For 2024, Queer East Festival launches its fifth year milestone with a remarkable line up of film screenings, arts and performance events across London from 17 to 28 April 2024 and then across the UK later in the year. The programme includes contemporary feature films, documentaries and shorts as well as special anniversary and retrospective screenings that showcase a wide range of LGBTQ+ stories from East Asia, Southeast Asia and their diaspora communities.
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. Amplifying the voices of Asian communities are the UK Premieres of features, documentaries and shorts exploring young queer love, gender nonconformity and asexual identity, as well as thought-provoking classics with the 20th Anniversary screening of Chinese-American romantic comedy Saving Face and 50th Anniversary screening of the once-considered-lost Japanese title Bye Bye Love. Furthermore, the festival's ‘Expanded' programme will host a series of unique screening events allowing you to take a dip at a sauna, take a guided walk around a museum garden, or get tied up at an immersive bondage endurance test and more.
Queer East Festival's boundary-pushing programming is not confined to the film screen, with a dance performance, poetry workshop, and an inaugural Queer East arts exhibition – shedding:::selves – rounding off a truly exciting line-up of experiences.
OPENING GALA
Queer East 2024 begins on 17 April at Barbican Centre with an Opening Gala UK Premiere screening of the exhilarating coming-of-age story 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.
CLOSING GALA
This year's Closing Gala, taking place at BFI Southbank on 28 April, celebrates the 50th anniversary of Isao Fujisawa's Bye Bye Love (Japan, 1974). 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.
FEATURE FILMS
Queer East Festival's features line up celebrates a remarkable selection of stories spanning 57 years of filmmaking and 10 countries, exploring different facets of queer love and identity.
I Am What I Am (Japan, 2022) by Tamada Shinya
Saving Face (USA, 2004) byAlice Wu
The River (Taiwan, 1997) by Tsai Ming-liang
Asog (Philippines, 2023) by Seán Devlin
Summer Vacation 1999 (Japan, 1988) by Shusuke Kaneko
Sara (Indonesia, 2023) by Ismail Basbeth
The Last Year of Darkness (China, USA, 2023) by Ben Mullinkosson
A Princess' One-Sided Love (South Korea, 1967) by Choi Eun-hee
If It's With You (Japan, 2023) by Hana Matsumoto
Love Bound (UK, 2024) by Shanshan Che
Abang Adik (Malaysia, 2023) by Jin Ong
The Missing (Philippines, Thailand, 2023) by Joseph E. Papa
EXPANDED PROGRAMMES
New for 2024, the Expanded strand launches with the aim of exploring alternative ways of viewing, with five unique screening events. From serene outdoor garden walks to steamy sauna gatherings, from intimate performances to hot bondage workshops, these events re-imagine our interactions with screen-based content.
Re-encountering Sunsets, Waves, Birds and Bees
Long Time between Sunsets and Underground Waves (China, 2021) by Hu Wei
High Hands Small Hands
Dream Catcher (Dir. Fuyuhiko Takata, Japan, 2018); MOP (Dir. Joon Goh, Malaysia, 2023); There's No Sex, Only Fans (Dir. Chi-Wen Ting, Taiwan, 2023); Disconnect (Dir. F E8 and Janice Kei, Hong Kong, UK, 2024); glide by LILY CHOU-CHOU (Dir. Bart Seng Wen Long, UK, 2024); Pteridophilia 3 (Dir. Zheng Bo, China, 2018); Obsolescence (Dir. Cavair To The General, UK, 2021)
Home
For much of the ESEA diaspora, and the exodus of queer Asian folk who have crossed the pond to experience the world beyond the closet, it is longing to be where we are not, faced with the realisation that we are never quite at home, wherever we go. These are stories of home, of its joys and beauty, its ills and struggle.
Kin (Dir. Charmaine Poh, Singapore, 2021); Jericho (Dir. Lisa Chearles, Singapore, UK, 2021); Where Sleeping Dogs Lie (Dir. Lisa Chearles, Singapore, UK, 2021)
Steamy Intimacies: A Queer East Sauna Experience
A special screening at Hackney Wick Community Sauna Baths, with a double bill of short film Who Can Predict What Will Move You (USA, 2020) followed by Spa Night (USA, 2016).
Image Under the Ground
This programme showcases a series of artists' short films and a live performance by Nanzhen Yang to create a “cave space”, a transitional space that refracts unspeakable diaspora queer experiences.
A New Day Has Come (Dir. Nguyen Hai Yen (Red), Vietnam, 2022); Yi-Ren (Dir. Tzu-An Wu, Taiwan, 2015); Silver Cave (Dir. Caibei Cai, China, 2022); Lovers Lovers (Dir. Laobai Wu, Honbin Zheng, China, 2023); KEREL (Sea of Love) (Dir. Jon Cuyson, Philippines, 2021); Cocoon (Dir. Holli Xue, UK, 2024)
EXHIBITION
Queer East Festival's shedding:::selves exhibition brings together eight artists whose works generate new readings, metamorphoses, and entanglements of personhood. Spanning sculpture, painting, diagram, interactive installation, and video, this landmark exhibition forges selves that transcend the limitations of identity labels and categorisation. Confirmed artists include Wei Xin Chong, Yifan He, Megumi Ohata, Kianuë Tran Kieu, Sayang, Nata Yada, Noam Youngrak Son and Xinyu XuXX.
DANCE PERFORMANCE
Continuing the festival's dance performance from last year, Disco-TECA brings to life a unique moment in history, taking you back to early 1980s China, when a sensational wave of disco music took the south of the country by storm. Produced by Ergao Dance Production Group, this performance delves into the ecstatic power of disco for a nation that was ‘opening up', exploring gender, identity, rebellion, and sexual liberation. Disco-TECA will transport you to the dance halls of China's social reform era.
QUEERING OBJECTS – A COMMUNITY POETRY WORKSHOP
Taking place at London arts organisation Ugly Duck, Queering Objects is a unique poetry workshop event hosted by 2021's National Poetry Competition winner Eric Yip. Participants will read works by queer Asian poets and translators, as well as engage in writing activities that recontextualize how we see the things around us.
SHORTS PROGRAMMES
Exploring the queer experience in all its myriad forms, Queer East presents a diverse selection of thematically linked short films across ten groupings.
Dance Baby Dance
Burial of This Order (Dir. Jane Jin Kaisen, Denmark, 2023); Omarm (Dir. Sara Kerklaan, The Netherlands, 2023); Everybody's Gotta Love Sometimes (Dir. Sein Lyan Tun, France, Myanmar, Indonesia, 2023); Midnight Rising (Dir. Aileen Ye, UK, 2024); When the House Lights Come On (Dir. Apa Agbayani, Philippines, 2023); If You See Something That Doesn't Look Right (Dir. Ka Ki Wong, Hong Kong, UK, 2023)
Silence Will Not Protect You
Qeluar (Dir. Justice Khor, UK, 2023); The Bus Driver (Dir. Ku Ki, Myanmar, 2024); Heart Murmurs (Dir. Dorothy Cheung, Hong Kong, UK, 2023); House of Rencong (Dir. Rizky Rahadianto, Indonesia, 2022)
Growing Pains
Beats per Minute (Dir. Lin Guan-Chen, Taiwan, 2023); A Catholic Schoolgirl (Dir. Myra Angeline Soriaso, Philippines, 2023); Like Wave Like Cloud (Dir. Yulin Yang, China, 2023); Curve (Dir. Dan Zeng, China, 2023); Dog Story (Dir. Grace Zhang, US, 2021)
Bakla Bakla Paano Ka Ginawa: Tracing Filipino Definitions of Queerness Across 40 Years of Filmmaking
Honey (Dir. Raul Sarmiento, Philippines, 1981); Margins (Dir. Paolo Villaluna, Philippines, 2001); Geography Lessons (Dir. Petersen Vargas, Philippines, 2013); When I Wallowed In A Bowl of Sunshine (Dir. Kukay Zinampan, Philippines, 2021); Taking My Time to Dance (Dir. Celeste Lapida, Philippines, 2024)
A Thousand Words Unspoken
Don't Forget Me (Dir. Alice Wang, Canada, 2023); The River That Never Ends (Dir. JT Trinidad, Philippines, 2023); Alexa, Xander and the Universe (Dir. Vahn Pascual, Philippines, 2020); The Nape (Dir. Kim Yu-ra, South Korea, 2023); Dancing Colours (Dir. Mohammad Reza Fahriyansyah, Indonesia, 2022)
Stranger Than Fiction
Strange (Dir. Ken Ochiai, Japan, 2023); Blue Rain (Dir. Qian He, France, 2023); Dismantle Me (Dir. Max Disgrace, UK, 2023); My Heart is going to Explode! (Dir. Jung Inhyuk, South Korea, 2023); Where the Wild Frangipanis Grow (Dir. Nirartha Bas Diwangkara, Indonesia, 2023)
Glitch! Rewind. Then we…
Taiwan Video Club (Dir. Lana Lin, US, 1999); I'm Starving (Dir. Yau Ching, US, Hong Kong, 1999); Castro (Dir. Tony (Chun Hui) Wu, US, Taiwan, 1996); Looking for Jiro (Dir. TT Takemoto, US, 2011); LOVEME2030 (Dir. Shu Lea Cheang, Japan, France, 2005)
I Will Haunt You Forever: Queer Ghosts Across Time
Ghost Carnival (Dir. Qiu Miao-jin, Lin Hsu Wen-Er, Taiwan, 1994); Whispering Ghosts (Dir. Taiki Sakpisit, Thailand, 2008); River is My Hometown (Dir. River Cao, UK, 2021); In Our Being (Dir. Ghislan Sutherland-Timm & Jann Earl Q. Madariaga, Canada, Philippines, 2011); All Trace is Gone, No Clamour for a Kiss (Dir. Chris Zhongtian Yuan, UK, 2022)
Harvesting the Fruits of Monstrosity
The Function of Fiction is the Abstraction and Simulation of Social Experience (Dir. Mac Andre Arboleda, Philippines, 2021); Wūûūwūûū (Dir. Rae-Yen Song, UK, 2021); I Am a Horse (Dir. Chaerin Im, South Korea, 2022); EARTHBODY(S)_BIOME(TRICS) (Dir. mirrored fatality, USA, 2022); Tentacle Eyes (Dir. Yuqing Lin, UK, 2023); Flesh Nest (Dir. Andrew Thomas Huang, USA, 2018); WHAT U WANNA DO (Dir. Jas Lin, USA, 2021); Bold Eagle (Dir. Whammy Alcarazen, Philippines, 2022); The Princess and the Magic Birds (Dir. Fuyuhiko Takata, Japan, 2021); Leave Britney Alone! (Dir. Fuyuhiko Takata, Japan, 2009)
Welcome to Neverland
Chomp It! (Dir. Mark Chua, Lam Li Shuen, Singapore, 2023); Wegen Hegel (Dir. Popo Fan, Germany, 2023); Mom, if I were a Vampire (Dir. Deborah Devyn Chuang, Taiwan, 2022); Fish Boy (Dir. Christopher Yip, Canada, 2023); Still Life (Dir. Sarah Kim, US, 2023); Their Universe (Dir Han Jeong-gil, South Korea, 2023)
Venues: BFI Southbank, Barbican Centre, ICA, Prince Charles Cinema, Genesis Cinema, Rio Cinema, Garden Cinema, Rich Mix, Ugly Duck, The Place, Hackney Wick Community Sauna and Museum of the Home.
