Founded in response to the
systemic lack of
East and Southeast Asian representation on stage, screen and behind the scenes,
Queer East Festival was formed in 2020 and has made its mark across the UK with its bold programmes of
LGBTQ+ cinema and visual arts, growing in popularity and size year-on-year, and celebrating its fifth anniversary this year.
Queer East Festival's ground-breaking film programme challenges conventions and stereotypes giving audiences an opportunity to explore the contemporary queer landscape across East and Southeast Asia.
With its fifth anniversary edition, the festival reaffirms a commitment to diversifying the cultural landscape in the UK, and to serving as a platform that nurtures dialogue on the multifaceted understandings of what it means to be Asian and queer today.
A Song Sung Blue (China, 2023)
Nominated for the Queer Palm and Golden Camera at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival, A Song Sung Blue follows lonely, 15-year-old Xian as she experiences a summer she will never forget.
When her mother moves away for work, Xian moves in with her free spirited photographer father and a restless summer ensues when she becomes infatuated with his assistant's daughter, the extroverted Mingmei. A Song Sung Blue is the feature debut from acclaimed short film director Geng Zihan (A Ray of Sunshine, 2019; Green Screen, 2021), and features vivid cinematography, exceptional performances from Kay Huang and Jing Liang, and is a testament to the innocence and impulses of youth, which signals the arrival of a powerful new voice in queer cinema.
Bye Bye Love - 50th anniversary screening (Japan, 1974)
Until the discovery of a film negative in a warehouse in 2018, Bye Bye Love was long considered lost, but this new print gives audiences a rare chance to revisit this radical work of 1970s Japanese cinema, which recalls the 1969 queer classic Funeral Parade of Roses.
Following two young people, Utamaro and Giko, on a doomed summer road trip through Japan, this poetic, surreal work reflects on the dissipating promise of 1960s counterculture and free love, transcending gender, sexuality and the body.
With a blend of stylistic influences from the French New Wave and American New Cinema along with a rethinking of Japanese artistic traditions, conventional understandings are challenged through a queer lens, adding to the political charge of this rediscovered classic.
The Last Year of Darkness - (China, USA, 2023)
Ben Mullinkosson"s (Don"t Be a Dick About It) coming-of-age documentary is a love letter to the Chengdu underground scene. With construction cranes looming, the future of queer-friendly techno club Funky Town is unclear, leaving party goers forced to make the most of their remaining time there.
Shorts programmes Shades of Faith + Q&A and Let the Waves Carry You will also both be playing.