Fringe! is a film and arts festival rooted in London’s queer creative scene and welcoming everyone. It is a not-for-profit and run by a team of passionate volunteers. From feature films to experimental art, workshops to interactive walks and wild parties, Fringe! Fest 2013 will be hosting over 40 diverse events to tickle every one of the senses.
With a signature blend of eye opening films, DIY and experimental work, the thoughtful, the provocative and the strange, Fringe will be packing out cinemas, art galleries, pop-up venues and basement clubs. Fringe! Fest was launched in 2011, by a group of queer creatives as a community response to arts cuts carnage. Our mission was to offer a dynamic, representative and unmistakably fresh alternative to other film and arts festivals. In its first year Fringe! pulled off an amazing 2,000 attendees, three critics’ choice reviews in Time Out and widespread and glowing coverage across print and online press.
In 2012 they expanded their programme to four days and increased the number of cinemas and venues doubling our attendee figure to 4,000 and tripling media coverage of the festival across print and online, the gay, film and mainstream press 2013 is set to be the biggest year yet with high profile films already in the offing, more screenings, more art, more performance and more fun.
ART: BOB MIZER: FIGHT CLUB
Studio1.1, The Bob Mizer Foundation and Fringe! present a one-week-only installation sampling later period wrestling films from the estate of legendary photographer, filmmaker and independent publisher Bob Mizer. Mizer founded his ground-breaking Athletic Model Guild studio in 1945 and during his long career, his work influenced countless others from Andy Warhol to Bruce Weber on the one hand, and the entire emerging gay independent publishing and adult film industry on the other. Over his fifty year career as an artist, he photographed bodybuilders, US servicemen, male prostitutes (and their girlfriends), and his fair share of cultural figures, including Victor Mature, Alan Ladd, Susan Hayward, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Joe Dallesandro, and a vast array of other subjects which have only recently been coming to light.
Bob began making films in 1954 which he advertised in his own publication (the highly-influential “Physique Pictorial” series) and as the times changed, so did his product: which went from “one reel” super-8 black and white posing-strap movies to 16 and 35-mm films shown in theaters across the country, and then finally to the VHS video format.
This pop-up exhibition, realized in conjunction with Studio 1.1 and the Fringe! Film Festival, displays output from the mid-1970s to late 1980s. Organized by Konstantinos Menelaou of Fringe! in conjunction with Dennis Bell and Billy Miller of the Bob Mizer Foundation.
ART: BOB MIZER: FIGHT CLUB – Studio 1.1, 57A Redchurch Street, London E2 7DJ
Thursday 11th April-Tuesday 16th April, 12noon-6pm – Private view: Wednesday 10th April, 6pm-9pm
ART: FREYA NAJADE: IF YOU’RE LUCKY YOU GET OLD
Fringe! Film and Arts Fest presents If You’re Lucky You Get Old, an exhibition of photographs by Freya Najade, whose work has appeared in The Times, The British Journal of Photography and Testcard, amongst others. For this project, Najade travelled to Palm Springs, where she stayed for five weeks meeting old people in senior centres. To her surprise, the elderly she met were not just proud of their age and the fact that they had made it that far in life, but they were also still falling in love and breaking up. They were overcoming their lifetime partner’s death, living out their erotic fantasies or dealing with the loss of their sexual desire. Talking to these people showed Najade that inner growth is ever-lasting, and that humans beyond the age of seventy continue to love, suffer, long, dream and have sexual feelings. If You’re Lucky You Get Old articulately captures this, and brings both straight and queer elderly people, people often underexposed, into the foreground. Freya Najade lives and works in London, and has participated in exhibitions in London, Germany and the USA.
Long White Cloud, 151 Hackney Road, London E2 8JL – Wednesday 10th April-Friday 26th April – Private view: Tuesday 9th April, 6pm-9pm
ART: PENNIE KEY: 365 PICTURES WITH SEXUAL CONTENT
Fringe! Film and Art Fest presents 365 Pictures with Sexual Content, a visual diary of photographs taken over the course of one year. Penelope Koliopoulou (aka Pennie Key) graduated from the
University of the Arts with an MA in Film and Fashion. Key examines the sexuality of everyday life regardless of gender or sexual orientation. In doing so, she ultimately encourages the viewer to break away from binary thinking and to see sexuality as something potentially fluid. Central to the work is the non-gender specific gaze, which she playfully uses to sexualize and fetishize mundane situations. The often grainy and unsaturated images reveal intimate surroundings in which the photographer places herself and actively questions the sociological aspects of gender roles, sexual orientation and its associated connotations. What we see as a documentation of the private essentially becomes political. Key will continue her project throughout the duration of the exhibition (with new works each day) and for the rest of the year.
White Cubicle Gallery, George & Dragon, 2-4 Hackney Road, London E2 7NS – Friday 5th April- Tuesday 17th April, 8pm-midnight – Private view: Thursday 4th April, 6pm-midnight daily
ART: ALEX GRACE & KONSTANTINOS MENELAOU: QUEER BODIES
Queer Bodies is a slide show curated by Alex Grace and Konstantinos Menelaou of found photographs sourced from the internet, books, magazines and private collections. The process of this selection has been a non-apologetic one based on the pleasure of viewing. The subject of ‘queer’ in the arts is a sensitive one and it is expected to abide by a set of rules. Often this process prevents the possibility for better understanding and further development on queer issues and prevents emotional appreciation. Queer Bodies focuses on the simple admiration of the form and allows sensations to take over.
School of Fringe! @ The Old Cardinal Pole School, Victoria Park Road, London E9 7HD- Friday 12th April, 6pm-10pm, Saturday 13th & Sunday 14th April, 1pm-11pm, free
ART: RAW
April 11th – 14th 2013, Daily at 10pm
Fringe! Film and Arts Fest presents RAW an online video project conceived and curated by Konstantinos Menelaou with the participation of video artists including Death in Paris, Serafin Mesa and Younji Kou. Using found footage of explicit sexual acts as their canvas, the focus is to subvert the fundamental use of porn production and its bodily effect on their audience. Their personal artistic and aesthetic input on this series of explicit footage aims to evoke a response beyond that usually intended by pornography and to introduce an alternative viewpoint to the explicit representations of sex in the media.
The project launches with the first video instalment on Thursday 11th April 2013, 10pm. Every day at 10pm a new video will be revealed with the last one to premier on Sunday 14th April 2013.
Thursday 11th April
EUROPEAN PREMIERE
OPENING FILM: FIVE DANCES
Hackney Picturehouse, 270 Mare Street, London E8 1HE
9.30pm, £8
Dir: Alan Brown, USA, 2012, 83mins
Writer-director Alan Brown’s collaboration with choreographer Jonah Bokaer builds a tight toned narrative around five gifted dancers in New York. In a classic tale of finding success and love in the big city, Chip – a shy Kansas country boy – steps off the bus and into the tough world of a modern dance company. He is soon initiated into the rites of passage of a dancer’s life, where discipline and hard work give way to tentative friendships and the odd furtive liaison.
Followed by a Q&A with director Alan Brown.
+ A Ballet Dialogue, Dir: Márcio Reolon, Brazil, 2012, 8mins. Portuguese with English subtitles.
Friday 12th April
LIMITED VISIBILITY
FILM: GEN SILENT
Hackney Picturehouse, 270 Mare Street, London E8 1HE
4pm, £8
Dir: Stu Maddux, USA, 2011, 70mins
Critically acclaimed documentary Gen Silent offers a startling look at older lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people living in fear and isolation. Unlike any film before, Gen Silent discovers how many who won the first civil rights victories for generations to come are now dying prematurely because they are reluctant to ask for help and have too few friends or family to care for them. The film’s award winning director and producer, Stu Maddux, exposes the disparity in the quality of paid caregiving from mainstream care facilities committed to making their LGBT residents safe and happy, to places where LGBT elders face discrimination by staff and bullying by other seniors. As we watch the challenges that these men and women face, we are offered new hope each time they cross paths with impassioned people trying to change LGBT aging for the better.
+ The Devotion Project: More Than Ever, Dir: Neil Young & Tony Osso, USA, 10mins
Followed by a panel discussion about LGBT aging with members of Age UK, Magic Me and Stonewall.
Supported by Film London’s Community Pilot Fund.
SHORTS: ONE WAY OR ANOTHER
School of Fringe! @ The Old Cardinal Pole School, Victoria Park Road, London E9 7HD
6.30pm, Free
Finding the one, the one for right now, and the ones to leave behind. Ain’t love grand?
(Full film listings on the website)
FILM: I LOVE HOLLY
School of Fringe! @ The Old Cardinal Pole School, Victoria Park Road, London E9 7HD
6.30pm, Free
Dir: Karim Zeriahen, France, 2009, 52mins
French video artist Karim Zeriahen loves Holly Woodlawn – so much so that he created this affectionate documentary portrait of the Warhol superstar. An extended interview full of bawdy stories and embellished memories, Woodlawn talks about her childhood in Florida, her life in New York, becoming a member of Warhol’s infamous Factory and – now in her late 60s – her recent years living in West Hollywood. Woodlawn’s charismatic presence illuminates this work full of rare film clips and evocative archive imagery.
EVENT: LITTLE JOE CLASSROOM LAUNCH
School of Fringe! @ The Old Cardinal Pole School, Victoria Park Road, London E9 7HD
6.30pm-10.30pm, Free
Following last year’s unique film space The Little Joe Clubhouse, Little Joe are returning to Fringe! with The Little Joe Classroom, a temporary free education space with talks, workshops and screenings, created to engage the public in a queer dialogue with cinema and expand the magazine into an interactive, open space for collaborative learning. The Little Joe Classroom will take place in an actual classroom of the disused Old Cardinal Pole School on London’s Victoria Park Road.
Little Joe is a unique forum for the discussion of film around subjects of sexuality and gender within a queer historical context. Since launching their first issue in 2010, the magazine has quickly become an important place for stimulating dialogues on film, leading the way in queer analysis of cinema and providing a platform to celebrate films that inspire alternative discourse.
Full programme and speakers to be announced soon.
EVENT: LESBIAN CRINGE! AND GAY SCHOOL WITH THE MOST CAKE
School of Fringe! @ The Old Cardinal Pole School, Victoria Park Road, London E9 7HD
6.30pm-10.30pm, £5
Teenage diaries can be confused and emotional to say the least, especially if you’re a young lesbian with a whole lot of feelings. That’s why it’s fun to read them out loud years later, to a group of your peers over drinks, in an abandoned Girls School! The lesbian confessional is a tradition that London lesbian website The Most Cake proudly practices with their witty blog posts about the pleasures and pitfalls of modern lesbian life. At Cringe! the girls will be upping the angst and embarrassing references to Avril Lavigne by turning back time and delving into the mind of the teenage lesbian. Join The Most Cake writers, who’ll be reading selected excerpts from their diaries, by bringing along your own. Discussion, workshops, and drinks will follow.
FILM: IT IS NOT THE HOMOSEXUAL WHO IS PERVERSE BUT THE SOCIETY IN WHICH HE LIVES
School of Fringe! @ The Old Cardinal Pole School, Victoria Park Road, London E9 7HD – 8pm, Free
Dir: Rosa von Praunheim, Germany, 1971, 67mins. German with English subtitles.
Praunheim’s film is at once a pedagogical caveat and political manifesto. Following naïve country boy Daniel after he moves to Berlin and encounters a thriving gay community, It Is Not The Homosexual is a provocative look at the lives of gay men in 1970s Germany. The film follows Daniel from heteronormative behaviour to finding a sugardaddy, to a job in a local gay bar that makes him the most eligible bachelor in town. Through Daniel’s journey Praunheim comments on everything from the shallower tendencies in gay culture to cruising for sex in the early ‘70s until Daniel meets a group of revolutionary gays who introduce him to the gay rights movement. Like many of Praunheim’s films It Is Not The Homosexual caused a scandal in both the liberal and conservative establishment as well as in homosexual circles after it was first shown on German state television in 1973. What makes Praunheim’s work so provocative as a queer director is his fearlessness, what others call audacity, to not only point the finger at society, but also at the gay community itself as guilty of homophobia.
UK PREMIERE / LIMITED VISIBILITY
FILM: SATAN’S ANGEL: QUEEN OF THE FIRE TASSELS
Hackney Picturehouse, 270 Mare Street, London E8 1HE
10.45pm, £8
Dir: Joshua Dragotta, USA, 2012, 72mins
Lesbian burlesque star Satan’s Angel has been setting nightclubs ablaze with her legendary flaming tassel act from the early ’60s to today. Now 68, Angel Walker recounts her childhood, affairs with movie stars and battles with addiction. Both a raucous look at the history of burlesque (featuring legends like Dixie Evans and Kitten Natividad) and a tender tale of love between Angel and her devoted girlfriend Vic, this documentary proves that sexy does not have a sell by date.
Supported by Film London’s Community Pilot Fund.
AUDIENCE CHOICE
FILM: MEAN GIRLS
Rio Cinema, 103-107 Kingsland High Street, London E8 2PB
11.30pm, £8
Dir: Mark Waters, USA, 2004, 96mins
The teen-comedy gets a sophisticated makeover in Mean Girls, Tina Fey’s hilariously astute script casting a sardonic look at girl-on-girl politics. Lindsay Lohan stars as the naive Cady Heron, who joins high school for the first time at sixteen and soon gets a lesson in psychological warfare, bitchy powerplay and social hierarchies. When Cady befriends queen of the “Plastics”, the beautiful but “evil” Regina George (Rachel McAdams) the two become embroiled in a battle for the role of alpha female and, most importantly, high school hottie Aaron Samuels. Notoriously quotable, Fringe! are holding this screening as a frivolous quote-a-long following 2012’s all dancing, all singing In Bed With Madonna, hosted by East End drag legend Holestar. Come along and test your knowledge of this razor sharp foray into the perils of high school with likeminded Mean Girls fans!
Dress up as a Plastic, bring a page from your Burn Book and run the Fringe! Mean Girls Pageant with totally fetch prizes for the winner.
PARTY: TOTALLY FETCH: FRINGE! VS MEAN GIRLS
Dalston Superstore, 117 Kingsland High Street, London E8 2PB
10pm-4am, £5, £3 with tickets from the Rio screening
Truly out-gay yourself at our Mean Girls afterparty cum High School Prom because, let’s face it, you probably have got a big lesbian crush on us. You’ll hear the biggest hits of 2004, your fave tracks from the Mean Girls soundtrack and then some more as Grizzle’s John Sizzle & A Man to Pet and Fringe!’s The Duchess of Pork & Kostakis take over the bar while Hannah Holland (Batty Bass), Nic Fisher (Gutterslut) and Vangelis & Tareq (Can You Relate?) drop some beats in the basement. That’s like so fetch, right?
And remember! Don’t have sex because you will get pregnant and die!
Saturday 13th April
EVENT: LITTLE JOE CLASSROOM LAUNCH
School of Fringe! @ The Old Cardinal Pole School, Victoria Park Road, London E9 7HD
2pm-7pm, Free
See Friday and website for more details
EVENT: OPEN BARBERS
School of Fringe! @ The Old Cardinal Pole School, Victoria Park Road, London E9 7HD
2pm-7pm, pay what you can
Open Barbers offer a personalised and warm haircutting experience with a queer and trans friendly attitude. They seek to promote the diversity of identities in society and celebrate people’s appearance in the way they wish to be seen. For Fringe! they will be providing haircuts for any takers at their pop up salon at School of Fringe!
CLASS: SENSUAL SPANKING
School of Fringe! @ The Old Cardinal Pole School, Victoria Park Road, London E9 7HD
1pm, £10
Everyone loves a good spanking and deserves the knowledge to pleasure. Allison England will give Fringe!’s audience the chance to gain the delightful knowledge of how to deliver the most delicious spanking. Starting out with a brief history of spanking, England will then take participants through the steps to create the scene and show why spanking is sensual and thrilling, including tips on how to please both partners. The class will end with a chance to try out these newly learned techniques.
EUROPEAN PREMIERE / LIMITED VISIBILITY
FILM: DEEPSOUTH
Rio Cinema, 103-107 Kingsland High Street, London E8 2PB
1.30pm, £8
Dir: Lisa Biagotti, USA, 2012, 72mins
In the near-forgotten corners of the rural American South Josh seeks the support of an underground gay family miles away from his Mississippi Delta hometown, Monica and Tammy try to unite participants at an annual HIV retreat in Louisiana with no funds and few resources, and Kathie spends 120 days a year on the road fighting a bureaucracy that continues to ignore the HIV epidemic in the American South. deepsouth is a poetic and grounding documentary that follows the lives of four extraordinary people affected by HIV who redefine traditional Southern values to create their own solutions to survive.
Supported by Film London’s Community Pilot Fund.
UK PREMIERE
FILM: ON THESE SHOULDERS WE STAND
School of Fringe! @ The Old Cardinal Pole School, Victoria Park Road, London E9 7HD
1.30pm, £5
Dir: Glenne McElhinney, USA, 2009, 75mins
Not everything began with Stonewall. On These Shoulders We Stand is an illuminating historical account of early gay life and activism in Los Angeles told by the people who lived it. Eleven elders of the Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender community in Los Angeles chronicle gay life from the 1950s into the early 1980s. In this tale of two cities, there is one, a city with a substantial, fun and vibrant gay community, and the other, a city obsessed with rendering that community invisible, kept in the closet or locked in its jails. The film brings to light Los Angeles’ hidden gay history by interweaving first person accounts with narration and unprecedented access to seldom-seen archival materials.
SHORTS: TRANS MOMENT
School of Fringe! @ The Old Cardinal Pole School, Victoria Park Road, London E9 7HD
2pm, free
Little stabs at gender exploring happiness.
(Full film listings on the website)
LECTURE: RYAN POWELL: NINE QUEER TRANCES
Arcola Tent, 24 Ashwin Street, London E8 3DL
2pm, free
Looking at nine filmic instances, this combined lecture and screening will explore a range of films where queer desire has been articulated through the representation of trance states. Blurring distinctions between wake and sleep, night and day, and imagination and actuality, these films envision ways of experiencing desire; pushing, twisting and bending the limits of perception and disorienting the precepts of ‘normal’ day-to-day life. From the wandering young men who move in and through landscapes of desire in post-war underground films such as Christmas USA (USA, Gregory Markopoulos, 1949) and Dream A40 (UK, Lloyd Reckord, 1965) to the gothic hysteria induced in the presence of female-female desire in popular films such as Cat People (USA, Jacques Tourneur, 1942) and The Haunting (UK, Robert Wise, 1963), trance episodes regularly mark an entry point for the elaboration of a variety of queer states and modalities. This program will cover a variety of examples from the post-war years to the present, spanning horror, underground film, porn, independent film and classic Hollywood in order to explore how trance imagery has worked, and continues to work, as a potent vehicle of queer elaboration.
LIMITED VISIBILITY
FILM: SILENCE=DEATH
Rio Cinema, 103-107 Kingsland High Street, London E8 2PB
3.30pm, £8
Dir: Rosa von Praunheim, Germany, 1990, 60mins.
The first part of Rosa von Praunheim’s 1990 AIDS trilogy, Silence=Death is an inspiring documentary examining how New York artists, including Keith Haring, David Wojnarowicz, and Allen Ginsberg, confronted the AIDS crisis during the years of the Reagan administration. Navigating us through an emotional spectrum from quiet contemplation to rage, one thing we don’t see among these artists is resignation. An important document in queer history, and a powerful portal into a moment of desperation yet resilience, Silence=Death is unmissable.
+ A Short History of Facial Hair, Dir: Hermano Silva, UK, 2011, 14mins
Supported by Film London’s Community Pilot Fund.
LIMITED VISIBILITY
WORKSHOP: IT’S BETTER TO KNOW
School of Fringe! @ The Old Cardinal Pole School, Victoria Park Road, London E9 7HD
3.30pm, free
An informal session with London’s community HIV charity, Positive East, on the importance of being sexual health aware. The workshop will include an introduction into what it means to know your HIV status, bust myths about the implications, and go into detail about the benefits of knowing and cons of not knowing. The session will provide an entirely confidential space at which participants are free to share as much, or little, as they wish.
Supported by Film London’s Community Pilot Fund.
FILM: INTERSEXION
School of Fringe! @ The Old Cardinal Pole School, Victoria Park Road, London E9 7HD
3.30pm, free
Dir: Grant Lahood, New Zealand, 2012, 68 mins
A powerful documentary about the troubling history of medical and social stigmatisation of intersex children. Director Lahood follows New Zealand’s first ‘out’ intersex person Mani Bruce Mitchell travels across the world meeting a variety of intersex people who tell their stories ranging from touching to comical. Intersexion explores the lives of those children who are neither born girl nor boy and the results of the surgical procedure conceived by Kiwi doctor John Money that was meant to ‘fix’ children with ambiguous genitalia.
FILM: A FRESH STAB: REPRESENTATIONS OF QUEERNESS & LGBTQI IN FILM
School of Fringe! @ The Old Cardinal Pole School, Victoria Park Road, London E9 7HD
3.30pm, free
A triple premiere of a music video, a short film and work-in-progress footage from an as yet unreleased feature film. Airboy is a music video about a young boy’s interpretation of an exchange he sees happen between two young men at the beach. Darkness is a music video/short film hybrid about a black girl savouring a taste of East London’s nightlife for the first time. Bruno & Earlene Go to Vegas is an LGBTQI road movie and Simon Savory’s love letter to the wonderful people who exist on the fringe, on the outside looking in. Presented by Simon Savory.
FILM: QUEER EYE: FASHION FILMS
Arcola Tent, 24 Ashwin Street, London E8 3DL
3.45pm, free
There is a clear and constant fetishisation of the human body – both male and female – in the genre of fashion films, but the queer element in these works is absorbed by their audiences often without being properly registered. Queer Eye: Fashion Films is a selection of short fashion films that aims to highlight the ways in which such works can invite queer readings and interpretations, thereby stimulating the senses of a queer audience.
FILM: LET MY PEOPLE GO!
Hackney Picturehouse, 270 Mare Street, London E8 1HE
4pm, £8
Dir: Mikael Buch, France, 2011, 96mins. French with English subtitles.
A sweet and hilarious fusion of gay romantic comedy, Jewish family drama and French bedroom farce, Mikael Buch’s Let My People Go! follows the travails and daydreams of the lovelorn Reuben, a French-Jewish gay mailman living in fairytale Finland with his gorgeous Nordic boyfriend. But just before Passover, a series of mishaps and a lovers’ quarrel exile the heartbroken Reuben back to Paris and back to his zany family—including Almodóvar goddess Carmen Maura (Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, Volver) as his ditzy mum, and Truffaut regular Jean-François Stévenin as his lothario father. Scripted by director Mikael Buch and renowned arthouse auteur Christophe Honoré (Love Songs), Let My People Go! both celebrates and upends Jewish and gay stereotypes with wit, gusto and style to spare. The result is deeply heart-warming, fabulously kitschy and hysterically funny.
FILM: HAPPY BIRTHDAY NICO
Aubin Cinema, 64-66 Redchurch Street, London E2 7DP
4pm, £8
After modelling for Vogue from a young age, Christa Päffgen changed her name to a boy’s name and launched Nico into the Sixties. Her lovers included Jim Morrison, Iggy Pop and Alain Delon. She was an iconic presence from Fellini’s La Dolce Vita to Warhol’s Factory where she evolved into more than just a face. She famously collaborated with The Velvet Underground to become the voice of their era-defining first album. A Marlene for the modern age, she pursued a musical career that lasted two decades.
2013 would mark her 75th year birthday. Musician/singer/actress/model/muse – we crown Nico a Club Des Femmes’ Icon, and celebrate her with a screening of Nico related films.
+ a queering introduction by Charlotte Richardson Andrews, founder of Queer Zine Fest London, editor of Wear The Trousers and a freelance journalist for Diva, The Guardian and more.
FILM: BOB MIZER: FROM POSING STRAPS TO PORN – AMG AND THE SEXUAL REVOLUTION IN TRANSITION
School of Fringe! @ The Old Cardinal Pole School, Victoria Park Road, London E9 7HD
5pm, free
The Bob Mizer Foundation’s Billy Miller presents the artist’s mid-to-late career hardcore works and discusses Mizer’s influence and connections to the history of the adult porn industry and the sexual revolution. Films and video works from 1969-1990 include: Max Irish vs. Bill Jason, Jake Scott Session #1, Erotic Positions For Consenting Adults, Night In A Dungeon, Blowjob Film Tests, and more.
FILM: FRIEND OF ESSEX
School of Fringe! @ The Old Cardinal Pole School, Victoria Park Road, London E9 7HD
5.30pm, free
Dir: Amir Dixon, USA, 2012, 42mins
Docu-drama Friend of Essex combines interviews, narrative pieces and poetry inspired by Essex Hemphill’s writings and Marlon Riggs’ 1989 film Tongues Untied to explore what it means to be a black gay man today. The film addresses issues such as religious homophobia, the HIV epidemic affecting young gay black men and how they are perceived within the black community and the LGBT community through personal stories.
LIMITED VISIBILITY
FILM: VIRAL
Arcola Tent, 24 Ashwin Street, London. E8 3DL
5pm, free
Both the rise of the music video and the AIDS crisis have had an enormous impact on popular culture since 1981, and now the time seems ripe to look back and assess how different aspects of the pandemic have been portrayed through the genre over the last two decades. An audio-visual form often dismissed as little more than a vehicle for marketing, we consider the music video as an eloquent commentator for the times we live in. This anthology attests to the ways in which the syndrome has been implicitly and explicitly dealt with by songwriters, performers and directors, and provides a new context for works that can be read as a reference to lives overshadowed by HIV. Curated and presented by Evan Romero.
Supported by Film London’s Community Pilot Fund.
LIMITED VISIBILITY
FILM: NITRATE KISSES
School of Fringe! @ The Old Cardinal Pole School, Victoria Park Road, London E9 7HD
7pm, free
Dir: Barbara Hammer, USA, 1992, 67mins
An experimental documentary poignantly exploring the lost vestiges of lesbian and gay culture. This first feature by Barbara Hammer, a pioneer of lesbian cinema, weaves striking images of four gay and lesbian couples with footage from the 1933 homoerotic film Lot in Sodom. Also focussing on the life of lesbian novelist Willa Catha and the treatment of lesbians by the Third Reich, Nitrate Kisses is a bold and seminal undertaking in the reclaiming of “a history we don’t have”.
+ The Devotion Project: Foremost in My Mind, Dir: Neil Young & Tony Osso, USA, 2013, 9mins
Supported by Film London’s Community Pilot Fund.
EVENT: BEEHAYVE
Hackney Picturehouse, 270 Mare Street, London E8 1HE
7pm, free
Beehayve offer a monthly, queer, social night which alternates between East and West London venues, catering for local lesbians and queer women who enjoy a meet and mingle, away from the typical Soho club scene. Beehayve charge no door fee and offer a laidback atmosphere much like your local, where you can pop by and see some friendly faces and engage in interesting conversation over background music. Their goal is simple; to serve up a warm and welcoming atmosphere for women who are attracted to other women. Saturday 13 April sees a one-off Beehayve and Fringe! Film Fest collaboration, with Beehayve holding a special mingling night at Hackney Picturehouse’s Gallery Bar
FILM: BRUCE LABRUCE’S FRINGE! FEST FINGER FUCK
Arcola Tent, 24 Ashwin Street, London. E8 3DL
7.15pm, free
Exclusively for Fringe!, director Bruce La Bruce presents his favourite YouTube videos, all under one delightfully titled banner. The 34 clips have a loose connection in terms of narrative and thematic form, but represent LaBruce’s “usual obsessions and preoccupations: madness, music, homosexuality, revolution, dance, hysteria, feminism, and glamour.” So, as LaBruce warmly suggests, “please sit back and enjoy my Fringe! Fest Finger Fuck!”
WORLD PREMIERE
FILM: ONE ZERO ONE – THE STORY OF CYBERSISSY AND BAYBJANE
Arcola Tent, 24 Ashwin Street, London. E8 3DL
8.45pm, £8
Dir: Tim Lienhard, Germany, 2013, 90mins. German with English subtitles.
One Zero One is a 90-minute docu-tale, a hybrid of documentary and fiction, following the life of 33-year-old Maroccaine-German Mourad and 48-year-old Dutch Antoine. Mourad is “the smallest drag queen in the world”, at just 149cm tall, he is multi-disabled, and has spent half of his life in hospitals. Mourad has trouble with his legs, no regular fingers or toes, and just one eye (the other is a glass eye, which we see him trade in for a bionic-eye in the movie). Mourad experiments with his disabilities and, unlike most disabled people, doesn’t hide away in the closet, but rather takes to the stage, starring in Matinee group parties amongst the most beautifully built gogo dancers. This is because schizophrenic Antoine, an academic and artist, discovered Mourad’s skills for being a performer and nurtured them. Friends of Amanda Lepore, the pair perform in nightclubs; club kids on the payroll of Ibiza club owners and Susanne Bartsch in NYC. One Zero One is an arty, visually stunning fairytale capturing Mourad and Antoine’s conversations, thoughts and dreams.
Followed by a Q&A with director Tim Lienhard and the film’s protagonists Mourad and Antoine.
+ Man With a Pussy, Dir: Craig Murray, UK, 2012, 3mins
PERFORMANCE: YOU MUST BE AWFULLY SECURE IN YOUR MASCULINITY
School of Fringe! @ The Old Cardinal Pole School, Victoria Park Road, London E9 7HD
9pm, £5
Inspired by Eve Ksofsky Sedgwick’s essay “You must be awfully secure in your masculinity!” Portuguese artist Filipe Canha’s live art performance sees the artist explore the processes of preconceived feminine actions – performed on his body – examining a need to evolve beyond sexual classifications. The performance emerges from the artist’s video installation of the same name, and his live art performance Passivity. Includes a screening of a curated film programme and short Q&A session with the artist.
FILM: GAYBY
Hackney Picturehouse, 270 Mare Street, London E8 1HE
10.45pm, £8
Dir: Jonathan Lisecki, USA, 2012, 89mins
Best friends Jenn and Matt are in a rut. Fed up with the New York dating scene, Jenn spends her days teaching ‘hot yoga’ and running errands for her boss. Matt, unable to get over his ex-boyfriend, has withdrawn into his job. When Jenn proposes that they have a baby together, it seems like the right idea, but can they navigate the sticky situations they hit as they prepare for parenthood? Gayby is an irreverent comedy about friendship, sex, loneliness, and the family you chose.
+ Arts & Crafts Spectacular#1, Dir: Ian Ritterskamp & Sebastien Wolf, Germany, 2010, 1min
WORLD PREMIERE
FILM: IN THEIR ROOM LONDON
Rio Cinema, 103-107 Kingsland High Street London E8 2PB
11.30pm, £8
Dir: Travis Mathews, USA, 2013, 32mins
The third instalment of Travis Mathews’ intimate In Their Room project – a series of portraits of men in their personal spaces – is shot in London. Focused on the ups and downs of dating in an age of GPS hook-up apps, the film’s subjects talk frankly about their sex lives, romance and relationships as they wash, trim and dress up in preparation for a date. Mathews shot this episode of the series during Fringe! 2012.
With a musical introduction by In Their Room London’s soundtrack composer Santiago Latorre.
+ Tom’s Gift, Dir: Charles Lum & Todd Verow, USA, 2012, 7mins
+ Chaser, Dir: Sal Bardo, USA, 2012, 15mins
+ Bankers, Dir: Antonio da Silva, UK, 2012, 12mins
Sunday 14th April
EVENT: LITTLE JOE CLASSROOM LAUNCH
School of Fringe! @ The Old Cardinal Pole School, Victoria Park Road, London E9 7HD
2pm-7pm, Free
See Friday and website for more details
LIMITED VISIBILITY
FILM: GAYS ON TV: THE IMPORTANT THING IS LOVE (1971) + GAY LIFE – GAY MARRIAGE & RELATIONSHIPS (1981)
Rio Cinema, 103-107 Kingsland High Street, London E8 2PB
12.30pm, £8
Gays on TV returns with another double bill of documentary-gems from the 1970s & 80s.
The Important Thing is Love (ITV 1971)
Late one night 42 years ago ITV did something revolutionary, they broadcast an hour long documentary where eight lesbians spoke freely, eloquently and sassily about how natural and wonderful it was to love another woman and how the problems they faced came from society and not from their choice of lover. Amazingly this was the first ever UK documentary where lesbians appeared unashamedly full face to camera and not in the shadow with their faces obscured, like in an episode of Crimewatch.
A rare glimpse and record of lesbian life in London in the early 1970s, The Most Important Thing is Love has its bizarre moments (a cab drivers’ straw poll on lesbians?), but presence of real lesbians on TV for the first time was a revelation and lifeline for many women.
+ Gay Life – Gay Marriage & Relationships (LWT 1981)
Gay Life was the UK’s first ever gay TV series, made by the catchy titled London Weekend Television Minorities Unit. Kitschy, daring and of course fascinatingly dated, this episode discusses gay relationships and marriage. With the gay marriage bill on everyone lips it makes for thought-provoking viewing.
It includes a brief glance at dating pre-mobile apps, the GayWays telephone dating service, as well as couples discussing commitment, cruising, and even heteronormative rituals like…. choosing wallpaper!
Supported by Film London’s Community Pilot Fund.
SHORTS: POWER QUEERS
Arcola Tent, 24 Ashwin Street, London. E8 3DL
2pm, free
From Brazilian babes who take no prisoners, backstabbing bank robbers, and some synchronized swimmers who demand respect.
(full film listings on the website)
WORLD PREMIERE
FILM: THE YEAR I BROKE MY VOICE
School of Fringe! @ The Old Cardinal Pole School, Victoria Park Road, London E9 7HD
2pm, £5
Dir: Madsen Minax, USA, 2012, 47mins
Set in a post-industrial ‘Neverland’ of worn down row houses, looming factories and desolate, rocky seashores, a cast of mostly unnamed, gender ambiguous youths share misadventures that explore friendship, sexuality and the trials that characterize aging. Card games, attempts at hypnotism, impromptu races, haircuts by the blade of a pocket knife and sexual fantasies all function as means for the characters to self reflect and attempt to get to know one another. Built from interpretations and re-enactments of some of the most widely known examples of 1980s coming of age films, including The Outsiders (1983), Stand By Me (1986) and The Year My Voice Broke (1987), The Year I Broke My Voice re-approaches the master narrative of childhood’s transition into adulthood from a subversive, yet altogether fragile and uncertain vantage point. The reuse of these texts is located somewhere between protocol and poetry, poised to be attributed to a broader search for self-realization than what is delineated by puberty. The film’s episodic vignettes and refusal to offer any easy answers leaves the audience pondering many of the questions the characters pose.
+ The Kiss, Dir: Filip Gieldon, Poland, 2012, 20mins. Polish with English subtitles.
CLASS: CRASH COURSE IN KINK
School of Fringe! @ The Old Cardinal Pole School, Victoria Park Road, London E9 7HD
3pm, £10
Professional Master and BDSM expert Master Dominic brings his famous brand of sexual discussion and education to the Fringe! audience. An instructor of highly successful classes on topics varying from the usual to the highly unusual, his frank and honest manner twinned with his acerbic sense of humour make for highly entertaining and educational workshop environments. Bringing along several tools of the trade, usually including one of his personal slaves, Dominic aims to break taboos and encourage sexual experimentation through discussion and practical demonstration. Focusing on BDSM from both sides of the coin, and from both a practical and theoretical point of view, his unique insight to fetish and sex is not to be missed.
FILM: ITTY BITTY TITTY COMMITTEE
Rio Cinema, 103-107 Kingsland High Street, London E8 2PB
3.15pm, £8
Dir: Jamie Babbit, USA, 2007, 87mins
Anna is coming out, not as gay but… as a revolutionary! At first a shy, fresh-out-of-high-school lesbian, Anna lives at home with her parents in a loving, gay-is-OK kind of family and begrudgingly works at a plastic surgery clinic. One night however, Anna’s world is turned upside down when she catches a one-woman army spray-painting the clinic in an act of defiance. The culprit is Sadie, a recruiting member of the Guerrilla Girls-esque Clits in Action (C(i)A), whose goal is to raise awareness of how bad plastic surgery is for women. Anna develops an instant attraction to this sexy and raw rebel girl, and eagerly joins the C(i)A to start her rollercoaster ride from meek mouse to bona fide bad-ass. Full of mosh pits, power fists and a soundtrack of Le Tigre, Peaches, Sleater Kinney and Bikini Kill, Itty Bitty Titty Committee is a rocking love song to the head rush of sex, freedom and rebellion that occurs when an everyday girl discovers her own strength and the righteous indignation needed to actively change the world.
+ Totally Girl Powered, Dir: Val Phoenix, UK, 2013, 8mins
FILM: BOB MIZER: THE REALLY WAY OUT WEST – BOB MIZER AND THE ATHLETIC MODEL GUILD
Arcola Tent, 24 Ashwin Street, London. E8 3DL
3.30pm, free
Curator-publisher Billy Miller of the Bob Mizer Foundation talks about Mizer’s early-to-mid career films and gives an overview of the artist’s life and legacy, illustrated with some rarities from the photographer and filmmaker’s 1954-1969 works, including Booking A Hood, GoGo Steve & Eddie, Jealous Cowboy, Trick or Treat, Park Theatre intermission segments, and more.
SHORTS: QUEER REALNESS
School of Fringe! @ The Old Cardinal Pole School, Victoria Park Road, London E9 7HD
4pm, free
Documentary shorts offering brief glimpses at love, identity, humour, adversity and of course the Paso Doble.
(full film listings on the website)
EVENT: RYAN NOBLE’S FIRST (ADULT) FILM
School of Fringe! @ The Old Cardinal Pole School, Victoria Park Road, London E9 7HD
4.30pm, free
Ryan Noble’s First (Adult) Film is an interactive workshop and conversation orchestrated by first time filmmaker Ryan Noble and involving some very special guests including actors, directors, editors, designers, scholars and the public. Over 2 hours, a curated team of participants will workshop Scrub, a short, explicit comedy set in Hackney in 2013. The public program will allow for conversations between professionals, amateurs and guests covering topics such as ‘What is sexy/unsexy?’, ‘How can comedy work best alongside explicit material?’, ‘How do our queer politics get expressed in gay porn?’, and ‘How can we evaluate conversations about porn and explicit film to more effectively share knowledge that is inherent in these forms of entertainment and artistic expression?’ The public workshop will be created with fun and interactive elements to ensure that these conversations take place alongside more practical discussion about how a short film is actually made. The day will conclude with a 15-minute reading of Scrub.
LIMITED VISIBILITY
FILM: THE GARDEN
Hackney Picturehouse, 270 Mare Street, London E8 1HE
5.30pm, £10, £9 concs, £8 Hackney Picturehouse members
Dir: Derek Jarman, UK, 1990, 95,mins
In this celebration of the work of queer film director Derek Jarman, The Sunday Society and Fringe! present an evening of film, art and performance, revolving around Jarman’s stunning 1990 film The Garden. As Jarman’s first aesthetic mediation on AIDS and his own HIV positive status, The Garden is a retelling of The Passion, presented much like a dream, with Christ re-imagined as two gay lovers. At once deeply personal and eerily distant, arguably the most moving passages of the film involve Jarman himself contemplating his own mortality. The event will delve into the aesthetic legacy of HIV and will also include screenings of the work of 2008’s first Jarman Award winner Luke Fowler. With talks by Stewart Turnball from Positive East and cultural critic, gay activist and friend of Jarman, Simon Watney, the event will feature readings of Jarman’s journals from performers including Bird La Bird. There will also be a discussion with Jarman’s producer James Mackay and, of course, some Sunday Society music.
Supported by Film London’s Community Pilot Fund.
FILM: RESILIENCE
Arcola Tent, 24 Ashwin Street, London E8 3DL
5.30pm, free
Curated by Evan Romero, this retrospective gathers together some of the best queer-themed music videos of the last thirty years, ranging from pop promos that seem to champion LGBTI while simultaneously feeding on their “shock value”, to much more candid stories of sorrow, hope and joy. Attentively viewed, these clips can reveal the different faces of homophobia/transphobia and the complex reactions of human beings subjected to relentless harassment, mockery and discrimination. By contrast, this anthology also underscores how resourceful lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transgenders and intersex people must be when it comes to building alliances, sharing pleasure, finding love and living with pride, despite prevalent social prejudices and hostilities – that’s what resilience is all about!
FILM: HIDE & SEEK (CHUPPAN CHUPAI)
School of Fringe! @ The Old Cardinal Pole School, Victoria Park Road, London E9 7HD
6pm, £5
Dir: Saadat Munir and Saad Khan, Denmark, 2012, 68mins. Urdu with English subtitles.
Saad Khan and Saadat Munir’s debut documentary follows the lives of four individuals and their constant play of ‘hide and seek’ with mainstream Pakistan – where LGBT rights are almost non-existent. We meet Jenny, a transgender college student; Kami, a fearless cross-dressing gay dancer, who openly lives with his boyfriend, wedding entertainer Waseem; and Neeli who played a huge part when the supreme court in Pakistan changed the constitution in favour of a ‘third gender’.
Followed by a Q&A with directors Saadat Munir and Saad Khan.
Presented in association with Open City Docs.
Open City Docs is where the next generation of filmmaker is nurtured and celebrated, delivering film screenings and live events, training programmes and projects throughout the year including filmmaking competition MyStreet and Open City Docs School. Open City Docs takes place 20-23 June in central London cinemas and screening rooms including Bloomsbury Theatre, UCL and our bespoke Cinema Tent. Block your diary now for the world’s best docs and queer films with live music, filmmaker discussions, workshops and expanded cinema events. www.opencitydocsfest.com
WORLD PREMIERE
CLOSING FILM: AND YOU BELONG
Arcola Tent, 24 Ashwin Street, London. E8 3DL
8pm, £8
Dir: Julia Ostertag, Germany, 2013, 80mins.
From Julia Ostertag, the acclaimed director of Gender X, Saila and Noise & Resistance, And You Belong delivers a visual and musical rocket ride through the queer music underground, telling the story of two-girl electro hip hop act Scream Club and their international network of friends. The scene that has been affected and inspired by Scream Club makes for an exciting line up of supporting protagonists, including Mz Sunday Luv, Nuclear Family, BadKat, DJ Metzgerei, Heidi Mortenson, Nicky Click and Joey Casio. While Scream Club’s music has been the soundtrack for a decade of underground fun, friendship and activism, in this documentary Julia Ostertag paints a fascinating picture of a new queer self-esteem through the use of never-before-seen archival footage, music videos and photographs. And You Belong offers a funny, tender and thrilling personal portrait of two queer women who paved an astonishing path for other queer people of this generation.
Followed by a Q&A with director Julia Ostertag.
UK PREMIERE
FILM: VENUS IN THE GARDEN
Aubin Cinema, 64-66 Redchurch Street, London E2 7DP
8.45pm, £8
Dir: Telémachos Alexiou, Greece/Germany, 2012, 63mins. Greek with English subtitles.
It’s a mid-summer heatwave and two male prostitutes, Nikos and Alain, and a female pimp, Monica, get tangled in a peculiar relationship after meeting in a dark street called Poutana. They fall in love, play with guns and talk about card games, money and theatre castings. Is this a game of role play that they’ve invented to pass the time in a remote, empty summer house? Have they been reading Jean Genet? Whether a mirror image of the characters’ reality or an elliptic depiction of their distorted, dream-like perception of it, Venus in the Garden (I Afroditi Stin Avli), juxtaposes disparate literary and art references to lead its isolated characters towards dissolution. And yet, in its strange language, it presents this dissolution as a triumph.
The screening will be followed by a talk between film scholar Sulgi Lie and director Telémachos Alexiou.
FILM: FRINGE! GOES STRAIGHT TO HELL
School of Fringe! @ The Old Cardinal Pole School, Victoria Park Road, London E9 7HD
8.30pm, £5
Straight To Hell, the true male sex magazine founded in the ‘70s, has featured the work of Gore Vidal, Dennis Cooper and Robert Mapplethorpe. From the ‘80s, STH has hosted artful events incorporating the talents of a wide range of artists, filmmakers and performers, including Vaginal Davis and Fran Lebowitz. In this selection of 11 short films, programmed and introduced by curator-publisher Billy Miller, STH collaborators explore male sexuality, top to bottom: from Steve LaFreniere’s Love to Anthony Viti’s ASSPIG. Presented by Straight To Hell editor Billy Miller.
PERFORMANCE: JONNY WOO PRESENTS LESBILICIOUS
Hackney Attic at Hackney Picturehouse, 270 Mare Street, London E8 1HE
8.30pm, £8, £6 for same day FRINGE Ticket Holders
The next instalment in Jonny Woo’s queer film and cabaret season, following on from Machorama, Transmania and Dragstravaganza; this time celebrating girl-on-girl love and action on the silver screen. Lesbilicious looks back with humour and admiration at pioneering lesbian roles; from the early, closeted story lines of films such as Pandora’s Box and The Children’s Hour, to modern Hollywood blockbusters like The Hours and The Kids Are All Right. In-house acoustic performance/art duo Les Goom (Jonny Woo and Batty Lashes) join up with Black Gold Buffalo and resident comedienne/DJ Myra du Bois presents her butch/femme quiz. There will also be a surprise guest lecturer on all things cinematically dykey. Jonny Woo pulls it all together in his own inimitable style in what promises to be a raucous night of performances not to be missed.