BFI Flare: 5 Films for Freedom 2023

 Hurrah! Flare is back. In fact, I should have been attending the immersive experience today but transport strikes put paid to that. I hope to get back to the festival but for now will be reviewing online material. 

So, this year's edition of 5 Films for Freedom includes dramas from Guyana, Nigeria, Cyprus and Northern Ireland, plus a comedy from South Korea. Here are my picks. 

Butch Up! ( dir Yu-Jin Lee) features a lovelorn singer who splits from her band and winds up in a new one. I found the end song quite catchy and the lyrics are filthy! Good fun. 

Buffer Zone (dir Savvas Stavrou) starts off quite solemnly, bursts into high camp with a duet across a border zone, and ends solemnly again. It's a great premise for a musical, as two soldiers gaze at each other and express repressed desires through song. 

All I Know (dir Obinna Robert Onyeri) is the best of the bunch, an intense drama in which revealing what you know about your missing friend could put him in worse danger. It feels like a proof of concept for a longer film but the ending lets it down.