Two Taiwanese films will be presented at this year's Queer East Film Festival, an LGBTQ+ film festival that showcases rarely seen queer cinema from East and Southeast Asia. Following the first two successful editions, the third edition will take place in cinemas across London from May 18 to 29.
This year's program includes feature films, shorts, programs of boundary-challenging artists’ moving image work, a Virtual Reality experience, and a TV miniseries, alongside filmmakers' Q&As. With support from the Ministry of Culture and Taiwan Film and Audiovisual Institute, Taiwanese virtual reality work "In the Mist (霧中)" and a 1980s film "Girls' School (女子學校)," will be presented at the festival.
Theater and new media director Chou Tung-yen's (周東彥) VR work "In the Mist," which is a UK premiere will be installed by Queer East in the form of an intimate sauna steam room at The Horse Hospital in London, showing from May 21 to 24 (preview on May 20). Revealing the unspeakable life experience of the gay community culture, "In the Mist" is a hallucinatory and explicit VR experience that has screened and won prizes internationally. "Girl’s School" will be screened at the BFI Southbank, the UK’s leading repertory cinema, on May 24. Following the screening, the Executive Director of TFAI Wang Chun-Chi (王君琦) will attend an online Q&A session.
Produced and directed by Lee Mi-mi (李美彌) in 1982, "Girls' School" revolves around two bosom friends and their close friendship attracts jealousy from other classmates; thus, rumors about them being lesbians spread. The story also explores issues of bullying, single-parent households, and same-sex desire.
Born in 1946, Lee Mi-mi made her first directorial film in 1972 with the Taiwanese-language film "Pure Love (純情的愛)," and went on to direct and independently produce three feature films in the early 1980s, including "Evening News (晚間新聞)," "Unmarried Mothers (未婚媽媽)," and "Girls' School" dubbed as the "Taiwanese Urban Female Trilogy." She has also worked in TV on primetime dramas.
For more information, please visit Queer East Film Festival's website.