QUEER EAST FILM FESTIVAL 18-29 MAY 2022
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Queer East is an LGBTQ+ film festival that showcases rarely seen queer cinema from East and Southeast Asia. Seeking to amplify the voices of Asian communities in the UK, the festival explores the forces that have shaped the current queer landscape in Asia.
Following the first two successful editions, this year’s festival will bring films, audiences and filmmakers together in the cinema, while continuing to offer a chance to experience rarely-seen queer cinema from East and Southeast Asia to viewers across the UK.
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At its heart, Queer East aims to amplify the voices of queer Asian communities, to challenge normative definitions of gender and sexual expression, and to introduce UK audiences to LGBTQ+ cinema that they might not otherwise get a chance to see. This year’s programme includes feature films, shorts, programmes of boundary-challenging artists’ moving image work, a Virtual Reality experience, and a TV miniseries, alongside filmmakers’ Q&As.
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Says Yi Wang, Festival and Programme Director “Both queer and Asia are words that represent a wide spectrum of meanings culturally, linguistically, historically and politically. I hope that Queer East can play a role in combating stereotypical and generalised portrayals of queer Asians, and unlock the endless possibilities for bold, complicated, three-dimensional expressions of cinematic queerness.”
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Opening Night
Beautiful Boxer
Directed by Ekachai Uekrongtham
The festival opens on Wednesday 18th May at Genesis Cinema with Beautiful Boxer and It’s All Because of a Katoey. Beautiful Boxer by Ekachai Uekrongtham tells the story of Parinya Charoenphol, the transgender Muay Thai boxer who mastered the combat sport in order to pay for her gender reassignment surgery, subverting gender expectations, and challenging the popular perception of Muay Thai. It will be preceded by It’s All Because of a Katoey, a restored short film made in 1954. This surprisingly progressive silent comedy is the oldest existing Thai film to feature a ‘katoey’, a pre-LGBTQ+ movement term referring to a trans woman.
Join us on May 24th
Girls’ School (1982)
Directed by Lee Mi-Mi
+ Q&A with Chun-Chi Wang, Executive Director of Taiwan Film and Audiovisual Institute.
Click HERE for more event info
Click HERE to see QUEER EAST FILM FESTIVAL full programme.
Queer East 2022 is supported by the British Film Institute (BFI), awarding funds from the National Lottery; and Necessity. Its artists’ moving image programmes are supported by Arts Council England. The VR Cinematic Experience is supported by the Ministry of Culture, Taiwan.
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@queereast