London Lesbian & Gay Film Festival

Time Out picks the cream of this year's LLGFF crop

Full festival listings

 
The boys
Perhaps the most striking new work in this year’s Festival comes from the Philippines in the shape of two features from the young director Auraeus Solito, who’s gathering something of a reputation on the festival circuit. ‘Tulí’, one of the Centrepiece screenings, and ‘The Blossoming of Maximo Oliveros’ are both engaging and accomplished, if a little rough-edged, and all the more impressive for their diversity: both are concerned with adolescence and queer self-determination, but where ‘Tulí’ is located in a ritual- and tradition-dominated jungle village, ‘Maximo…’ is the city-set tale of a delicate lad’s attraction to a rookie cop.

The other Centrepiece screening, ‘Rag Tag’, offers a rare screen depiction of black British gay love, but as film-making it’s decidedly clunky. The Closing Gala, meanwhile – a contemporary Manhattanite take on ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray’ – is a handsome but mannered affair, sharing several aspects with Will Self’s version of the story.

As is often the case, much of the most noteworthy work is to be found in the archive and specially-programmed strands. The ’70s-based Art of the Erotic Imagination line-up offers plenty to get hot under the outsized open-neck collar about: if you like Pierre et Gilles you’ll go ape for the oiled pastel archetypes of James Bidgood’s staggeringly heady, horny, homemade ‘Pink Narcissus’, while vintage porn gets an airing with the Erotic Films of Peter de Rome (who will be on stage afterwards) and William E Jones’ extended pricktease ‘V.O’, a remix of non-explicit set-up scenes from ’60s and ’70s porn flicks. There’s also a chance to see the legendary Jack Smith’s Bacchanalian frenzy ‘Flaming Creatures’ – equal parts lippy application and writhing gyration – and Mary Jordan’s gorgeous new documentary about the idiosyncratic artist, an underrated contemporary of Warhol’s.

The revamped BFI Southbank’s Studio and Mediatheque are also put to good use with some intriguing TV material from the vaults. ‘The Connoisseur’, from 1966, is a disarmingly bold take on homosexuality in a thinly-veiled Eton. A young Ian Ogilvy and Richard O’Sullivan go head-to-head as a sneeringly decadent toff and peevishly outraged Captain of House; the former anticipates his glorious school bully turn in ‘Ripping Yarns’ while the latter is unnervingly reminiscent of ‘Knowing Me, Knowing You’-era Alan Partridge. Also well worth catching is Alison Steadman as a young army recruit prone to ‘double-bunking’ in ‘Girl’ (1974) and John Mortimer’s ‘Bermondsey’ (1972), billed as ‘“Brokeback Mountain” in a pub in south London’.

Full festival listings

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