BFI Flare, the London LGBTQIA+ film festival, marks four decades of queer cinema with a packed programme at BFI Southbank. Returning in March, the festival opens with Jennifer Kroot’s documentary Hunky Jesus and closes with Sandulela Asanda’s feature Black Burns Fast. A wide selection of features and shorts from across the globe will screen under themed strands.
The programme mixes premieres, restorations and curated events to reflect the festival’s ongoing mission to champion diverse storytelling. Emerging trends show festivals are increasingly foregrounding both archival recovery and new voices. The future arrives faster than expected: this edition balances historical reclamation with contemporary commissions.
Programming is organised into four distinct strands—Hearts, Bodies, Minds and the anniversary strand Treasures. The festival includes thirty-one world premieres and work from forty-seven countries, underscoring its international reach and curatorial breadth.
Programme structure and headline screenings
The festival programme is organised into four thematic strands that highlight distinct experiences and perspectives. Hearts gathers romantic and relational stories. Bodies focuses on identity, embodiment and physical resilience. Minds explores memory, politics and creative practice. The anniversary strand, Treasures, showcases restored and historically significant films. Across these sections, audiences will find contemporary queer comedies alongside archival gems.
Opening, closing and special presentations
BFI Flare opens with Hunky Jesus at the gala screening on 18 March and closes with Black Burns Fast. The festival’s special presentation is Paloma Schneideman’s coming-of-age film Big Girls Don’t Cry. These anchor titles balance new voices and established filmmakers while providing high-profile events for press and public.
Emerging trends show programmers mixing bold contemporary work with restorative preservation. The curatorial approach emphasizes both discovery and historical continuity. The future arrives faster than expected: this edition positions restored titles alongside premieres to map a continuous queer cinematic lineage.
Programme organisers say the strand structure aims to make the festival navigable and thematically coherent for audiences and critics. Screening clusters will guide viewers through overlapping themes of love, embodiment, memory and heritage, reinforcing the festival’s international scope and curatorial breadth.
Selections to watch: highlights from each strand
Emerging trends show growing attention to intimate, legally fraught family stories within queer cinema. The festival programme continues to map that shift by foregrounding films that probe desire, kinship and belonging.
Under the Hearts strand, the programme foregrounds narratives that blend private struggle with broader social stakes. Love Letters (Des preuves d’amour) follows a lesbian couple navigating pregnancy and intersecting legal systems. Montreal, My Love charts a late-life romance and self-discovery for a Chinese immigrant. The Deepest Space in Us centres an aromantic and asexual woman seeking honest connections in a culture shaped by romantic norms.
Hearts also schedules lighter, genre-driven works that test romantic conventions. A Cornwall-set romcom stages a romance between a local and a selkie, while the stop-motion short The Fling introduces two bisexual aliens in a playful, formally inventive encounter.
These selections reinforce the festival’s curatorial breadth and international reach. They position family law, migration and alternative sexualities at the centre of contemporary queer storytelling, signalling priorities for programmers and audiences alike.
The programme’s Bodies strand foregrounds labour, gender and community in contemporary queer cinema. Emerging trends show filmmakers centring everyday work and communal care as sites of political struggle. Body of Our Own records six years in the lives of three Hijra women, tracing the intersection of identity, ritual and economic survival. Queen of Coal, featuring Lux Pascal, follows a woman’s effort to win employment in a male-dominated coal industry. Short films add tonal range: Rainbow Girls follows three Black trans women plotting a luxury-brand heist in gentrified San Francisco, while the darkly comic The Dysphoria examines medical and social anxieties around transition.
Minds and treasures: historical context and cinematic essays
Minds strand foregrounds history, activism and experimental forms
The Minds strand brings together documentaries and experimental work that probe historical memory and activist practice. It follows the festival’s bodies-focused programme and continues the event’s attention to labour, gender and community.
Highlights include a portrait of filmmaker Barbara Hammer in Barbara Forever, the political essay Uchronia: Parallel Histories of Queer Revolt, and an intimate study of trans masculine youth in What Will I Become?. Short films such as Kisses and Bullets and Lonelier Than Love extend the strand’s international reach and contemporary urgency.
Emerging trends show a renewed interest in archival excavation and formal experimentation. Filmmakers pair historical research with hybrid documentary techniques to rethink queer revolt as both a past and an ongoing practice.
The future arrives faster than expected: this strand stages work that treats history as active evidence for present struggles. Curators use essay film and personal testimony to map connections between collective movements and individual lives.
Implications for programme makers and exhibitors are practical. Films in Minds demand contextual framing, access to archival material, and sensitive audience engagement strategies. Institutions that invest in restorative curation will find richer interpretive returns.
Expect screenings to emphasise discussion and community-led responses. The strand positions film as a site of critical memory and civic action, reinforcing the festival’s broader thematic arc.
The festival’s anniversary Treasures programme revives landmark queer films and foregrounds archival recovery as cultural necessity. The strand presents a 1950s transgressive drama from Japan, Impure Nuns, screening outside its country of origin for the first time. It also includes a newly completed 4K restoration of Pink Narcissus, offering critics and scholars an opportunity to reassess the film’s visual influence on erotic and queer aesthetics. The programme marks thirty years of Cheryl Dunye’s seminal The Watermelon Woman, inviting audiences to revisit or discover this cornerstone of lesbian cinema.
Events, talks and programming team
Emerging trends show that festivals are increasingly pairing restorations with critical programming to reframe historical work for contemporary audiences. The festival follows this model by combining screenings with panel talks and archival presentations. Curators and programmers will contextualise the films’ production histories and reception.
The future arrives faster than expected: restored prints and renewed scholarship alter how these films circulate. Presenting Impure Nuns beyond Japan expands international access to early transgressive cinema. The 4K restoration of Pink Narcissus clarifies the film’s visual strategies and colors, allowing fresh technical and aesthetic readings.
Programme events will include director-led conversations, archival lectures and critical roundtables. The programming team aims to connect restoration work with histories of activism and representation. Audiences will gain both historical context and contemporary perspectives on these films’ ongoing influence.
The strand reinforces the festival’s broader focus on film as a site of critical memory and civic action, and it positions archival restoration as central to cultural recovery. The programming highlights the continuing relevance of queer cinematic histories and the practical work required to preserve them for future audiences.
BFI Flare expands beyond screenings with talks and industry events
BFI Flare will pair its film programme with a series of curated talks and industry events. The offerings aim to deepen discussion on queer cinema and industry practice.
Emerging trends show festivals now prioritise live conversations as essential public programming. The festival’s schedule includes a heartstopper-themed conversation exploring the creative trajectory of that property. A session titled The Makers: Cheryl Dunye will examine Dunye’s career as the festival marks the 30th anniversary of The Watermelon Woman.
The public programme also features screen talks with prominent industry figures and panels focused on contemporary representation. The events are designed to link historical recovery and present-day creative practice.
The 2026 programming team comprises Grace Barber-Plentie, Diana Cipriano, Zorian Clayton, Jaye Hudson, Darren Jones and Wema Mumma. They describe the lineup as a celebration of bold storytelling and as a commitment to providing a platform where communities can see themselves represented authentically and unapologetically.
The future arrives faster than expected: these events position the festival as a forum for both preservation and forward-looking debate on industry change. Practical sessions aim to support creators and archivists in sustaining queer cinematic histories for upcoming audiences.
Practical sessions will run alongside talks and industry events to support creators and archivists preserving queer cinematic histories.
BFI Flare will mark its 40th edition from 18 – 29 March at BFI Southbank. The programme includes screenings, panel discussions and curated industry sessions.
Emerging trends show festivals increasingly combine public programmes with professional development. According to MIT data, hybrid formats accelerate knowledge transfer and audience reach across regions.
For a full schedule and ticket information, consult the festival listings on the BFI website. Tickets and passes will detail session access and any industry accreditation requirements.
Expect practical workshops to focus on archiving, distribution strategies and sustainable funding models for queer film heritage.