Theo and Hugo
THE FLARE IS BACK!
Flare, the LGBT+ film festival at the BFI Southbank in London, is celebrating its 30th birthday this year, which means it’s well past the awkward teen coming out stage, past the messy twenties reliving the teen experience that never happened, and into a comfortable, secure and steady fourth decade. Or not. Refusing to rest on their laurels, this year’s programming is just as wide ranging and radical as ever, from romance in a post 9/11 Brooklyn mosque, to the new frontier of bromance (hint: gay bros), to Isabella Rossellini as a talking hamster, to a pool party thrown by evangelical Christians with a gay son. Films aside, for 10 days the Southbank becomes a centre of LGBT activity, which is another way of seeing loads of gay people, everywhere, all the time. Yes, you don’t even have to trek to Soho for a bit of cultural flirtation. Here, we’ve taken a look at what Flare is offering this year, and picked out 12 films you definitely shouldn’t miss...