The Lighthouse Cinema and Irish Film Institute will host GAZE International LGBTQIA+ Film Festival from the 1st to 5th of August. This edition promises to be bigger than ever with over 25 screenings featuring special guests like veteran actor Russell Tovey and acclaimed director Andrew Haigh. However, past the larger titles of the festival programme are hidden gems which specifically highlight the experience of queer people of colour.
GAZE has partnered with Queer Spectrum Film Festival by Queer Asian Pride for three films showcasing Queer South Asia. And will host a special screening spotlighting black queer artistry.
Riptide, a romance intertwining elements of fantasy and India’s colonial past plays in the IFI on Friday evening. In the 1980’s roommates Suku and Charlie’s college life is coming to an end. When a health emergency forces Suku to leave town early he returns to find everything has changed. The lovers’ intimate cocoon has been shattered and what unfolds across three chapters is an exploration of the past and reckoning with the future, punctuated with surreal vignettes filled with literature, desire and sex. Is it all a hazy dream to escape the cruelties of an unaccepting and oppressive environment? Or does the power of love transcend our very realities? Riptide is a beguiling mystery encapsulating the idea of cinema as poetry.
On Saturday afternoon a cross generational coming-of-age tale plays in the Irish Film Institute. Following the death of her father Azra returns to Pakistan from Canada. The Queen of my Dreams drops you into her world, coming back home to a fraught mother-daughter relationship. Azra who feels worlds away from her strict religious mother begins to navigate both her mother’s memories of growing up in Karachi and her own moments of reaching maturity in rural Canada. In this journey connections forge between mother and daughter despite their differences, whilst also recognising and celebrating their similarities like a love for Bollywood. The Queen of my Dreams is both an ode to the universality of coming-of-age experiences and the cultural roots immigrants leave behind.
The last screening in conjunction with Queer Spectrum Film Festival plays in the Irish Film Institute on Sunday afternoon. India’s 1st Best Trans Model Agency is a documentary filmed over seven years giving insight into Rudrani Chettri extraordinary story and the challenges of launching her trans modelling agency under the intense scrutiny of national media. It spotlights the Hijra community which is the oldest ethnic transgender community in the world, traditionally recognised as a third sex in India. They are considered to have special gifts and powers but still have been largely segregated from mainstream society, forced into begging or sex work to survive. India’s 1st Best Trans Model Agency celebrates the joy of queer community but also recognises the struggles of survival of an outcast marginalised group.
Finally on Saturday evening in the Lighthouse Cinema Axé Shorts honours black queer artists. This unique selection of short films programmed by festival intern Mayra Xavier in her words aims to, “celebrate our freedom and space to create art by expanding the physical cinema space to include dance, music, and photography. These elements, intertwined and existing simultaneously, are what I believe truly define QPOC filmmakers and artists—not just the existence of one practice, but all of them together.” Highlights of this section include a film which gathers queer Nigerians in the UK together, documenting their experiences in order to create a new narrative. The Archive: Queer Nigerians also simultaneously reckons with an erased history of queer Nigerians. Also in this section is the visual art film, Obsidian Black by Irish artist Osara Azams which combines colourful visuals of Killiney Hills with hypnotic choir-like music.
GAZE International LGBTQIA+ Film Festival successfully continues to develop their programme each year, expanding the scope of their screenings and creating a film festival which celebrates the wealth of diversity in the queer experience. Tickets for all screenings are currently on sale on the GAZE website.
