Queer East Festival Celebrates Fifth Anniversary with Diverse LGBTQ+ Programme
Queer East Festival, a groundbreaking event showcasing LGBTQ+ cinema and visual arts, is back to celebrate its fifth anniversary in 2024. The festival, founded in 2020 to address the lack of East and Southeast Asian representation in the entertainment industry, has gained popularity and size over the years, leaving its mark in London and across the UK.
Running from 17 to 28 April 2024, the festival’s program boasts a fantastic lineup of film screenings, art exhibitions, and performance events in London. Audiences can expect contemporary feature films, documentaries, shorts, as well as special anniversary and retrospective screenings that highlight a diverse range of LGBTQ+ stories from East Asia, Southeast Asia, and their diaspora communities.
Some of the standout films in this year’s lineup include the Opening Gala UK Premiere of “A Song Sung Blue” (China, 2023), which was nominated for the Queer Palm and Golden Camera at the Cannes Film Festival. Additionally, the documentary “Love Bound” (UK, 2024) sheds light on Qiuyan Chen’s journey after suing the Chinese Government over homophobic textbooks, while “Asog, a screwball” (Philippines, 2023) presents a tragicomedy starring real-life survivors of Super Typhoon Yolanda. “I Am What I Am” (Japan, 2022) also makes its UK Premiere, offering an asexual drama starring Toko Miura from “Drive My Car.”
In addition to film screenings, the festival introduces an ‘expanded’ program with unique events such as “Steamy Intimacies: A Queer East Sauna Experience,” where audiences can enjoy a screening at a sauna while indulging in congee, sweet soup, and fried dough sticks. Other special events include “Re-encountering Sunsets, Waves, Birds and Bees,” followed by a guided nature walk at the Museum of the Home’s garden, and the return of the festival’s dance program with “Disco-TECA,” a dance performance recreating the disco scene of early 1980s China.
For more information and tickets, visit the festival’s official website at queereast.org.uk. Don’t miss this celebration of LGBTQ+ voices and stories from East and Southeast Asia at Queer East Festival 2024.
