Gay teen drama ‘Love, Simon’ to be screened at BFI Flare: London LGBT Film Festival
The full programme has been revealed.
By Will Stroude
Eagerly-anticipated gay teen drama Love, Simon is among the films that will be screen during the BFI Flare: London LGBT Film Festival next month.
The American comedy-drama starring Jurassice World’s Nick Robinson is among the films that will be screened during the 10-day celebration of queer cineman, which kicks off on March 21.
Based on the book Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli, Love, Simon tells the story of a closeted high school senior whose life is turned upside down after a classmate threatens to out him.
Directed by Arrow and Riverdale producer Greg Berlanti, husband of former Premier League football star Robbie Rogers, the movie marks one of the first major studio coming out stories to be aimed specifically at a teen audience, and is already generating plenty buzz ahead of its UK release on March 16.
The London LGBT Film Festival will open on Wednesday, 21 March with a showing of Tali Shalom-Ezer’s stirring drama My Days of Mercy starring Ellen Page and Kate Mara, before coming to a close ten days later with a screening of Steve McLean’s stylish gay drama Postcards from London, led by rising British star Harris Dickinson.
Other highlights in the London LGBT Film Festival’s newly-released programme include the world premiere of Jason Barker’s documentary A Deal with the Universe, which tells the inspiring tale of a very different kind of pregnancy, as well as Robin Campillo’s heartbreaking modern classic 120 BPM (Beats per Minute), about the AIDS epidemic in ’90s France.
Tricia Tuttle, Artistic Director for BFI Festivals, says: “Queer cinema has never offered more richly complex and diverse characters and stories than we have seen in the last few years and that shines through in the quality of Festival that the programme team have put together.
120 BPM (Beats per Minute)
“This diversity has also inspired us to update our Festival name to BFI Flare: London LGBTQ+ Film Festival. That Q+ reflects shifts in cultural conversations around identity, but also the Festival’s own ethos as welcoming and inclusive.”
You can check out the BFI Flare: London LGBT Film Festival’s full line-up of events and screeings here.