BFI Flare: Making Contact

Rain did not stop play at Flare, as I managed a full day of screenings, socialising and a very informative Makers session with producer Elizabeth Karlsen. In response to questioning from Tricia Tuttle, Karlsen outlined her extraordinary career, moving between  London to New York, as she made early contacts with figures such as Christine Vachon and Todd Haynes who grew into film-making colleagues. She also grew quite emotional explaining how her first feature was Parting Glances, working with the late Bill Sherwood as he shot in his apartment. Quite the creative life. I also caught two features, one old and one new that were intense experiences.

Montana

Montana, despite the name, has nothing to do with the US state, but is a slow-burning Israeli drama written and directed by feature debutante Limor Shmila. I found myself quite confused by the large ensemble cast, supporting Noa Biron's star turn as Effi, wondering who all those people were and how they knew each other. This somewhat mirrors Effi's dislocation, arriving back home after an absence of 15 years to find not only romance with a neighbour but a disturbing dynamic developing within the family unit. It proved rather too disturbing for one audience member who chastised the festival and the director in the Q&A for not providing a trigger warning and for the inaction of the title character. Shmila and Biron were gracious enough in response, defending the complexity of the situation being depicted. Ultimately, in this film the silences proved to be the most powerful moments, allowing things that could not be said to hang in the air.

"Goodbye Sadness" is the song by Yoko Ono that plays over the closing credits of Silverlake Life: the View from Here, a film I have long wanted to see. It proved to be a captivating watch, one punctuated by vocal exclamations from the audience as we watched a long-term couple, Tom and Mark, live out their AIDS diagnoses on-screen, moving from good-humoured joshing to hospital procedures to physical decay and death. The KS lesions dotting Mark's back brought shock to some. I guess for many it was their first sight of such things, now not so common. Which is a good thing, I guess. Lives cut short, but lived well.

BFI Flare: Odd Couples

Festival time! I got off to a bit of a slow start as I needed to sort out my festival viewing experience. But I have managed to view 2.5 dramas so far.

My Days of Mercy

The BFI Flare opener, My Days of Mercy, stars Ellen Page and Kate Mara as two women on opposite sides of the death penalty forming a romance. While the two leads are eminently watchable and the film offers some suitably grave moments of inmates' last meals, at some point one does think, "Is this romance in utterly bad taste?" And yet, it's well acted and has a jaunty script. I do fear that Ellen Page is destined to spend her career playing emotionally stunted heroines. But she is on good form as the anti-death penalty protester saddlled with a family haunted by a brutal murder. Can she find happiness with a straight woman who lives several states away, has a boyfriend and is a staunch proponent of capital punishment? This is cinema.

Luft

 While My Days of Mercy follows a rather predictable path, the German drama Luft is cut from very different cloth. I found the first ten minutes gripping, as taciturn Manja is bowled over by a balaclava-clad Louk, fleeing some hunters she has sabotaged. Manja lives in an apartment block in an unnamed city with distinctive pale blue tower blocks that jut up like shoeboxes, in contrast to the mysterious forest where Manja retreats at every opportunity, urged on by her grandmother who tells her the forest is home to all her ancestors. Luft creates a quasi-magical atmosphere as if Manja is gripped by something beyond her every time she encounters the seemingly confident Louk, who cannot resist a dare, no matter how foolhardy. But she too copes with an emptiness, as her mother has not been in her life since the age of 10. The two schoolgirls embark on a journey to find the mother, and become intimate along the way,but while the film builds up brilliant tension and atmosphere, the ending completely punctures that and I found it quite frustrating.

Flare: Heartland

Two very different films set in the American southwest show the limits set on queer behaviour.

The very powerful documentaryl Southwest of Salem outlines the appalling treatment of four women in San Antonio, Texas convicted of child rape in the 1990s, in part because of a religious panic and in part because of anti-lesbian sentiment: "They think this is what gay people do," one of them explains. "No, it's not." Over a number of years the women discuss their lives and we get to know them through their testimony and that of family members and supporters. Eventually, their case comes to the attention of an advocacy group and the wheels of justice begin to move ever so slowly. But, one is forced to reckon with the tremendous power of hearsay, bigotry, and misogyny that allowed the case to proceed in the first place. Sobering.

Not so with the drama Heartland, set in Oklahoma, as a local girl returns home after the death of her partner to find her hometown and family unchanged and unmoved. Having an affair with her brother's girlfriend does not exactly endear her to her mother, who refuses to even acknowledge the death of her girlfriend. The set-up is fantastic but the film falls apart in the third act with ridiculous over-acting and melodramatic music underscoring the emotion. Oh, dear. Why not just let it flow? I found myself only really rooting for the unfortunate interloping girlfriend rather than the annoying family. She had a lucky escape.

Flare: Tales of the City

As I have perused the Flare titles available as online screeners, I couldn't help but notice how many originate in San Francisco, a city dear to my heart as I lived there for a significant time in the 1990s. Much of what I knew is gone now, so I have heard, but I always sit up when I see SF locations in a film.

Naturally, I was intrigued to see a documentary on writer Armistead Maupin, he of Tales of the City fame, directed by Jennifer Kroot. The Untold Tales of Armistead Maupin is a fine encapsulation of his extraordinary life, from growing up with "good blood" in the south, to serving in Vietnam, meeting Nixon in the White House, and of course his eventual arrival in SF, coming out and becoming a famous writer. Not that it is told in chronological order. Rather, themes emerge, signposted by some nifty animation, and famous talking heads such as Amy Tan, Sir Ian McKellen and Laura Linney chime in with their thoughts. One of my own thoughts was how extraordinarily privileged a life Maupin has led: not everybody gets invited to do half the things he has. But in the end even he is racked with insecurities and a need to find his own "logical family", as opposed to the biological one from which he felt so alienated. The city has certainly given him that, as well as inspiration for his books. It was a pleasure to view.

Not so much with Snapshot, which could have been a very suspenseful queer take-off on Hitchcock, but ended up being more extended sex scenes interrupted by some plot. I was quite creeped out in the first 15 minutes as photographer Charlie stumbles in on a couple having sex before a terrible murder takes place and she realises she has some photographic evidence. But clearly director Shine Louise Houston is more interested in the sexual shenanigans of voyeur Charlie and her new squeeze Danny than actually unravelling the mystery, which kind of evaporates half-way through. What a disappointment. But, even here sun-dappled San Francisco looks lovey. Nice setting, shame about the story.

Flare: Our Love Story

Films featuring love at first sight are common currency and Flare had its share. One drama I found quite enjoyable was Our Love Story, a Korean film featuring a mature art student who finds love in a junkyard. Definitely a meet-cute. The story that follows features copious late-night drinking, a clueless parent and curiously vague supporting characters, but the two leads are impressive, especially Sang-lee Hee in the thankless part of the endearingly dorky artist, Yoon-ju. Not so keen on the non-ending.

I was much less impressed by Below Her Mouth, a Canadian film starring a supposed super model. Nice cheek bones. Shame about the acting. The filmmakers clearly wanted to foreground the sex and forgot to write a decent story and I found it extremely tedious with shallow characters I didn't care about. Nice lighting and the blue jumper in the (again) non-ending scene was quite cool, too. Why can filmmakers not end their films properly?

Flare: Signature Move

I am starting at the end, as this was the closing night film. This has been one of those festivals which I attended on several days but didn't actually see many films on-site, and so I shall be using the online service to review titles in the coming days. This one I did catch, however, as it was my must-see of the festival.

So, to Signature Move, billed as the latest from director Jennifer Reeder. And indeed she is the director, but the authorship of the film lies more with star Fawzia Mirza, as she co-wrote it and it draws on some of her experiences as a Pakistani-American woman in love with a Mexican-American woman. Mirza, who delivered a hilarious Q&A with Reeder at the early screening on Sunday, explained that the film was inspired by her interactions with her ex-girlfriend. Whether this is the co-writer Lisa Donato (absent) or not I am not sure. But, it is a timely film, given the incredibly rancorous debates over US immigration policy and the place of hyphenate Americans at present. Throw in the lesbian angle and this must rate as Donald Trump's worst nightmare.

But, the heck with him, because this is a very, very funny film. As Zaynab buzzes around Chicago on her motorbike, in her capacity as an immigration lawyer, she meets Alma at a bar and they get extremely drunk and spend the night together. But, Zaynab is not quite as together as she makes out, and she keeps the relationship secret from her mother (Shabana Azmi), while trying to work out how serious Alma is about the two of them. Oh, and while also training to be a lucha libre competitor. Audrey Francis is a scream as the deadpan wrestling coach.

There is so much to recommend this film, from Mirza's throwaway lines to the attention to location and culture, it seems a bit churlish to criticise, but I really didn't feel the mother's story was handled very well. In contrast to the quickfire pacing of Alma and Zaynab's scenes, the camera tended to settle on Parveen and linger there for way longer than seemed necessary. As most of her interactions were with her unseen soap operas, I found these scenes dragged badly, weighing the film down. Having cast a legendary actor in the role, possibly the filmmakers felt they needed to give her ample screentime, but it really unbalanced the film. Interestingly, filming Ms. Azmi proved a challenge to Reeder, who described the experience vividly as trying to approach a silver-backed gorilla without making eye contact--Ms. Azmi would not read the lines as written and basically directed herself. Well, that's showbiz.

Reeder and Mirza exhibited such chemistry on-stage, it really enlivened the occasion and I do hope they collaborate again some time. Thanking the audience for embracing "our little lumpy lesbian film", Reeder and Mirza showered lucky recipients with film merch, spreading the love from Chicago to London.

Flare: Queering Love, Queering Hormones

This was a new experience for me as my first visit to Flare this year was for my own screening. Over the last year I have been busily shooting, processing and editing footage for my film Love/Sick, a reflection on my experience of solitude and illness. Saturday was its world premiere as part of the larger QLQH project. We had the first screening of the day in NFT3, which was a thrill for me as I have been attending screenings at the Southbank Centre since my student days in the 1980s. To screen there was a huge privilege.

I had a chance to check the file played well and then sat down with the other artists and some guests, including my friend B., for some herbal tea to calm the nerves. Then off we trooped just before 12 to the venue, which was pretty full. Officially, it was sold out but there were a few spare seats next to me, from some of the co-sponsors that didn't turn up. I was second up after Nina Wakeford's live performance accompanying her footage of Greenham Common via artefacts and flowers gathered from the peace garden. I was one of the people who tagged along on a field trip to the Common last year, which was very exciting, and I think there may have been a few frames I shot, but I am not sure. She had a very complicated set-up of three screens behind her mic, and one of them did not play properly, but none of us realised it at the time. There were audible chuckles as she listed the sexual orientations given by women who lived at the camps: Lesbian, Lesbian, Het, and then there orientations when they gave interviews later: Lesbian, Lesbian, Lesbian, Lesbian. Hmmm.

My film was a digital output, so much less complex in exhibition and I watched with some anxiety, trying to sense the reception in the room to what is rather a difficult watch, as there is some explicit surgery footage. My heart rate crept up as a certain moment approached and then I calmed down.

Third up was Renee Vaughan Sutherland's much lighter in tone film which is a queering of Hollywood cinema's most cherished tropes of finding one's prince. A dazzling array of processed images featured, including several views of Julia Roberts' retracting tongue from Pretty Woman. This drew laughs every time. She had also soaked the film in hormones, thus influencing the fabric of the film itself, something she discussed in the Q&A. I had been especially nervous about the Q&A which followed our three films, but felt much better when we were on the stage and the feedback I got was I managed to be articulate. I recall I spoke about embracing DIY and the imperfect, so that covers a lot of ground.

The second half of the programme featured films more concerned with science and history. First up was the collaboration of Juliet Jacques and Ker Wallwork, which features beautifully wrought sculptures and narration on the experience of working out one's gender identity and its relationship to hormones. Next up was Sam Ashby's drama-doc staging an unfilmed script by Elizabeth Montagu on blackmail and gay men, which is quite timely as this year marks 50 years since the partial decriminalisation of male homosexuality in the UK. The drama was played against items from LGBT archives, including some T-shirts I remember well from Lesbian Avengers and other activist groups. The concluding film was Jacob Love's dual screen exploration of chemsex and ADHD, an at times abstract and at times figurative depiction of cascading stimuli. I was struck by how many different paths we all took and everyone was really articulate in discussing the work. I hope there will be more screenings and opportunities to discuss the project, which I found fascinating to work on.

Then it was time to celebrate, which took most of the day.

Flare: Feelings Are Facts

The last few years have offered a range of material on dancer/choreographer/filmmaker Yvonne Rainer. Now comes a documentary on her, Feelings Are Facts: the Life of Yvonne Rainer, courtesy of director Jack Walsh. Taking her 1966 dance piece Trio A as its starting point, the film recounts Rainer's creative output, only pausing midway through to discuss her life, an odd decision, I felt. The interviews with Rainer and a host of luminaries, from Carolee Schneeman, B. Ruby Rich and others, are set in sumptuous rooms with fireplaces and richly coloured walls. I thought they all must live in fabulous mansions until I saw the interview locations credited at the end. Ah, the duplicity of film.

Rainer is a fascinating subject and seeing her on screen, I marvelled she is in her 80s, now quite proudly out and evincing a weathered butchness in her dotage. Throughout the film, she outlines a range of credos, from working with her own limited body to her No Manifesto to her use of pedestrian movement. But, she is adamant she is no theorist. Another critic offers a rejoinder. Rainer's work, she says, is choreography as theory.

Flare: Family Drama

As I did last year, I shall continue reviewing films from Flare, thanks to the online screening service available for a bit. Today I shall look at some films charting personal dramas.

One of the films that earned repeated screenings at the festival was Akron, prompting me to give it a look. It certainly pushes some populist buttons: two hunky jocks hook up in the US midwest, but then are torn apart by tensions between their families. Christopher and Benny have a meet-cute on a football field while playing "mudball" and then quickly get together. Refreshingly, the drama is not because they are gay, but rather improbably that they were witnesses to a death some years back, something their families can never forget. Aside from the ridiculous premise, it's actually a pretty decent film, with some juicy roles for the two actresses playing their mothers. And it's unusual to see a Mexican-American as the lead character, with his family not portrayed as homophobic. It's a bit neat and clean for me, but an unusual mix of first love and melodrama.

Almost entirely in the melodrama corner is the French short Between Silences, which is a rather drawn out encounter between two lovers, before one threatens to leave. It took me ages to figure out this was an adaptation of The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant, and that the drama was in the power struggle between the two protagonists. Didn't really float my boat, but Fassbinder fans should take note.

A film featuring no dialogue whatsoever is the curious Trouser Bar, directed by Kristen Bjorn and with a script credited to no-one. A series of gentlemen arrive at the titular location sporting awful wigs (to suggest the 1970s), eye each other up, stroke some trousers and proceed to get it on in the changing rooms, all to a 1970s porny soundtrack. While not the target audience, I found it rather funny and silly, especially when other gentlemen arrive to peer through the windows, among them Julian Clary and Nigel Havers!! Online research reveals the gentleman responsible for the script. Well, well.

On a more innocent note, there were tonnes of films featuring kids this year, among them the Heathers-like Little Doll, in which dorky girl Elenore falls in with the beautiful but aloof Alex. At first, all goes well and it seems as if the two will form a band. But, then Elenore comes face-to-face with Alex's circle of friends, including a very jealous girl who looks about five years older. Anyway, it doesn't end well. Kids can be cruel.

On a more positive note, the gender-queer heroine of Take Your Partners, Ollie, finds a way of creating her chosen style and observing school regulations, all while charming the object of her affections. Result! If only all of life were so simple to negotiate.

Flare: La belle saison

The closing night film at Flare was La belle saison (Summertime) (dir Catherine Corsini), which I'd seen some weeks back at a press screening. At the time I found it initially dazzling, losing its verve mid-way through. But, a lovely film. I was struck, though, reading a Twitter comment after the screening last night that it lacked a "lesbian happy ending". Hmm, I thought, it didn't end badly for the protagonists, did it? (spoiler alert) Nobody died.

But, what the viewer probably meant is that the two protagonists, Carole, a sophisticated feminist activist, and Delphine, a younger farm girl, don't end the film by running into one another's arms. True. But, this film is largely about recognising the specificity of existence. Aside from the age difference, the two women come from quite distant backgrounds and the film is set in 1971, when social mores were being prodded from many directions. Geography is important in this film, with Delphine constantly commenting on how different things are, how she's never been this far from home, as she soaks up the vibrant energy of the cause and the thrilling women she is meeting.

For me, the best scene is when the women decide to spring a gay man from an institution where he's been sent to be "cured". The film palls when it deposits Delphine back on the farm to care for her ailing father. Then it becomes more of a family melodrama with typical quandaries: will Delphine tell her family she and Carole are lovers? How will they react? I found this a bit drama by numbers, in contrast to the Paris section where the women are meeting, debating, planning and acting. The ending, by the way, finds the women some years on knowing quite a bit more about themselves and what they need in life. So, it may not be a Hollywood happy ending, but it's a pretty good resolution.

Flare: Horror Show

It's been a striking feature of Flare how many horror films are appearing, something I've noticed for the last couple of years. It may simply be (as someone told me) that it's because one of the programmers, Michael Blyth, is partial to horror. Or maybe there is something inherently queer about horror. It's something I've been thinking about, as my own comic horror is about to swing into production. In any case, I kept an eye on the spooky offerings at this year's festival. I have yet to catch up with Closet Monster, which will be out later this year. But, I sat down to watch Sisters of the Plague with much enthusiasm. And rose 73 minutes later thinking, "File under 'What the Fuck?'"

Hmmm. Where to start? Well, it's a first-time director Jorge Torres-Torres, who also co-wrote. It stars Josephine Decker, herself an acclaimed director, though I have not seen her films so had no predisposition toward or against the film. It's just an ungodly mess. No scares. No atmosphere, though it's set in New Orleans, for cripes' sake! Decker plays a tour guide who lives with her girlfriend and her alcoholic, dying father and wants to find out once and for all how her mother died, all those years ago. Beset by nightmarish visions (wisps of black smoke and crap bubbly screen effects), she consults a psychic. Her relationship with her girlfriend unravels, blah, blah. I could have cried with boredom. The last 15 minutes made no sense and I overheard other audience members commenting on the sound design. Yes, it's that bad.

Much more entertaining is Sauna the Dead, a well executed concept short of zombies invading a gay male sauna. The rather obnoxious lead, Jacob, tries to evade them, eventually teaming up with another client he initially shunned. And there is a heartwarming ending, utterly not in keeping with the previous 18 minutes of towel-clad zombies lurching around the cubicles tearing into flesh, which I found hilarious.

Not at all horror-oriented, but rather downbeat is the much heralded Tangerine, which I finally saw and had mixed feelings about. Cleverly shot, brilliantly acted, but rather short on sexual politics. Two transgendered sex workers, Alexandra and Sin-Dee, roam the streets of L.A. in search of the woman Sin-Dee's boyfriend Chester is meant to be seeing behind her back. There are many, many laugh-out-loud moments, usually from the mouths of Alexandra (Mya Taylor) or Sin-Dee (Kitana Kiki Rodriguez) and a bit of a less interesting plot involving an Armenian cab driver whose mother-in-law has come to stay. But, my main misgivings were about the film's treatment of the so-called love rival, Dinah (Mickey O'Hagan), a white cis-gendered sex worker who spends much of the film being abused by either Sin-Dee or Chester.

Is it funny to see women beating up other women? Is it hilarious to see them cutting each other down, seeking male approval? Do we just watch and let it go because well, that's how shit is? Where is the revenge film in which the sex workers gang up on the pimp and fuck him up? I'd definitely watch that one. This film isn't it, though it does pay careful attention to the lives of the two protagonists, which is something.

Flare: Young Love, Old Love

One of the best films I've seen in the high school canon is the Israeli film, Barash (dir Michal Vinik), featuring a trio of teenaged girls who roam the streets of their town, bunking off school and smoking various substances. Then a new girl, Dana, turns up and they let her join their gang. The titular character, Naama Barash (everyone goes by surnames), falls hard for the newcomer, attracted by her brash attitude and partially shaven hair. What really stands out for me are the minutiae of Naama's existence, her exasperation with her parents' squabbles, her detachment from her older sister, who is in the army and her infatuation with the mysterious Dana, who represents something else: freedom, non-conformity and sexual allure. How it all unwinds is interesting, but the camerawork is exquisite, the performances captivating and the dialogue quite witty. Naama and Dana checking out their schoolmates and vowing to offer their services to sexually enlighten them is marvellously bold.

The course of love doesn't run smooth in the Israeli short Words Unsaid, as best mates Danny and May get a little too close on the former's hen night and need to renegotiate their relationship. I found it disconcerting as the lead actresses so closely resemble Toni Collette and Rachel Griffiths from Muriel's Wedding, which is quite funny. Watching hetero pre-wedding rituals is enlightening, but the film goes a bit melodramatic for me.

As a tonic, one could try out the US short Partners, in which a lesbian couple enacts a full cycle of dysfunctionality in six minutes, waking up, arguing over sex and bringing up untold historical baggage before heading out for a juice. Laugh out loud funny.

And just to show you are never too old to find love, there is the Spanish short, The Orchid, one of this year's Five Films for Freedom, in which an elderly man attempts to get through to his son in Berlin to share his big news. A big "Awwwwww!" is in order. This film is available to watch online through 27 March.

Flare: A Woman of Words

I've had things going on, so haven't spent as much time at Flare as I would like, but I hope this will be the first of a flurry of reviews from the LGBT film festival in London.

To start with, there is Welcome to This House, which I prioritised because: 1) it's about Elizabeth Bishop and 2) it's made by Barbara Hammer. Well, what a coupling, eh? And it starts off well enough with Hammer nosing about (she remains off-camera, save one reflection) in Bishop's childhood home in Nova Scotia. As one interviewee makes clear, the poet was someone who never found home. And that's the premise: Bishop's various living places and her relationship to them, taking Hammer on a journey from Canada to Brazil and various places in the USA.

In part, it works, as Hammer can focus her camera on small details in each house, from furniture Bishop purchased to things she had on her wall, recounted by a range of interviewees who are not particularly well introduced. I found myself stopping the film to Google various folk to understand why they were picked (possible as I watched it in online form!). Thus, the running time jumped from 79 mins to almost double that, as I found myself increasingly frustrated at the storyline emerging. How did Elizabeth end up in Nova Scotia? How long was she in Seattle? Why wasn't there a stop in New York?

It's described as an "impressionistic" documentary, which gives Hammer licence to skip around and her focus is clearly on Bishop's love life as much as her homes, which is a refreshing counter-balance to earlier biographies of her which completely ignored her queerness. What a writer! There is a generous serving of her writing, both her poems, as wel as excerpts from letters and journal entries. But, far from featuring interviews with former lovers as the accompanying notes claim, the interviews are with academics, a few male former students and a housekeeper. Unless I missed something, no lovers. Perhaps they are no longer with us. But, it does rather reek of tittle-tattle. In the end, I found it a bit unsatisfying. What emerged was a fascinating woman not quite given her due.

Flare: Mood Swings

Broken Gardenias

Today's report concentrates on two films that combine comedy and drama, making for uneasy viewing.

In the Australian comic drama (?) Zoe. Misplaced, Zoe is attracted to her housemate Coal's ex, Nat, who reciprocates her feelings. And then Coal finds out.... What starts off as an amusing L Word episode progresses onto darker and darker territory, until it turns into a bit of a psychology lesson. I puzzled over the abrupt shifts in tone, wondering whether they worked or not. Then I pondered the characters' motivations and questioned whether I had missed some key hints. So, I guess it's a pretty effective piece of work, if duplicitous.

Broken Gardenias, an American road movie, looks great, with sweeping vistas of California, as its two loners, hunky butch Sam and forlorn Jenni, go to L.A., in search of the latter's father. A film that includes a suicide attempt early on that is played as one of a number of comic setbacks has an interesting notion of comedy. And I never quite warmed to it, despite Sam and Jenni's quirky budding friendship. It reminded me a little of By Hook Or By Crook, with Jenni's very mannered fragility setting my teeth on edge. Plus, the running joke of her ex-housemates shadowing the duo through L.A., arguing all the way, felt forced and gratuitous. Jenni is played by the film's screenwriter, so she must have felt highly invested in the story.


I believe both films were crowd-sourced, explaining their rough and ready feel, but getting the tone right is something that can really make or break a film, regardless of budget.

Flare: Marginal Communities

We Came to Sweat

Today's retrospective Flare viewing includes two shorts by Silas Howard and a documentary on the now-departed Starlite Lounge in Brooklyn.

Howard's two films focus on Bambi Lake, one-time Cockette and unlikely punk spoken word artist, whose song "The Golden Age of Hustlers" provides a narrative device linking the two, to explain her life, from her days as a hustler on Polk Street to today, when she admits she's not especially happy, as she sits glammed up outside a cafe. While I was not so taken with the recreation of the song with Justin Vivian Bond singing, I did find the short documentary, Sticks and Stones, fascinating and would like to know much, much more about this pioneering performer.

The Starlite Lounge was that rare thing: a black-owned bar providing a non-discriminatory space in pre-Stonewall New York. Kate Kunath's documentary, We Came to Sweat, picks up the story in 2010 as the bar is threatened with closure, a victim of the gentrification of its corner of Brooklyn. I would have liked to see more on the neighbourhood and the changes befalling it, but Kunath sticks close to the bar itself, which rather limits the scope of the story. I found the film overlong and repetitious, once the basic facts were established: the bar was established in 1962 and provided a safe space for its patrons. This point is repeated so often it becomes tedious. In the end, commerce wins out and the bar loses its leases and never reopens. What happens to the community is not pursued.

Flare: Sultry Summer Days

Atlantida

Teenaged girls. Rural towns. Unrelenting summer heat. What could possibly go wrong? Well, two films show what happens when girls looking for something to happen find what they're looking for.

The Argentine drama Atlantida is languid, understated and, well, a bit tedious. Swotty Lucia is left in charge of her younger sister Elena, who's broken her leg. Save for the occasional dawn swim, Lucia has not very much to look forward to, as she studies for her exams, hoping to move to Buenos Aires for uni. As the film unfolds over one extremely long day, Lucia finds herself attracted to Ana, a friend of her sister's, while Elena tags along with the family doctor. A storm is imminent, the signs are set..... but not much actually happens. Such a disappointment.

The Dutch drama Summer sets its stall out early, in another rural household, as Ms. Silent, later revealed to be actually called Anne, narrates the summer her life changed. This quirky and very stylish film captured my attention much more fully than did Atlantida, as Anne matter-of-factly describes the wife-beaters, rapists and child thugs who populate her town, all existing under the beady eye of the town business, the nuclear power plant that seems to have a hold, a force field, over everyone. When Lena, a mixed race biker, arrives in town, her presence seems to disturb the torpor in which everyone lives, including Anne. While the plot may lack orginality, the execution is spot on, and the soundtrack, of jauntily retro tunes, provides a kind of psychedelic haze through which the narrative unfolds. I actually have no idea in what decade the film is meant to be set. It could be anywhere from the 1960s-onward. Very impressive work from writer Marjolein Bierens and director Colette Bothof.

Flare: True Romance

Girltrash: All Night Long

Although the festival ended on Sunday, I shall continue reviewing films from Flare, courtesy of its new online preview service. Today's subject: romance.

Portrait of a Serial Monogamist is a Canadian comedy offering Elsie, a lead character whose first action is to dump her long-term partner, Robyn, and exit the premises, claiming it was for the woman's own good. I immediately didn't like her and her subsequent behaviour did nothing to endear her to me. A problem when the character seems to be the one the audience is meant to identify with. In fact, of the five or six characters who had most screen time, none was particularly engaging. I did rather like the bi-curious character Elsie tried to to seduce but then drove away. Quite frankly, by the end of the film I really didn't care whether Elsie and Robyn got back together or not, they were so cloying and annoying. The bi-curious woman had a lucky escape.

Girltrash: All Night Long is a musical set in Los Angeles featuring a band. A very promising start and I enjoyed its cheesiness immensely. Particularly good is Michelle Lombardo as the heartbreaking bassist everyone wants to bed. The character names are ridiculous: Colby, Tyler and Misty sound as if they are '80s soap opera characters. But, the film revels in its own ridiculousness and I found it entertaining, if a bit light-weight. Any film that sets its big shoot 'em up in a sorority house has something going for it.

Flare: Of Girls and Horses

Of Girls and Horses

As I said, I have seen few films at the festival, but I am quite glad I saw this one on the big screen, because it is a visual delight and deserves to have its sweeping shots seen in their full glory. An unexpectedly sweet film from the formidable Monika Treut, Of Girls and Horses is a coming of age tale involving two girls on a horse farm in northern Germany. While that may not scream must-see, it turned out to be both visually and emotionally engaging.

My companions and I talked over the film afterward, admitting we had expected disaster to strike, given the set-up of troubled Alex arriving in the middle of nowhere, attempting to kiss her supervisor Nina and then stealing Nina's pills. But, these transgressions did not end in disaster or melodrama, merely serving as bumps in the road of Alex's growing up. When posh girl Kathy arrives with her horse Carmina, again one might anticipate jealous Alex to take some kind of revenge on the girl or her horse, but she merely befriends both.

"There's no conflict," said B, and we agreed our expectations were not met, but in a good and surprising way. Intererestingly, in the accompanying notes, a reviewer notes that "the conflict of Of Girls and Horses is purely emotional". I might have reworded that as "the conflict is internal". It's not a drama played out between people, so much as what is happening in Alex, Kathy and also Nina, who is torn between her spiritually enriching life on the farm and her girlfriend in the metropolis of Hamburg.

And the horses look amazing. Such impressive creatures, rendered as curious but mute characters by Treut and her DOP. Whether turning to regard the camera with suspicion or galloping across the shore, the horses in the film command respect and affection. Not so different from human beings then.

Flare: Where Are the Lesbians?

Yesterday I saw no films at Flare, but did engage in stimulating discourse, courtesy of a panel, a networking lunch and extended social time.

The panel was the provocatively titled Where Are the Lesbians?, bringing together programmers, filmmakers and journalists. I took copious notes, but what emerged were several strands of debate, namely: why are there so few lesbian characters on mainstream TV; who authors these characters; why is it so difficult to get funding for films with lesbian characters. Not much was decided, though much frustration was expressed, and I was left feeling rather deflated by the prevailing gloom. There was a view expressed that things were better in the old days, when Channel 4 used to commission LGBT programming. And I do well recall seeing a lot of UK films in the early 1990s make their way across the pond, to be eagerly set upon by queer audiences in San Francisco. We were amazed a television station had funded them. That situation no longer exists, but was there ever a golden age of lesbian programming, really? It may be misplaced nostalgia. Are programmers more conservative now, asking lesbian filmmakers to tone down the queerness of their female characters? Or is it that the whole system has always been heteronormative and patriarchal? I smiled wryly when a young filmmaker who had self-funded her feature expressed the optimistic view that things will get better in years to come. Will they?

After the panel, I chatted to a few attendees, including Lisa Gornick, who had raised the vexed question of capitalism ever so briefly in the panel. In her experience, filmmakers see few financial returns, even if their work is distributed. She asked the question, not addressed in the panel: what is a lesbian film? Something made by a lesbian or something with lesbians in it? So many questions to consider. The only concrete plan that emerged is that Diva magazine has arranged a meeting with the BBC to ask why they keep killing off their lesbian characters. Other plans to increase distribution opportunities for queer films, via a UK festival network, may also be in the offing.

Then it was on to the extended social time, which culminated in a giant long table of dykes eating, drinking and chatting, with a bit of film talk thrown in. From small beginnings do revolutions grow.

Flare: Community Entanglements

Dressed As a Girl

I have spent the past few days alternating between watching films online and visiting the festival on-site, making for a strange parallel universe effect.

As it happened, I was watching Colin Rothbart's Dressed As a Girl online as it premiered at the festival on Sunday. I do wish I could have been there to see the participants in-person. Given what I watched onscreen, they have wonderfully complex and tangled lives. Starting as a recap of Jonny Woo's Gay Bingo club and East London's drag scene, the film tracks the lives of several associates of Woo, and he offers some arch commentary from his position as arch provocateur and master of ceremonies. In truth, I found Woo's narrative arc less interesting than the others, as he played up his drug and booze antics early on and then became clean and sober by the end of the film. His co-stars Pia and Amber proved more compelling to me, both quite vulnerable in their own ways, with the former wandering off in a haze of conspiracy theories and the latter attempting to transition to female while also reaching out to her biological family. Her encounters with her Dad were painfully awkward, as he attempted to be supportive while also tripping up on the correct pronouns to use. I imagine it was the type of documentary of most interest to those who already know the scene under examination.

As a companion piece, Ben Walters offered up the latest instalment of Burn, his "platform" for alternative performance and moving image. I still don't get how this platform works, but he showed nine short films made by some of the same people seen in Dressed As a Girl, plus a documentary on the Royal Vauxhall Tavern, site of its own alternative scene in south London. Standout shorts included Woo's vision of multiple Margaret Thatchers lip-synching to "Hold On", plus Figs in Wigs' hilarious food-and-names electro music video. Tim Brunsden's Save the Tavern proved to be an oddly restricted look at the glorious queer history of the Royal Vauxhall Tavern, as it seemed to be entirely Duckie-centred, with no mention of any of the other clubs that currently call the RVT home. Where it was quite good was in giving some of the backstory to the current situation of the club and its place in queer history, offering some great archive footage of Adrella and Lily Savage, as well as explaining how the club offered a gathering place for a community under siege during the AIDS crisis.

Where I often come unstuck in situations like this is in hearing the testimonies of people who say they found a home at such places. "It's so welcoming and friendly," they say, and I wonder to whom? I saw next to no people of colour in any of these films, for example. And for every boozer that people call home there are those who don't feel welcome. What if you don't drink? I am all for saving the RVT, but I do wonder whether the community has moved on from always assigning the highest status to a place that is focused on consuming alcohol. As one commentator says in Save the Tavern, they only got the cabaret in to sell more drinks, after all.

And speaking of precarious forms of community, last night I finally saw Girlhood, Celine Sciamma's third feature, still exploring the lives of girls, but this time focused on black girls living on the edge of Paris. What. An. Amazing. Film. It went on a bit too long and had a few false endings, but I was gripped and full of concern as downtrodden Merieme transforms herself into fierce girl gang member Vic, before falling in with a drugs operation and then having to decide what her path in life really is. It was easy to see how she could make so many "mistakes", given her circumstances, from her abusive brother lording it over her at home, to her tentative relationship with sensitive Ismael having to be a secret. The girls who took her up built up her self-esteem but at the cost of having to commit acts of brutality against other girls. And I think this is the film's strength: it makes a case for female solidarity by showing how often girls end up fighting each other rather than the dominant males who oppress them. If I see anything better than Girlhood at the festival, I shall be very pleased indeed.