I’ve got to say, I came to this festival a bit perplexed. What exactly is a film classified as ‘gay/lesbian/queer cinema’? Is it a film that contains a definitively gay relationship? One that explores taboos or Gender and Sexuality? Or focuses on transgender?
I look to the programme for answers: there are plenty of gay and lesbian shorts, films and even dance events listed. However, there are also films that have been included because they contain one of those elusive ‘gay icons’, a cross dressing element, or even, though lacking any substantial queer element, simply because they are directed by someone who has once made a ‘gay’ film.
Next question: who goes to a Lebian and Gay film festival anyway? On entering the British Film Institute (BFI), I’m immediately struck by just how unstriking the crowd is. Plenty of gay people, but also quite a few straight folk. Most are twenty- and thirty-somthings, but even children and the aged are visible. There’s evidently no rule of thumb for fans of Lesbian and Gay film, and as the day progresses, I find that the films the festival offers are as varied as their audience.
I first watch a series of ‘lesbian’ shorts, hailing from places as diverse as Norway and Brazil. The collator of this event, Anna Dunwoodie, tells is that she found it difficult finding a common idea under which to unite them, concluding with a loose idea of transition, driving, and first steps ‘Starting Out and Driving On’.
I’m as torn as she is when it comes to finding a single theme: not all are definitively lesbian. Some feature lesbian romances, some make reference to lesbian identity. But many deal simply with questions of female space, female creativity, or the struggle for personal identity in a heterosexual, male orientated society. One might be funny, one, experimental, and one a classic anecdotal short.
The friend who has come along with me to the event mentions Brokeback Mountain, and complains that Hollywood has not been inspired by Ang Lee to make more ‘gay’ movies. I beg to differ – gay culture has been there in mainstream movies for a while, especially when it comes to ‘romcoms’, from Four Weddings and a Funeral to Imagine Me and You. Hollywood will always argue, mainly to combat a homophobic reaction leading to a loss of sales, that the film is not about ‘gays’ or ‘lesbians’ but about two people falling in love. And perhaps in the end it all just comes down to labels, whether they are applied by society, audiences, or even the creators of the films themselves.
Perhaps queer cinema is really just about falling in love, be that with yourself, an identity, a boy, a girl, or a whole gang of people!
