Fringe! Queer Film & Arts Fest continues in style

The fifth Fringe! Queer Film & Arts Fest, taking place across multiple venues in east London, kicked off on Tuesday night with a screening of Eisenstein in Guanajuato (2015), the latest film from Peter Greenaway, which imagines the sexual awakening of the queer director of Battleship Potemkin (1925), told in inimitable Greenaway fashion. The film is released by Axiom in early 2016. But it’s just the start of a fantastic line-up of LGBT films that will be showing until the end of the week.

Keeping with the east London theme, Sophie MacCorquodale’s Paint It Pink (2015) pays tribute to Sink the Pink, the dragtastic club night that started life at Bethnal Green Working Men’s Club and soon sprawled out into bigger venues, culminating at the legendary Summer Ball at the Troxy theatre. Interviewing the scene’s most vivid characters, including Jacqui Potato, Lucy Fizz and JonBenet Blonde, and featuring fantastic behind-the-scene clips of the ball, it’s an energetic and hugely fun film. It also makes an ideal companion piece to Dressed as a Girl (2015), the feature-length documentary about the east London drag scene that sold out BFI Flare: London LGBT Film Festival this year, and is about to be released on DVD.

The New Black (2013) approaches a subject which hasn’t been much represented in queer documentaries – LGBT people fighting homophobia in America’s Christian black communities. Using the fight for marriage equality in Maryland as a base, the film follows a group of gay women and men as they try to convince their neighbours to vote for Question 6, legalising same-sex marriage.

The film is very kind to all its subjects. Those who oppose Question 6 aren’t demonised – we see them talking frankly to their LGBT relatives, expressing their love of their family while standing firm on their opinion that marriage is exclusively between a man and a woman. The gay supporters of the bill show endless patience, as they are told time and time again that their sexuality is a choice. It also does an excellent job of explaining why so many people are against gay marriage, without condoning the prejudice.

I have been a bit atheist about the films of Antonio da Silva, which have screened at Fringe! and dozens of LGBT film festivals over the last few years. But out of nowhere he has created a genuinely arresting and one-of-a-kind gay sex film, screening at this year’s fest. Spunk (2015), showing alongside da Silva’s films Solos (2015) and Doggers (2015), is a 40-minute sexual collage of men using various digital technologies to record (usually solo) sexual activity. The first half offers a brief history of webcam sex, before transforming into a most unusual and strangely delightful slice of hardcore fantasy.

Borrowing aesthetics from across the board – at times the visual effects recall Walt Disney, as men ejaculate sparkles and fairytale backgrounds witness a variety of sex adventures – Spunk has an unforgettable climax (arf) as the men render themselves invisible through the literal magic of cum. It’s utterly bizarre. I need to see it again.

The festival winds to a close this weekend with Dyke Hard (2014), a low-budget Swedish comedy that tries to emulate the freewheeling carnage of a John Waters film – and pretty much succeeds. Can a group of queer women win the Battle of the Bands? Maybe, but on their journey they must face off against ghosts, butch prison guards, cyborgs and possibly duplicitous grandmothers.

Played admirably straight-faced by its very game cast, it’s consistently funny (having a drink or two before watching definitely helps you embrace the silly). It won the audience award at MIX Copenhagen LGBT Film Festival. I hope director Bitte Andersson gets a bigger budget to play with in her future films, as this is a smashing debut.

Other highlights of the festival include gritty documentary Chemsex (2015), following its world premiere at the BFI London Film Festival, Naz & Maalik (2015), a breezy drama about two gay Muslim men in Brooklyn, that recalls the laid-back style of Andrew Haigh’s Weekend (2011), and a sing-along late night screening of Sister Act (1992), hosted by Holestar.

The BFI is a programming partner of Fringe! Queer Film & Arts Fest.