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INTRODUCTION Time to POUT again, like you did last summer… Yes indeed, POUTfest returns, bigger, better, bolder and brighter, so come join us for one incredible summer of exceptional LGBTQI films! Don’t get TIED up, Jump out of your CLOSETS and embark on a wondrous journey through TIME, flee gay zombies in SAUNA THE DEAD and gorge on 70’s corduroy with his queer materials in TROUSER BAR. Meet Kristina THE GIRL KING of 17th Century Sweden, and while Tim and John from 1980’s Australia are HOLDING THE MAN, the CLOSET MONSTER looms dangerously large for young Oscar, but he’s bravely protected by Buffy the Hamster (Isabella Rossellini); after DEPARTURE take a side step to the parallel reality of GIRLS LOST where girls will be boys, will be girls, will be boys… Join us for POUTfest 2016 and make this a summer to remember. Tom Abell
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Neil Armfield Neil directs for both theatre and film. He was Artistic Director of Belvoir Street Theatre in Sydney from 1994 to 2010. He has directed for all of Australia’s state theatre companies, and the Royal Opera House, London. He was awarded an Officer of the Order of Australia in 2007 for service to the arts, nationally and internationally. Neil directed the feature film Candy (which he also co-wrote) in 2005, which screened in over 20 international film festivals and won an AWGIE and AFI Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. He directed his first film in 1985, Twelfth Night, which was based on his stage production. He went on to direct the television miniseries Edens Lost for ABC in 1988 which won 4 AFI awards including Best Director and Best Mini Series, the feature The Castanet Club (1990) and 2 telemovies for the ABC TV in 1996, The Fisherman’s Wake, and Coral Island.
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HOLDING THE MAN
Screening with Morning is Broken A Short Film by Simon Anderson ( 10 mins )
poutfest.co.uk/holdingtheman OFFICIAL SELECTION
BFI FLARE 2016
A love story for everyone
OFFICIAL SELECTION
MELBOURNE INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL 2016
OFFICIAL SELECTION
SYDNEY
FILM FESTIVAL 2016
“The most beautiful cinematic love story since Brokeback Mountain. Immensely moving. It’s important you memoir, see this Based on Timothy Conigrave’s cult-classic and hilarious and thefilm” inspiration for the 127 mins | cert 15 Directed by: Neil Armield Starring: Ryan Corr, Craig Stott, Anthony LaPaglia, Guy Pearce and Kerry Fox.
award winning stage play by Tommy Murphy, HOLDING THE MAN is the remarkable true-life Matthew Todd, Attitude love story that speaks across generations, sexualities and cultures. The course of teenage love rarely runs smooth, but this is especially true when you’re secretly gay in an Aussie all-male school in the 1970s and entranced by the captain of the football team. Tim and John meet when Tim is in a high-school production of Romeo and Juliet. The encounter ignites a romance that endures for 15 years to laugh in the face of everything life throws at it – the separations, the discriminations, the temptations, the jealousies and the losses.
RYAN CORR CRAIG STOTT KERRY FOX CAMILLA AH KIN SARAH SNOOK with GUY PEARCE and ANTHONY LAPAGLIA
Morning Is Broken
based (10 onmins) TIMOTHY MORNING IS BROKEN
CONIGRAVE’s classic memoir
Sam’s brother is getting married. However, this family event doesn’t represent a milestone just for the groom. At the wedding, Sam meets Nick, who’s friendly and fond of old cars, he invites Sam to go for a drive: a pact is made and an adventure begins.
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DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT I read Tim Conigrave’s memoir soon after it was published in 1995. Miraculously, Tim had finished writing it on his deathbed in St Vincent’s Hospital in 1994, with his friend and teacher Nick Enright helping him through. I knew Tim a little, but I knew Nick very well – I had just made a television film of Nick’s screenplay CORAL ISLAND – and I immediately tried to get the screen rights to Tim’s fabulous book. They weren’t available, and so I forgot about it. Seventeen years later Kylie du Fresne and Tommy Murphy asked if I would like to direct the film of HOLDING THE MAN, and I grabbed it. Not without some dread, I must say. There are huge responsibilities involved in taking on this story: to the power and popularity of the book, to Tim and John themselves, and their many friends alive today. But most of all to Tim’s and John’s families, still grieving their loss more than twenty years later: how difficult it must be for them to face the idea of their story becoming ever more public. In telling any story I find a high degree of identification is needed – I’m always digging in my own backyard – but this, more than others, feels utterly personal. I was born four years before Tim, we worked in the same industry, we had friends in common, we had come out to ourselves and then to our families at much the same time, we’d had much the same things said to us in response. But the courage that Tim Conigrave gathered in initiating this relationship at 16 with John Caleo, the determination with which he and John fought for justice and understanding in the face of the panic and grief of the AIDS pandemic, and the strength and dignity with which they both left this world, those things are utterly their own. And so our film is both intensely private and a kind of public memorial. I hope it’s alive to its period without being enslaved by it. I hope that it’s open to all the wit, desire, heartache, love and playfulness that Tim and john summoned in the fifteen years of their extraordinary life together. Above all, I hope this is an intimate film – I want us to breathe with the boys and feel that we share the air between them. So that, more than anything, we know what it was like. Neil Armfield, June 2015 6
IN CINEMAS JUNE 2016
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Mika Kaurismäki Mika Kaurismaki’s first film THE LIAR (1980) was an overnight sensation, when first show in Finland; it marked the beginning of the cinema of the Kaurismaki brothers and started a new era in the Finnish cinema. Mika co-founded the legendary Midnight Sun Film Festival (1986), the distribution company Senso Films (1987) and the Andorra cinemas in Helsinki. In 1994 Mika went to the Brazilian jungle with Samuel Fuller and Jim Jarmusch and made the feature length documentary TIGRERO – A FILM THAT WAS NEVER MADE. The film was awarded the International Critics’ Award at the Berlin Film Festival. In 1998 he directed the comedy LA WITHOUT A MAP, with Johnny Depp, David Tennant, July Delpy and Vincent Gallo.
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THE GIRL KING
Screening with Dawn A Short Film by Jake Graf ( 13 mins )
poutfest.co.uk/thegirlking WINNER
BEST ACTRESS MONTREAL WORLD FILM FESTIVAL
OFFICIAL SELECTION
OTTAWA
LGBT FILM FESTIVAL 2016
OFFICIAL SELECTION
BFI FLARE 2016
106 mins | cert 15 (tbc) Directed by: Mika Kaurismäki Starring: Sarah Gadon, Malin Buska. In 1632, at the age of 6, Kristina Vasa became the first native, female sovereign of Sweden. Raised as a prince under a conservative Lutheran court, Kristina grows up with ideas for modernising Sweden and bringing an end to war. With many suitors fighting for the position, Kristina becomes interested in her lady-in-waiting, the beautiful and elegant Countess Ebba Sparre. She anoints her the Queen’s Bed Companion, an important position held by those designated to warm the sheets of their ruler. Upon her ascent to the Swedish throne, Queen Kristina is faced with choosing between her country, her father, her people, her religion and living as “who she wants to be.” She chooses to take control of her destiny and to find freedom.
Dawn
DAWN
(13 mins)
As dawn creeps across London, two lost outcasts meet in the darkness, more afraid of themselves than each other. As the sun begins to rise, and the veil of night is lifted, the pair are forced to look at themselves and face the harsh reality that life is sometimes what you make it, and that in the cold light of day, it takes more than the eyes to see inside a soul.
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BOYS ON FILM 15 PRESENTS TIME & TIED poutfest.co.uk/boysonfilm15
This year, the POUTfest tour is serving a selection of British treats with our TIME & TIED shorts as part of the BOYS ON FILM 15 collection, showcasing the rising stars of UK cinema. A night in a gay sauna turns into a fight for survival, two men sit on a park bench speaking polari, a relationship becomes heated on a night out in London’s Soho streets, sexual adventures await two men in Sir John’s Trouser Bar, a teenager time travels into the future through his bedroom closet and the world of London’s chemsex scene is put into perspective one night at a chill-out party. OFFICIAL SELECTION
BFI FLARE 2016
TROUSER BAR, G’ O’CLOCK, MORNING IS BROKEN, SAUNA OF THE DEAD
OFFICIAL SELECTION
IRIS PRIZE
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SEATTLE
FESTIVAL
LESBIAN AND GAY FILM FESTIVAL 2016
CLOSETS
CLOSETS
OFFICIAL SELECTION
OFFICIAL SELECTION
FILM FESTIVAL 2016
QUEER FILM FESTIVAL 2016
NIGHTSTAND
MORNING IS BROKEN
LONDON
MEZIPATRA
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PUTTING ON THE DISH A Film By Brian Fairbairn and Karl Eccleston (6mins) London, 1962. Two strangers strike up a conversation on a park bench about life, sex and the hostile world they find themselves in as gay men. The conversation might be commonplace, but the language isn’t, because the two men are speaking in Polari. Polari was a form of slang spoken by some gay men in Britain prior to the decriminalisation of homosexuality in 1967. Used primarily as a coded way for them to discuss their experiences, it quickly fell out of use in the 1970s. CLOSETS A Film By Lloyd Eyre-Morgan (18mins) A tormented 16 year old Henry who, on 12 March 1986, time travels through his bedroom closet and meets up with a similar present day teenager, Ben, occupying his same bedroom 30 years later. Ben and Henry’s developing friendship highlights past and present-day issues facing young gay teenagers offering each other support and optimism for the future. NIGHTSTAND A Film By Charlie Parham (26mins) NIGHTSTAND stages the destructive relationship between two men over three consecutive nights – one is gay, lost and adolescent, the other is married to a woman and middleaged. The cathartic and tender savaging’s of their affair unravel uniquely in the most under-represented corners of London nightlife. 12
SAUNA THE DEAD A Film By Tom Frederic (20mins) SAUNA THE DEAD – A FAIRY TALE is inspirted by mean guys on Grindr and the idea of the sauna as its own little world. Fusing a love of 80s fantasy adventure movies, Disney and zombies, first-time writer/director Tom Frederic presents a genre-hopping modern day fairy tale exploring how the way we treat each other creates the worlds we live in. G’OCLOCK A Film By Mitchell Marion (11mins) G O’CLOCK is the ground breaking new short film about the unseen world of house music, muscles, drugs and sex. This is London’s booming chemsex scene. After being called out to an emergency, a gay paramedic named Alex saves the life of a young boy who was overdosed on GHB. He then arrives at a chillout and meets Nik, a sexy young Spanish boy who he takes under his wing. Alex is about to learn that arrogance can be just as dangerous as naiveté. TROUSER BAR A Film By Kristen Bjorn (18mins) Set in a London gentleman’s outfitters c.1976, the film takes its inspiration from the emotions aroused by a fetishist love of corduroy, leather and tight trousers. Two men enter Sir John’s Trouser Bar; little do they know the sexual adventures that awaits them inside. With cameos including Barry Cryer, Julian Clary, Miss Hope Springs, Nigel Havers and some other strangely familiar faces.
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Alexandra-Therese Keining Alexandra-Therese Keining debuted with the feature film Hot Dog (2003) as Sweden’s youngest female director and screenwriter. She is also an author. Her debut novel 14 will be adapted for the screen in 2016, and has worked as a casting director for many television and film productions. Alexandra directed and wrote the feature Kiss Me which has been awarded at prestigious film festivals all around the world, among them The Audience Award at AFI in 2011 and was released theatrically in a number of countries.
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GIRLS LOST poutfest.co.uk/girlslost OFFICIAL SELECTION
TORONTO INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL 2016
OFFICIAL SELECTION
BFI FLARE 2016
OFFICIAL SELECTION
ROTTERDAM INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL 2016
106 mins | cert 15 (tbc) Directed by: Alexandra-Therese Keining Starring: Tuva Jagell, Emrik Ohlander, Louise Nyvall Kim, Bella and Momo, three bullied teenaage girls are going through the throes of finding themselves. Surrounded by a dark world of teenage violence, marginalization and sexual confusion, the girls have only each other. A seismic shift happens when they discover a curious plant in their beloved greenhouse. It turns out to have mysterious magical qualities that, when consumed, transforms the girls into boys. Not only does their gender change, the world around them, and their response to it, is profoundly altered. Ultimately, an entanglement of confused sexuality asks us who loves who and why – and if gender identity really matters when it comes to love.
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DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT Girls Lost is about the importance and essence of gender. It centers around fourteen-year-old Kim and her friends Bella and Momo, three girls moving in the transitional area between childhood and adulthood. In Bella’s garden there is a greenhouse with a magic flower whose sap turns the girls into boys, a mindblowing drug that completely transforms them. During nocturnal odysseys they enjoy their new identites, and Kim, in particular, is lured further and further into the boys’ world. In Girls Lost, fairy tale and imagination are mixed in a realistic depiction of what is it is like to grow up today, seen from a girl’s perspective. At the same time, ideas which highlights the different conditions for girls and boys through asking important questions about gender. With the film; I want to examine the limits of self and the body, and in the portrayal of Kim show that the phenomena of identity and gender describe a perpetual motion, something that is constantly changing and is negotiable. The novel, Pojkarna by Jessica Schiefuer, won the prestigious August Prize in 2011 and has also been forbidden in some Swedish schools due to its provocative theme. Alexandra-Therese Keining 16
Peccadillo Pictures Presents A Girl At My Door
Boys On Film 14
Chemsex
Young-nam was a promising graduate of the police academy before she was transferred to a small seaside village, due to misconduct. She encounters Dohee; a girl in the town who is being physically abused by her grandparents. To protect the girl, Young-nam lets Dohee stay at her house, but this fairy-tale soon takes a turn for the worse as the story intensifies to a jaw-dropping climax.
BOYS ON FILM 14 features 9 powerful, and dramatic award winning short films that will make you laugh, cry, question your inner self and give life to your darkest fantasies.
This powerful and potent film tells the stories of gay men whose lives have been affected by the crisis of chemsex; from self-confessed ‘slammers’ to sexual health workers, from those who deny there’s a problem to those who ‘got out alive’. Offering unprecedented access, CHEMSEX is a brave and unflinching journey into the hidden world of modern, urban gay life.
52 Tuesdays
Soft Lad
Of Girls And Horses
Billie’s journey to independence starts with the news that her mum is going to transition and live her life as a man. Although Billie is asked to move in with her father, they decide that every Tuesday will be a sacred space between mother and daughter.
Tuesday will be a sacred space between mother and daughter.
Twenty-two year old David has it all – he’s young, hot, and he’s just got into the prestigious dance school of his dreams. But he has a secret: for two years he’s been sleeping with his sister’s husband, Jules. After an argument between the two lovers, David throws himself into a one-night stand with Sam, a casual encounter which fast becomes something much stronger.
Rebellious Alex is running out of chances, so her parents send her to work for the summer at a horse ranch in the German countryside. When Kathy, a shy girl, arrives at the ranch she ignites feelings in Alex that go beyond friendship. Expertly capturing the stunning rural landscape, OF GIRLS AND HORSES is a beautifully filmed coming of age tale and Monika Treut’s finest film to date.
The Way He Looks
Futuro Beach
Stranger By The Lake
Leonardo and Giovana are best friends. Like all teenagers they yearn for more independence and, being blind, Leonardo even more so. They dream of going abroad and of experiencing love’s first kiss. Gabriel, the new boy at school, becomes fast friends with them both, but ultimately three becomes a crowd. If love happens at first sight, who will Leonardo give his first kiss to? Told from a unique perspective, The Way He Looks is a universal story of first love that redefined the genre and captured the adoration of cinema audiences the world over.
When Brazilian lifeguard, Donato saves German biker, Konrad from drowning, the pair immediately form a strong sexual bond. Their passionate affair intensifies, and Donato decides to leave his mother and younger brother Ayrton behind, to start a new life with Konrad in Berlin. Years later, Ayrton arrives in Berlin to demand answers. His unexpected arrival forces all three men to confront their past.Berlin. Years later, Ayrton arrives in Berlin to demand answers. His unexpected arrival forces all three men to confront their past.
Summer time. A cruising spot for gay men seeking nameless sexual encounters is tucked away on the shores of a picturesque secluded lake in rural France. Franck is an attractive young male who falls in love with Michel, a striking and lethally dangerous man. Franck has witnessed this first hand, but his desire for Michel knows no bounds, this is a relationship he must have – at any cost.
Tuesday will be a sacred space between mother and daughter.
Confidence is violated, classes clash and desire is concealed, yet love still triumphs regardless of the consequences. Showcasing talent from around the world let WORLDS COLLIDE shake you from your very seat.
AVAILABLE ON DVD AND DIGITAL HD
peccapics peccapics.com 17
Stephen Dunn Stephen Dunn is an award-winning filmmaker and graduate of Norman Jewison’s Canadian Film Centre and Ryerson University’s Film Program. His short films, LIFE DOESN’T FRIGHTEN ME, WE WANTED MORE and SWALLOWED have screened around the world and won awards at festivals such as the Tribeca, Toronto and Munich International Film Festivals. Most recently Dunn debuted three films at Sundance in a series called POP-UP PORNO. Dunn recently completed his first feature, CLOSET MONSTER, starring Connor Jessup and Isabella Rossellini.
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CLOSET MONSTER
Screening with CrossRoad A Short Film by Leon Lopez ( 11 mins )
poutfest.co.uk/closetmonster OFFICIAL SELECTION
BFI FLARE 2016
OFFICIAL SELECTION
TORONTO INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL 2016
OFFICIAL SELECTION
STOCKHOLM INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL 2016
90mins | cert 15 (tbc) Directed by: Stephen Dunn Starring: Connor Jessup, Isabella Rossellini Oscar Madly (Connor Jessup, Falling Skies) is a creative and driven teenager who hovers on the brink of adulthood. Affected by his dysfunctional parents, unsure of his sexuality, and haunted by images of a tragic gay bashing he witnessed as a child, Oscar dreams of escaping the town he feels is suffocating him. He embarks on a journey of self-discovery with the beloved help of his talking pet hamster, Buffy (voiced by Isabella Rossellini), his imagination and the prospect of love, which will ultimately bring him closer to confronting his inner monster.
CrossRoad
CROSSROAD
(11 mins)
One night, whilst unable to sleep, Liam embarks on a mission of self-discovery: the choices he faces risk changing his life forever.Â
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Andrew Steggall Neil directs for both theatre and film. He was Artistic Director of Belvoir Street Theatre in Sydney from 1994 to 2010. He has directed for all of Australia’s state theatre companies, and the Royal Opera House, London. He was awarded an Officer of the Order of Australia in 2007 for service to the arts, nationally and internationally. Neil directed the feature film Candy (which he also co-wrote) in 2005, which screened in over 20 international film festivals and won an AWGIE and AFI Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. He directed his first film in 1985, Twelfth Night, which was based on his stage production. He went on to direct the television miniseries Edens Lost for ABC in 1988 which won 4 AFI awards including Best Director and Best Mini Series, the feature The Castanet Club (1990) and 2 telemovies for the ABC TV in 1996, The Fisherman’s Wake, and Coral Island.
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DEPARTURE poutfest.co.uk/departure OFFICIAL SELECTION
BFI FLARE 2016
OFFICIAL SELECTION
LONDON FILM FESTIVAL 2016
OFFICIAL SELECTION
PALM SPRINGS INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL 2016
109 mins | cert 15 Directed by: Andrew Steggall Starring: Juliet Stevenson, Alex Lawther Juliet Stevenson (Truly, Madly, Deeply) and Alex Lawther (The Imitation Game, X&Y) star in this new British drama about a mother who in the middle of her separation from her husband, retreats to their holiday home in the French countryside with her son Elliot, who is faced with the dawning of his own sexuality and alienation from his mother. When an enigmatic local teenager, Clément (Phénix Brossard), quietly enters their lives, both mother and son are compelled to confront their desires and, finally, each other. Departure is an intimate story beginning at dawn on the first day and ending at night on the sixth, charting the end of a summer, the end of a childhood and the end of an otherwise nuclear, middleclass family.
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POUTfest GOLD MY BEAUTIFUL LAUNDERETTE 97 mins | cert 15 Starring: Daniel Day-Lewis, Gordon Warnecke, Saeed Jaffrey, Richard Graham The Oscar nominated film looks at Omar, a young Pakistani, who is given a Laundromat by his uncle, hoping to turn it into a successful business. Soon after, Omar is attacked by a group of punks, but defuses the situation when he realizes their leader is his former lover, Johnny. The men resume their relationship and rehabilitate the Laundromat together, but various social forces threaten to compromise their success.
CODEPENDENT LESBIAN SPACE ALIEN SEEKS SAME 76 mins | cert 12 Starring: Lisa Haas, Susan Ziegler, Jackie Monahan This cult sci-fi spoof classic tracks the adventures, misadventures and experiences of three aliens from the planet Zots, who were sent down to Earth on a mission to rid themselves of romantic emotions, which are considered toxic to their planet’s atmosphere.
POUTfest DOCS Introducing POUTfest Docs this Autumn 2016, we’ll be touring a selection of documentaries for all ages that explore remarkable real life stories reflecting on personal and social histories and how they affect LGBTQ+ lives throughout the different eras. 22
IN CINEMAS SEPTEMBER 2016 23
a Peccadillo Pictures Release
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“EMBRACE OF THE SERPENT IS THE TYPE OF FILM WE’RE ALWAYS SEARCHING FOR” THE GUARDIAN
ACADEMY AWARD® NOMINEE BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM
“ONE OF THE MOST SINGULAR CINEMATIC EXPERIENCES YOU COULD HOPE TO HAVE” INDIEWIRE
a film by Ciro Guerra
EMBRACE OF THE SERPENT IN CINEMAS & ON DEMAND JUNE 10 Q&A screenings
JUNE 5 - ICA JUNE 7 - Cambridge Picturehouse JUNE 8 - BFI Southbank EmbraceOfTheSerpent.co.uk