MMU film season celebrates LGBT cinema

Shortbus will be one of the films shown during the season

A SEASON of ground breaking films, organised by Manchester Metropolitan University, will celebrate LGBT cinema next month.

Seeing Queerly: A Season of LGBT Cinema has been organised to coincide with LGBT History Month, with support from Film Hub NWC, Queer Contact and Macdonald Hotels & Resorts.

The event was the brainchild of Dr Andrew Moor, Reader in Cinema History at the university.

He said: “The British Film Institute's fantastic new audience development scheme got me thinking about ways of bringing together colleagues at MMU who work in film studies and sexuality studies, and was an added incentive to partner up with people like Contact and LGBT History month to launch some events for the LGBTQI community.”

Special events

Dr Moor continued: “We have some smaller screenings, discussion groups and talks but I'm particularly excited about the Q&A with Justin V Bond after the screening of John Cameron Mitchell's beautiful and upbeat film Shortbus. V (as Justin is known) was best known as Kiki, 50% of the great drag act Kiki and Herb and is one of greatest names on the world's queer cabaret circuit.

“The other highlight of the season is an extremely special screening of an almost unseen film by Britain's premier queer artist/film-maker/writer/gardener, the late Derek Jarman. Derek personally shot Will You Dance With Me? for the director Ron Peck, who needed some gay club footage for a feature film of his own.

“Ron has now begun to make this 80 minute film available for viewing for the first time ever, twenty years after Derek's death from AIDS. It's only been screened so far in the UK at the BFI Flare, the London LGBT Film Festival, so this is a very special event.

“I knew I wanted it to be in a bar or a club space in the gay village, for there to be dancing, for it to be free and for it to raise money for the George House Trust and the Albert Kennedy Trust in Manchester. I can't wait to see how it goes down!”

Free screenings

The season will include films by directors Jeffrey Schwartz, Frank Ripploh, John Cameron Mitchell and Derek Jarman, plus music and talks.

Included on the bill is Schwartz’s documentary about the LGBT activist Vito Russo, film critic and AIDS activist who came to prominence after the Stonewall riots as an angry critic of LGBT representation in the media.

Also screening is Ripploh’s Taxi Zum Flo, a highly personal sex comedy following theconstantly sruising lifestyle of Frank, a gay schoolteacher, and his relationship with sweet-natured, domesticated Berndt.

The films will screen on February 11 and 12 respectively at MMU's Business School. Tickets are free, but places should be reserved in advance via Eventbrite. Both screenings will be introduced by Dr Moor, and there will be post-screening discussions.

Raising money

At Contact on February 15 will be the New York comedy Shortbus, followed by a Q&A with the legendary queer cabaret icon – and star of the film – Justin V. Bond. Tickets cost £9, or £6 for concessions, and are available via the Contact website.

The final film in the season will be a special charity screening of Dere Jarman’s Will You Dance With Me? In 1984, Jarman (Sebastiane, Last of England, Edward II) spent an evening in the London gay nightclub Benjy’s, capturing intimate footage of a night out in the mid-eighties.

Jarman's roaming camera dances with the music, cruises the building, flirts, and catches handsome faces in the crowd. It is a rhapsodic snapshot of the gay scene in 1984 - a trip down memory lane for some, a fascinating time capsule for all. This experimental vérité-style film was screened for the first time in 2014 and it now gets its regional premiere in the UK.

The film will be followed by a set by DJ Greg Thorpe, and money from donation buckets will be given to the George House Trust and the Albert Kennedy Trust.

Public lectures

There will also be two public lectures taking place in MMU’s Geoffrey Manton building.

The first, which takes place on February 16, will be given by Dr Andrew Moor and is titled “Being a Gay Film Critic in the 1970s”.

The second talk, from MMU’s Jon Binnie and Christian Klesse, takes place on February 23 and will discuss queer film festivals and activism.

Both talks start at 6pm and are free, although spaces should be reserved online.