This month, Fringe! returns for its twelfth edition with a compelling, provocative and political programme of film screenings, performances, workshops and events. Join them for a week-long celebration of LGBTQ+ joy taking place across East and South London’s independent screens, and the Fringe! pop-up hubs.
Founded in 2011 as a community-led response to cuts to arts funding and its detrimental impact on LGBTIQA+ art and cultural production, the festival is committed to celebrating the best in queer filmmaking, from the DIY to the high budget. Fringe! remains entirely volunteer run and not-for-profit, whilst having become a landmark cultural event in London’s queer calendar.
Full Fringe! 2022 Festival https://www.fringequeerfest.com/festival-programme-2
Fringe! 2022 Highlights
the Fringe! 2022 Festival opens with Three Tidy Tigers, Brazilian director Gustavo Vinagre’s Teddy Award winning tale of three queer youths exploring a parallel universe in Sao Paulo and finding themselves. The South American focus goes further with the documentary portrait Uyra, The Rising Forest, wherein the trans indigenous artist shares their ancestral knowledge through performance art, sharing histories, and reinventing drag to bring the life-sustaining power of the forest to the urban jungle.
Come meet other South American artists revolutionising systems and narratives in creative documentaries Travesti Odyssey – setting art and community against the backdrop of uprising – and narrative film Blooming on the Asphalt – following Jack as he tackles the rising wave of fascism in Bolsonarist Brazil, taking power in flourishing networks of trans punk solidarity, travesti witchcraft, anti-racist mutual aid and direct action.
Finally, Brazil’s candidate for the 2023 Oscars, closing night epic Mars One shows a family in Brazil at the time of the announcement of Bolsonaro’s appointment as President. Young dyke Eunice, her little brother Deivinho, mother Tércia, and father Wellington all experience alienation from the state and the status quo in a film that dreams of another world out there. The lives of this family weave an elegant tapestry that intertwines discussions of class, addiction, strong family ties, big dreams, mental health, and queer identity in context. This marks the first time a lack director has been nominated to represent Brazil at the Academy Awards.
Fringe! is working in partnership with Queer East this year, with a curated selection from interdisciplinary artist and independent curator April Lin 林森. Not to be missed: Taiwanese lesbian Shakespeare reimagining As We Like It, an energetic vision of an internet-free queer utopian Taipei which blends retro video game animation with fairy-tale settings in a plot thick with hidden identity, meet cute squee, cryptic messages, and family feuds. Plus check out The Wondrous Worlds of Fuyuhiko Takata compiles some of Takata’s finest fairytale remixes, fantastical depictions of shame, desire, and the abject in wholly fantastical and unapologetic terms.
Whet your appetite and get requeerbaited with this year’s iconic Fringe! camp classic Charlie’s Angels 2: Full Throttle: come dressed in your best boy drag, do stripper burlesque with the (original, no-singing, all-dancing) Pussycat Dolls, and run through the air in slow slow motion. Who knew, angels really can fly. With their very own local angelz leading the way, come big, or reveal all, in the Fringe! wet t-shirt contest and secure the bag in their other lezzy, girly games.
Plus they revisit the first lesbian movie ever Madchen in Uniform, and Steven Winter’s underground classic Chocolate Babies, following an underground band of HIV-positive, queer, urban, activists of color make headlines in NYC after staging fabulous guerilla attacks on conservative politicians to expose political corruption.
Fringe! welcome back the Love Hub, on hand to demystify, decolonise, & queer holistic healthcare, with their cutting edge advocacy and community programme – don’t miss it. Come for the Spanking Salon, stay for Frou-Frouing the Fanny, Toyz R 4 Us, and the Glory of Bi! – amongst much, much more.
As always, they have a stellar selection of short programmes. In Otherness Archive Packed Desire, artist filmmaker Sweatmother has curated a trans-focused program run through with a throbbing cord of desire: the desire to belong, to be loved, to hold, to fuck, to be. New Moon in Libra collects stories all about sweet love, bad romance, and the emotional paths to your best self. The new moon’s approaching babes, and we see major stickiness in your future! Now, is that your Scorpio rising or are you just happy to see us?
This year they collaborate with Queer Art(ists) Now, the UK’s largest queer open call exhibition, which puts front and centre political, provocative, sexy, surprising, and full-to-the-brim of art made by, for and (sometimes) about our community of Queers and will be open throughout the festival week, alongside T-Fags, an exhibition and manifesto in tribute to T4T intimacy and faggotry. See new edible works by live artists, revise queer history with your fave authors, and even do a writing course over the weekend!
On top of this there’s panels, parties, podcasts, poetry, and more! All for you to explore in the new Rich Mix hub, which will be filled with fun, queer fayres, dirty flicks, and familiar faces to cruise all week long.
From bold documentaries All Man and Pat Rocco Dared, to historical figures of gay liberation in the 20th century, to steamy romance in Lonesome and Shall I Compare You to a Summers Day? there is so much to explore in queer cinema, and so much to learn and celebrate about each other!
