Queer East Festival: On The Road to bring LGBTQ+ stories from Asia to the UK, including a trip to Brighton

Queer East Festival: On The Road will head out across the country, including a trip to Brighton, from September to December, offering its biggest tour yet and showcasing a line-up of contemporary feature films, documentaries and shorts as well as special events that highlight a wide range of LGBTQ+ stories from East Asia, Southeast Asia and their diaspora communities.

Founded in response to what organisers call a “systemic lack of East and Southeast Asian representation on stage, screen and behind the scenes”, Queer East Festival was formed in 2020 and has made its mark across the UK with its bold programmes of LGBTQ+ cinema and visual arts, growing in popularity and size year-on-year.

Queer East Festival’s film programme challenges conventions and stereotypes giving audiences an opportunity to explore the contemporary queer landscape across East and Southeast Asia. With its fifth anniversary edition, Queer East Festival reaffirms a commitment to diversifying the cultural landscape in the UK, and to serving as a platform that nurtures dialogue on the multifaceted understandings of what it means to be Asian and queer today.

Film highlights include: A Song Sung Blue (China, 2023), a testament to the innocence and impulses of youth, which signals the arrival of a powerful new voice in queer cinema; I Am What I Am (Japan, 2022), which sees a young asexual woman challenging the notion of falling in love after her mother pressures her to get married; The River (Taiwan, 1997), which offers a sly, queer critique of the nuclear family and the values it represents; The Missing (Philippines, Thailand, 2023), which tells the story of mute animator Eric who, when looking for his missing uncle, unwittingly provokes the appearance of a familiar, sinister UFO, and the untangling of traumatic memories.

With support of the BFI, with funds from the National Lottery, Queer East Festival 2024 nationwide tour takes place September to December in the following cities (tour cities and venues TBC and subject to change) Exeter, Bristol, Glasgow, Leeds, Edinburgh, Brighton, Liverpool, Cambridge, Bradford, Sheffield, Nottingham, Manchester, Newcastle, Birmingham, Kent, Leicester and Belfast.

Keep an eye on the Queer East Festival website for further announcements.