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Flare · 2025

Flare 2025

Minds

Programme

17 films · 2 reviews

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After The Snowmelt (Xue Shui Xiao Rong De Ji Jie)

Filmmaker Yi-Shan's friends Chun and Yueh were trapped in a Nepal cave. Chun died before Yueh's rescue. Yi-Shan retraces their steps to the cave where Chun perished, confronting her grief through exploring the setting of their final adventure.

(Country: Taiwan, Japan; Year: 2024; Director: Lo Yi-shan)

Assembly

Visionary artist Rashaad Newsome merges art, AI, and performance to transform a former military facility into a Black queer utopia. Through immersive storytelling and visuals, the film explores how creativity can heal, unite, and spark liberation.

(Year: 2025; Director: Rashaad Newsome, Johnny Symons; Writer: Rashaad Newsome, Johnny Symons)

Enigma

April and Amanda allegedly transitioned in the same era – the 1950s - but Amanda found disco lights while April faced the flashing lights of a transphobic press.

(Country: US, France, Spain, UK; Year: 2024; Director: Zackary Drucker; Stars: Amanda Lear, April Ashley)

Heightened Scrutiny

Amid the surge in anti-trans legislation that Chase Strangio battles in the courtroom, he must also fight against media bias, exposing how the narratives in the press influence public perception and the fight for transgender rights.

(Country: US; Year: 2025; Director: Sam Feder; Stars: Chase Strangio)

How To Live

In a country where queerness often lives in the shadows, Muthoni’s lens spotlights Nairobi’s radiant LGBTQIA+ youth creating their own ballroom culture.

(Country: Kenya; Year: 2024; Director: Njoroge Muthoni)

If I Die, It'll Be Of Joy (Si Je Meurs, Ce Sera De Joie)

An exploration of ageism in the LGBTQ+ community, and the positive realities of ageing.

(Country: France; Year: 2024; Director: Alexis Taillant)

I'm Your Venus

Review preview for I'm Your Venus

From the start, there is something different about this film.

Jennie Kermode · 4.5 out of 5
Documentary considering the unsolved murder of Paris Is Burning star Venus Xtravaganza.

(Country: US; Year: 2024; Director: Kimberly Reed; Stars: Gisele Alicea, Daniella Carter, Gia Marie Love, John Pellagatti Jr., Joseph Pellagatti, Louie Pellagatti, Michael Roberson, Maximo Xtravaganza, Venus Xtravaganza)

Full review

Mea Culpa

A cinematic letter from the filmmaker to his mother.

(Country: Belgium; Year: 2024; Director: Patrick Tass; Writer: Patrick Tass)

A Mother Apart

After discovering her mother's letters, Staceyann Chin examines Hazel's past and how her absence shaped Chin's poetry, politics, and parenting. Chin navigates revelations about Hazel while raising her own daughter, Zuri, in an joyful way.

(Country: Canada; Year: 2024; Director: Laurie Townshend; Writer: Alison Duke, Laurie Townshend)

The Muleteer (La Arriera)

Teenager Emilia lives with her adopted family in the highlands of Jalisco. Feeling stifled by her adopted parents and brother, and arousing the suspicion of others regarding her sexuality, she decides to cut off her hair and flee into the bush, posing as a ‘muleteer’ to survive.

(Country: Mexico; Year: 2024; Director: Isabel Cristina Fregoso; Writer: Alfonso Suárez Romero, Isabel Cristina Fregoso; Stars: Andrea Aldana, Luis Vegas, Ale Cosío)

Outerlands

When Cass is asked by an alluring woman to watch her 11-year-old daughter while she goes out of town, Cass is forced to confront the truth of their own tumultuous childhood.

(Year: 2025; Director: Elena Oxman; Writer: Elena Oxman; Stars: Asia Kate Dillon, Louisa Krause, Ridley Asha Bateman, Lea DeLaria, Daniel K. Isaac, Melinda Meeng, Allie Heng, Winter Dewitt, Safia Fredericks, Sedrick Cabrera)

Peaches Goes Bananas

Review preview for Peaches Goes Bananas

Shot over 17 years, it mingles intimate personal moments with visceral concert footage, its musical sequences knitted together with some of the best editing you’re likely to see this year.

Jennie Kermode · 4.5 out of 5
From sold-out concerts to family moments with her parents and sister, the passage of time brings loss but also provides liberation for an artist whose body is a canvas for artistic expression.

(Country: France, Belgium; Year: 2024; Director: Marie Losier; Stars: Peaches, Suri Nisker, Marlene Saldana)

Full review

Queens Of Drama (Les Reines du drame)

2055. Steevyshady, an overly botoxed Youtuber tells their idol’s mad destiny: we follow pop diva singer Mimi Madamour from the very peak of her career in 2005, all the way down to the pits of hell, a downfall brought about by her love story with punk icon Billie Kohler. For half a century these drama queens have sung their passion and their rage high upon a stage.

(Country: Belgium, France; Year: 2024; Director: Alexis Langlois; Writer: Carlotta Coco, Thomas Colineau, Alexis Langlois; Stars: Asia Argento, Alma Jodorowsky, Thomas Poitevin, Bilal Hassani, Louiza Aura, Raya Martigny, Jean-Biche, Drag Couenne, Nana Benamer, Dustin Muchuvitz, Julia Fiquet, Gio Ventura, Elodie Barthels)

Sad Jokes

When his co-parent is hospitalised due to severe depression, a filmmaker reeling from a recent break-up is forced to step up.

(Country: Germany; Year: 2024; Director: Fabian Stumm; Writer: Fabian Stumm; Stars: Fabian Stumm, Haley Louise Jones, Ulrica Flach, Jonas Dassler, Godehard Giese, Marie-Lou Sellem, Anne Haug, Knut Berger)

Sally!

Sally Gearhart was a radical lesbian feminist (not to mention something of a sapphic Casanova) whose trailblazing vision and ebullient personality were the spark for movements with far-reaching impacts, yet her legacy has also largely been erased from history.

(Country: US; Year: 2024; Director: Deborah Craig)

Viet and Nam

Nam and Việt are coal miners, working 300 meters below ground, where danger awaits, darkness prevails. Nam doesn’t want his future to continue with coal and hires someone to smuggle him to the western world.

(Year: 2024; Director: Truong Minh Quý)

The World According To Allee Willis

Songwriter/artist Allee Willis began filming her life as a kid in 1950s Detroit and never stopped. She pursued creative expression at all costs while struggling to fit established gender and sexual norms - until she found a path to love.

(Country: US; Year: 2024; Director: Alexis Spraic; Writer: Pamela Adlon, Stephen Bray, Julie Brown; Stars: Allee Willis)