When the Indian filmmaker Mahesh Menon brought his moving short A Letter for Tomorrow to this year’s BFI Flare: London LGBTQIA+ Film Festival, I was truly taken aback by how wonderful the film was. Drawing from his own upbringing in a matriarchal household, Menon explores the complexity within families – particularly how love is often…
Tag: film
Far East Film Festival 28 Unveils 76-Film Programme, Opening with Anthony Chen’s “We Are All Strangers”
What began in the spring of 1998 as a bold and somewhat puzzling experiment has grown into one of Europe’s most important showcases of Asian cinema. When the Centro Espressioni Cinematografiche (CEC) in Udine shifted its focus from Italian retrospectives to a programme dedicated to Hong Kong films, few could have predicted the outcome. Yet…
Gaho Uncovered: From Solo Work to KAVE – Exclusive Interview
Gaho, a South Korean singer, is a one-of-a-kind artist with a strong and characteristic voice that’s easy to recognise and can really imprint on you. The more you listen, the more compelling his sound becomes. Long before the global rise of K-dramas turned their soundtracks into cultural exports, Gaho’s voice was already doing something rare:…
28th Far East Film Festival: FEFF Campus Returns for Its 12th Edition, Welcoming Ten Aspiring Voices to the Global Film Community
The Far East Film Festival Campus initiative continues to bring film lovers together from across the globe, and if that sounds like the beginning of a great film, it’s because, in many ways, it is. As the 28th Far East Film Festival returns from April 24 to May 2, 2026, the FEFF Campus celebrates its…
40th BFI FLARE: London LGBTQIA+ Film Festival: “ìfé: The Sequel” Review
Across much of West Africa – and Africa more broadly – LGBTQ+ lives continue to exist under immense pressure. In countries like Nigeria, same-sex relationships are not only socially stigmatised but also legally criminalised, with laws such as the Same-Sex Marriage Prohibition Act reinforcing a culture of fear and invisibility. While there have been small…
40th BFI FLARE: London LGBTQIA+ Film Festival: In Conversation with Lexie Bean, Director of “What Will I Become?”
Lexie Bean is a trans multidisciplinary artist whose work moves across writing, film, and community-based practice, always based on questions of identity, memory, and the body. For over fifteen years, they have worked closely with survivors of domestic and sexual violence, creating spaces for storytelling through books, performances, and visual work. Their practice is collaborative…
40th BFI FLARE: London LGBTQIA+ Film Festival: “Satisfaction” Review
Something is unsettling about Satisfaction, not because it shocks in obvious ways, but because it does not offer simple answers. It stays in discomfort, in silence, in the spaces where language fails, and in doing so, it asks one of the most difficult questions a film can pose: how do we make sense of our…
40th BFI FLARE: London LGBTQIA+ Film Festival: “What Will I Become?” Review
Across both the United States and the United Kingdom, the mental health crisis affecting transgender young people has become increasingly difficult to ignore. Studies consistently show that trans youth experience significantly higher rates of depression, anxiety, and suicidal thoughts than their cisgender peers. In the U.S., research from organisations such as The Trevor Project has…
40th BFI FLARE: London LGBTQIA+ Film Festival: “The Deepest Space in Us” Review
Grief can be especially difficult to process when it is complicated by discovery – when, after someone is gone, you begin to uncover things about their life you never knew existed. In The Deepest Space in Us, written and directed by Yasutomo Chikuma, this kind of loss is at the center of the story. The…
40th BFI FLARE: London LGBTQIA+ Film Festival: In Conversation with Rahemur Rahman & Lily Vetch, Directors of “Body of Our Own”
Perhaps it is through artists that we come to see stories we might never have known otherwise, stories that exist beyond the margins. Body of Our Own is one such film. Centered on the lives of three women from the Hijra community, offering a perspective rarely seen on screen. The film is brought to life…
VIEW OF THE ARTS 