Presented by Fringe! Queer Film and Arts Fest in partnership with the BFI National Archive
Unhook yourself from Netflix to join Fringe! on BFI Player during LGBTQIA+ History Month for this special archive viewing and panel discussion. We’re serving you documentaries from the pioneering days of queer programming in the 70s and 80s, amateur footage from early Prides, and a gorgeous short doc from 1995 setting up a fresh queer aesthetic. This programme + panel gives us the chance to think about the opportunities and limitations of queer storytelling, yesterday and today.
Watch the free programme HERE on BFI Player (available only in the UK) at your leisure from February 4th.
Then join filmmaker Kai Fiáin from Fringe! Queer Film and Arts Fest, via a live stream, in conversation with special guests discussing how British TV has handled queer lives over the decades.
From the pioneering days of documentary through ignorant news coverage and DIY queer filmmaking, our panel will think about the opportunities and limitations of queer storytelling, yesterday and today.
Our panelists are:
Topher Campbell (director of The Homecoming: A Short Film About Ajamu from 1995)
Topher is an Afro-Queer artist and filmmaker. His films focus on sexuality, race and masculinity. He has just wrapped a film for the BBC. Topher's next film, ENCOUNTERS, about HIV, stigma and desire will premiere at Whitney Museum New York on World Aids Day.
Roz Kaveney
Roz Kaveney is a queer trans woman living in London. An award-winning novelist, she is also a well-reviewed poet and occasional activist.
Simon McCallum
Simon McCallum is Archive Projects Curator at the BFI. Working across the organisation’s digital platforms and on broadcast collaborations, he helps bring the riches of the BFI National Archive to a wider audience. Simon is a regular programme contributor to BFI Flare: London LGBTIQ+ Film Festival and in 2017 curated the two-month BFI Southbank season Gross Indecency: Queer Lives Before & After the ’67 Act. He was archive consultant on feature documentaries Queerama (Daisy Asquith, 2017) and Arcadia (Paul Wright, 2018).
Femi Otitoju (who features in Gay Black Group from 1983)
Femi Otitoju is a veteran of the LGBT community. After coming out in the early 80's she threw herself into lesbian life and never climbed out. She volunteered at Switchboard for nearly thirteen years and did time on the management committees of the London Lesbian and Gay Centre, the Black Lesbian and Gay centre and Stonewall Housing Association. In 1984 she joined the UK's first local government lesbian and gay unit in Haringey Council. These days she is still flying the rainbow flag in her work within her own diversity and inclusion training company, Challenge Consultancy.
Kai Fiáin (host)
Kai Fiáin is an artist and filmmaker. His work focuses on on queer working-class stories and experiences. He has screened on Channel 4 and internationally at numerous film festivals including London Short Film Festival and BFI Flare. Kai's last short won Channel 4's Random Acts Award for the best film under five minutes. He is also part of the programming team for East London's Fringe! Queer Film and Arts Festival.
The programme's titles are part of BFI Player's Britain on Film resource: 10,000 films preserved by the BFI National Archive and partner archives around the UK, digitised with National Lottery funding and free to view in the UK. Ticket holders to this event will also get a discount code giving a one-month extension to the usual 14-day free trial for BFI Player subscription.
Design by Kristina Pringle