BFI Southbank launches ‘Be Gay, Do Crime’ season – here are some of the films to catch
It's a "weird and wonderful season" of cinematic gems
BFI Southbank has announced ‘Be Gay, Do Crime,’ a new season dedicated to films exploring the relationship between queerness and crime.
The provocative and playful films were curated by BFI London Film Festival and BFI Flare programmer Grace Barber-Plentie.
The anarchist slogan ‘Be Gay, Do Crime’ has become associated with the works of cult directors such as John Waters and Gregg Araki.
At the intersection of crime and queerness, these films envelop these characters instead of rejecting them.
The BFI season explores this thematic coupling in numerous titles including Bound, Chocolate Babies, Dog Day Afternoon and Female Trouble.
The film collective is divided into three sections: Love, Money and Anarchy.
In the Love section, films programmed include: Sidney Lumet’s Dog Day Afternoon, Susan Lambert’s rarely screened On Guard, Lily Wachowski and Lana Wachowski’s Bound and Sally El Hosaini’s My Brother the Devil.
Crime films in the Money section include: Antonio Carlos da Fontoura’s The Devil Queen, Silas Howard and Harry Dodge’s Lo-fi By Harry or By Crook, Karim Aïnouz’s Madame Satã and Jean-Pierre Bekolo’s The Bloodettes.
In the Anarchy section, films programmed include: Shu Lea Cheang’s Fresh Kill, Stephen Winter’s Chocolate Babies, Gregg Araki’s The Living End and John Waters’ Female Trouble.
“A heavy dose of camp and queer joy”
Through these explorations, ‘Be Gay, Do Crime’ explores and re-contextualises well-known, cult and unknown gems.
Grace Barber-Plentie, programmer and curator of ‘Be Gay, Do Crime’, said: “It has been to programme this weird and wonderful season.”
“I was less interested in the idea of villainy when I programmed this season and more with crime as a way of survival, or a way to throw a hearty middle finger up to a world that stops queer people from thriving.”
Barber-Plentie hopes the season will provide audiences “a heavy dose of camp and queer joy, but also get us thinking, questioning the system and coming together to change how we think about queer criminality.”
Be Gay, Do Crime is at BFI Southbank from 1 – 31 August 2023 – tickets are available now.