38th BFI Flare: London LGBTQIA+ Film Festival wraps

The 39^th edition of BFI Flare: London LGBTQIA+ Film Festival (19-30 March), the UK’s leading LGBTQIA+ film event, closed on 30^th March seeing a continued growth in audiences attending in person events at the Festival’s home, BFI Southbank. Overall BFI Flare saw 29,831 audience attendances across BFI Southbank screenings, events and on BFI Player*. BFI Flare was delighted to welcome so many to the festival with 92% occupancy at BFI Southbank, up from 87% in 2024, with 50% of bookers new to BFI Flare.

Over 12 days between 19 – 30 March, audiences enjoyed 56 features, 1 series and 81 shorts from 41 countries at screenings at BFI Southbank.

The festival hosted 34 World Premieres, 18 International Premieres, 7 European Premieres and 47 UK Premieres from across the programme of features, shorts and series.

Over 260 filmmakers and their teams from 28 countries attended with guests including Andrew Ahn, Bowen Yang, Lily Gladstone, Kelly Marie Tran, Han Gi-Chan, Joan Chen, Zackary Drucker, Elena Oxman, Laurie Townshend, Staceyann Chin, Lloyd Eyre-Morgan, Neil Ely, David Tag, Lorraine Stanley, Kerry Howard, Jacob Partali, Filipe Matzembacher, Marcio Reolon, Shatara Michelle Ford, Sasha Compere, Onir, Michael Clowater, Charlie Creed-Miles, Rebecca Lenkiewicz, Marco Berger, Darren Thornton, Colin Thornton, James McArdle, Sara Harrak, Dame Kelly Holmes, Leah Harvey, Alexander Lincoln, Jack Brett-Anderson, Anaiis Cisco, Gordon Warnecke, Kimberly Reed, Jonovia Chase and Esteban Arango.

*Top L to R: The Wedding Banquet, Enigma, Solers United*
*Bottom L to R: A Mother Apart, Four Mothers, Night Stage*

This year’s Festival saw the 11th year of #FiveFilmsForFreedom in partnership with the British Council. This landmark LGBTQIA+ digital initiative presents five films from the BFI Flare programme for free to audiences globally and invites everyone everywhere to watch, share, and spark conversations, to show solidarity with LGBTQIA+ communities in countries where freedom and equal rights are limited. The 2025 film selection spanned from Indonesia (NGGAK!!!/NO!!!), the USA/China (IF I MAKE IT TO THE MORNING), New Zealand (WAIT, WAIT, NOW!) and the UK (DRAGFOX and WE’LL GO DOWN IN HISTORY) and early viewing figures show the digital campaign attracted over 2.2 million views, with worldwide figures still being counted. The five filmmaking teams were guests at a reception at the Houses of Parliament in the UK welcomed by Alan Strickland MP. Meanwhile, multiple in person screenings and events took place across the world including Greece, India, Nepal, Poland and New Zealand. This global movement has attracted over 28.2 million views in the last eleven years, with audiences joining together to celebrate love as a human right.

This year’s edition opened with the International Premiere of Andrew Ahn’s touching dramedy THE WEDDING BANQUET, fresh off its World Premiere at the Sundance Film Festival. The UK Premiere of erotic thriller NIGHT STAGE by award winning filmmakers Filipe Matzembacher and Marcio Reolon closed the festival.

Other highlights from this year’s film programme included the Special Presentation of award-winning writer-director Shatara Michelle Ford’s DREAMS IN NIGHTMARES. An exploration of identity, the film follows three Black queer femmes in their mid 30s as they take a road trip across the Midwestern United States in search of their friend who has seemingly disappeared off the grid.

BFI Flare also welcomed Bowen Yang onstage at BFI Southbank on 20 March for a Screen Talk hosted by fellow actor-comedian and collaborator Matt Rogers. The entertaining discussion went through Yang’s eclectic career in an illuminating discussion to a packed audience.

Exciting World Premieres presented at the festival included Divine Sung’s dreamy and beautifully shot coming-of age drama SUMMER’S CAMERA following a teenage girl experiencing her first crush and uncovering revelations about her recently deceased father. A gynecologist’s drug-fuelled escape and a trans club manager’s legal battles merge into an unlikely alliance against society’s control of women’s bodies in WHERE YOU FIND ME by Willi Andrick, Juan Bermúdez, Isis Rampf and Anna Schröder. Two seemingly mismatched men form an unexpected connection over the course of one cold London night, in Liam Calvert’s warm-hearted debut A NIGHT LIKE THIS starring Alexander Lincoln (Emmerdale, Doctors), Jack Brett Anderson and David Bradley (Harry Potter, Game of Thrones). In his heartwarming documentary feature debut HOW TO LIVE, Kenyan filmmaker Njoroge Muthoni explores Nairobi’s vibrant ballroom scene and celebrates queer African joy. The pull of hook-up apps becomes a double-edged sword for a young man looking for connection in captivating Buenos Aires-set comedy-drama A FEW FEET AWAY by Tadeo Pestaña Caro. In Yu-jin Lee’s moving comedy MANOK the owner of a South Korean lesbian bar must return to her small hometown after clashing with the city’s younger queer community.

The final day of the festival also offered audiences a second chance to catch a selection of the buzziest BFI Flare 2025 films that they may have missed, in the BEST OF FEST section. These included the previously mentioned MANOK from director Yu-jin Lee; Darren Thornton’s delightful and heartfelt dramedy FOUR MOTHERS about one people-pleasing son and four extremely demanding mothers; Čejen Černić Čanak’s SANDBAG DAM explores the relationship between two young men which causes upset in a small Croatian village with a very traditional outlook on life; in spite of parents, teachers and the government, trans kids blossom and bloom in all their glory in this collection of life-affirming shorts – LET TRANS KIDS BLOOM; Marco Calvani’s impressive and assured directorial feature debut HIGH TIDE is a moving exploration of the fragility and beauty of human connection; an intersex sex worker’s life spins out of control over the course of one night, in Esteban Arango’s PONYBOI – a gripping, queer twist on the crime thriller; from the comic to the tragic, TO YOUR SOULS: Shorts from the UK & Ireland beautifully capture the breadth of LGBTQIA+ experiences in the UK and Ireland; Following the lives of three elderly activists, Alexis Taillant’s moving film IF I DIE, IT’LL BE OF JOY gives a voice to members of the queer community who are often silenced; Set in 1930s Mexico, a daring young woman flees into the Jalisco mountains in search of her biological father, and her freedom in Isabel Cristina Fregoso’s THE MULETEER.

The programme featured a wide range of events and talks, which included a return of the Festival’s popular interview sessions THE MAKERS with Andrew Ahn and James Schamus (THE WEDDING BANQUET), acclaimed Indian director Onir (WE ARE FAHEEM & KARUN), renowned playwright and screenwriter/director Rebecca Lenkiewicz (HOT MILK) and award-winning Argentinian director Marco Berger (THE ASTRONAUT LOVERS). Additional events included a celebration of queer moments on EastEnders in QUEERING THE SQUARE: 40 YEARS OF EASTENDERS; the talk FOR US, BY US: A HISTORY OF BLACK QUEER WOMEN’S CINEMA tracing the history of films made by, for and about Black queer women; a bold and unapologetic showcase of how Learning Disabled and autistic filmmakers are transforming the world of film with their voices, stories and visions in QUEER FREEDOM: NOW AND THEN; celebrating 40 years of Bronski Beat’s The Age of Consent, SMALLTOWN STORIES explored the radical queer political movements of the 1980s to the present day and the return of the festival’s Big Gay Film Quiz.

The festival’s 2025 industry programme offered topical industry-focused discussions plus industry networking events and press and industry screenings. The industry events programme, which took place between 21 and 23 March, included panels on film funding, personal documentary, script editing, music supervision, festival programming and a spotlight on German filmmaking. Industry events included SHOW ME THE MONEY – how to raise funding for your film in the ever-evolving realm of film finance; exploring the journey of making a personal, first-person documentary in ME, MYSELF AND I; LGBTQIA+ film festival programmers shared their processes and how they make their curatorial decisions in MEET THE PROGRAMMERS; SPOTLIGHT ON GERMANY – a selection of filmmakers from Germany discussed their films and series screening at BFI Flare; THE SOUND OF MUSIC: FINDING THE PERFECT SONGS FOR YOUR FILM explored what a music supervisor’s role entails and WORKING WITH A SCRIPT EDITOR shone a light on what a script editor does and how they can they help writers?

The successful professional development programme, BFI NETWORK & BAFTA Mentoring programme in partnership with BFI Flare, once again returned to the festival. This year’s cohorts of six talented UK-based writers, directors and producers, each working towards their long-form debuts in film and television were: Adam Bennett-Lea, Sarah Drummond, Yasmin Godo, Ames Pennington, Masha Thorpe, and Laura Jayne Tunbridge. Made possible thanks to National Lottery funding, BFI Flare marks the start of a year-long programme designed to equip the participants with the tools, connections, and support needed to navigate the realities of developing long-form LGBTQIA+ work in the UK and internationally. An impressive list of alumni of the programme have gone on to build sustainable careers in the industry over the past decade, including Emily McDonald, director of Am I Being Unreasonable? (2025); Amrou Al-Kadhi, director and writer of Layla (2024); Georgi Banks-Davies, BAFTA-winning director of I Hate Suzie (2020) and The Night Manager (2025); Georgia Oakley, BAFTA-nominated director of Blue Jean (2022); and Aleem Khan, BAFTA-nominated director and writer of After Love (2020). Several alumni also had films in BFI Flare this year, including Matthew Jacobs Morgan, director and writer of Lisbon; and Charlie Tidmas, director of We’ll Go Down in History.