"Cinema Future" at GFEST - Gaywise FESTival

An annual platform for LGBTQI (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer and Intersex) artists and organisations, the 8th GFEST - Gaywise FESTival ® runs Monday 9 – Saturday 21 November 2015 at venues across London. The festival showcases art, films and a live music performance by artists from Britain and beyond.

GFEST imagines the future of cinema, how it represents contemporary LGBTQI culture and how this has entered the mainstream, with two days of queer films at ArtHouse Crouch End (17 – 18 November). The programme opens with the UK Premiere of THE SURFACE (dir: Michael J Saul, USA). From the director of True Love, his new ‘coming of age’ feature follows a young gay man on an emotional rollercoaster of finding his true identity in the modern gay world. Followed by a director Q&A. Also screening is the short film TOMORROW (dir: Leandro Tadashi, USA). Fresh from BFI Future Film, it follows two young men worrying about their future on New Year’s Eve in 1999.

The shorts programme is a cornucopia of sexual diversity representing this era of ‘acceptance’. In extraordinary festival favourite ELECTRIC INDIGO (dir: Jean-Julien Collette, Belgium/France) two heterosexual men unite in a non-carnal marriage and raise a daughter together. NERDESIN ASKIM? / WHERE ARE YOU MY LOVE? (dir: Defne Gezen, Turkey) is a story of transsexual sex workers in Istanbul, Turkey, where there is very little protection and no ‘hate crime’ laws. Challenging gender and identity, PINK PILGRIMS: FIN and TRANNYSFORMATION: JONO (dir: Craig Heathcote, UK) are two vignettes that peek behind the glittered curtains of Sink The Pink, east London’s most outrageous queer club. Set on a park bench in the 1960s, PUTTING ON THE DISH (dir: Brian Fairbairn & Karl Eccleston, UK) observes two strangers conversing in Polari, a form of slang spoken by some gay men in Britain before the decriminalisation of homosexuality in 1967. PEPPER (dir: Patrick Aubert, Canada) presents the painful awakening of a couple after an evening of fantasies, when dreams evaporate and reality appears. Based on a true story, RULE OF THUMB (dir: Almog Gurevich, Israel) sees a young man navigating sexual freedom on Tel Aviv’s gay scene, while being enslaved by his struggle with bulimia. The single largest group of homeless kids in the USA are LGBT. UNCONDITIONAL (dir: Kent Igleheart, USA) tells the story of a black teen kicked out for being gay, featuring music from Grammy-nominee Hozier. A filmmakers Q&A will follow.