th and carries on until March 30th. This year it comprises 56 feature films and 81 shorts, including 34 world premieres, according to the BFI itself.

This year’s thematic bent is “Hearts, Bodies and Minds.”

The festival basically takes over the BFI Southbank multiplex for the duration, with films screening from around 11am until late into the evening across the cinema's four key screening rooms.

Tickets will go on sale from February 27th at 12pm, although BFI Patrons and members can get in early.

Patrons can buy tickets from February 24th, members from February 25th. BFI memberships cost £39 a year (a little more when not paying by direct debit), but the outlay to level-up to a Patron is a little higher, starting at £2000.

BFI Flare kicks off this year with a screening of The Wedding Banquet, Andrew Ahn’s new take on the 1993 film by Ang Lee. A gay man marries his lesbian friend, exchanging a green card for IVF treatments.

Bowen Yang and Lily Gladstone star. It’s a chance to catch The Wedding Banquet early, too, as it’s not due in cinemas until April 18th — and so far has only been confirmed for a US cinematic release.

The film will be screened three times throughout the festival, twice on the opening night (March 19th) and again on March 20th in the afternoon.

BFI Flare closes with another UK premiere, Night Stage, which is written and directed by Filipe Matzembacher and Marcio Reolon.

A politician and an actor are having an affair, but their particular kink is public sex. And that leads them to taking greater and greater risks in search of thrills, despite what they have at stake as public figures.

You can check out of the entire BFI Flare line-up at the BFI website. As well as loads of films you may never have encountered before, it provides an opportunity to see some better-known flicks on the bigger screen, including Luca Guadagnino’s Queer and Jane Shoenbrun’s brilliant I Saw the TV Glow.

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