Queer history is deep and rich and full of “impossible” things. It can be so easy for that radical history to be erased or forgotten. The themes of these short films grapple with rediscovering hidden histories and the brilliant lives and actions of individuals and groups who paved the way for us.
VISIBLE | dir. Campbell X | UK | 2018 | 20min
Campbell X’s latest film VISIBLE passionately discusses the way QTIPOCs try to find and preserve their histories - so often marginalised or overlooked, even in plain sight. This defiantly queer film asserts that queer history must push back against the sanitisation of LGBTIQA+ culture.
CN: Partial nudity
PIRATE BOYS | dir. Pol Merchan | Germany | 2018 | 13min
This film blends Intersex photographer Del LaGrace Volcano and punk performance writer Kathy Acker’s words to create a moving image tribute to the queer trans punk movement. It’s also about dysfunction and defiance against the idea and image of a ‘normal’ body.
CN: injections, full frontal nudity, light bdsm
DIANE TORR: BECOMING KING | dir. Heni Cloake | UK | 2019 | 7min
A moving portrait celebrating the life of working class Drag King rebel Diane Torr, using archive footage and her own words..
CN: verbal recounting of domestic violence
WE ARE HERE | dir. Ellie Hodgetts | UK | 2019 | 12min
Welcome to the Manchester sect of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence! A very gender-bending, very giving, very loving order of queer nuns who fight to provide joy for the LGBTIQA+ community.
CN: archive footage of homophobic and transphobic violence
BEYOND “THERE'S ALWAYS A BLACK ISSUE DEAR” | dir. Claire Lawrie | UK | 3018 | 34min
“I always had an iron fist beneath a limp wrist” Beyond gifts the audience with an array of Black and Brown queers who made waves in the UK subcultures of the 70s and 80s, in a Britain that was violently, endemically racist. Told with confidence and gorgeousness you are left knowing that you only have to turn up to make history.
CN: Verbal recounting of racist abuse and violence
Followed by a filmmaker Q&A.