Queer film festival to return to east London for its eighth year

Luana Muniz in Obscuro Barroco. Image: courtesy of Fringe!

A community-led queer film festival is back next month for the eighth year running, with venues across east London hosting film screenings, workshops, panels and parties.

Fringe!, which takes place from 13-18 November, was founded in 2011 in response to cuts to arts funding and their impact on LGBTQIA+ culture.

The festival celebrates the best in queer filmmaking, from do-it-yourself shorts to high budget features.

A spokesperson said: “Fringe! remains entirely volunteer-run and not-for-profit, but has still managed to become a landmark cultural event in London’s queer calendar.”

They described this year’s programme as “diverse, provocative and outrightly political”, and that it would “burn bright with a focus on activism”.

Atlanta-born dance form ‘bucking’ is the subject of When the Beat Drops. Image: courtesy of Fringe!

The action kicks off with documentary When the Beat Drops, which charts the rise of ‘bucking’, an underground but competitive form of dance, by following a group of ambitious black, gay men in Atlanta.

And in Obscuro Barroco, an icon of Brazil’s queer subculture, Luana Muniz, guides viewers through a contrasting world of protest and beauty.

Other highlights include Criminal Queers, a comedy which takes aim at the privatisation of prisons in America with “tongue-in-cheek charm”, and features cameos from activists Angela Davis and CeCe McDonald.

There is a literary thread running through this year’s programme.

Wild Nights, which closes the festival, offers a comic reimagining of poet Emily Dickinson’s rumoured lesbian encounters – with Saturday Night Live star Molly Shannon playing the famously reclusive wordsmith.

And the UK premiere of The Rest I Make Up revisits the life of Maria Irene Fornes, who, according to the festival spokesperson, is “arguably one of the most influential and yet least known playwrights of the 20th century”, as well as being the lover of American writer Susan Sontag.

Dykes, Camera, Action, showing at the Rio, is a history of lesbian cinema. Image: courtesy of Fringe!

For the first time this year, Fringe! has teamed up with local LGBT+ youth group Project Indigo, whose members are curating a line-up of free short film to be screened at the festival’s hub at Hackney House.

Over the course of four months, the group of 13 to 25-year-olds worked with organisers to pick out 11 shorts from over 400 submissions.

The Fringe! spokesperson added: “As ever, the festival boasts a broad array of free events from zinemaking workshops to performance nights, live podcasts – including the female-focused Broad Appeal – and queer pottery!

“All this in addition to eleven free short films ranging from the experimental to the sexy, and more.”

Screenings and events will take place at venues including the Rio Cinema, Castle Cinema and Hackney House.

For the festival’s full timetable, tickets, or information about any of the films being shown, head to fringefilmfest.com/fringe-2018