***Tickets Now Available!***
As ever, they are free!
You need to book for each programme: please see the links below
Our fifth annual ‘Queer’ Asia Film Festival (QAFF) of 2022 invites you to reflexively, critically, and creatively engage with us in the conversation on the theme of ‘survival’ in our uncertain times.
How do LGBTQI+ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and intersex) individuals and communities navigate their everyday living conditions at the intersections of the pandemic, queerness, and different forms of hierarchies, crises, control, and discrimination, including heterosexism, racism, homophobia, transphobia? How do we transgress global normativities, including the hegemonic discourse of temporality and space, challenge national and colonial ideologies, and manifest the impossibility of queer hopes, desires, and dreams? How do we revisit our past, create our present, and imagine the possibility and potentiality of queer futurity?
Towards this goal, the ‘Queer’ Asia Film Festival is collaborating with Xintong Zhang, a Chinese queer feminist artist who investigates the value of weeds in urban landscapes as a metaphor for resistance to the hierarchical value system in human society. Xintong’s original art forms the basis of our communications material this year.
Our programming at ‘Queer’ Asia aims to bring in a range of conversations and issues in an interregional Asian exchange, so we encourage our audiences to attend the each event screening with a view to watching the full programme.
Please note some films have alternative text available for accessibility purposes; please email queerasia@gmail.com to request these. We apologise that not all films have alternative text available (based on filmmakers’ access to resources to allow for this).
All of our venues are accessible: information can be found on venue webpages linked below to each venue.
Programme Overview
For details of the full programme of films being screened, please go to our festival’s full programme page
16 June (Thursday) | 19:00-21:00 BST | Brighton
‘desiring a queer utopia’
Many understand ‘queer’ as a synonym for LGBT+ identity. But, it is a notoriously slippery and stubbornly unfixed term. What does it mean to desire ‘queerly’ or otherwise? We invite you to explore this question through the films in this selection. All of these imagine new ways to realise love, from the utopic to queerly strange or, even, eerie.
ONCA Gallery, 14 St George’s Place, Brighton, BN1 4GB (Radical Rhizomes exclusive event*)
Accessibility information
Click HERE to read more about the films
17 June (Friday) | 12:30-14:30 BST | Oxford
‘difficult modes of survival’
The COVID-19 pandemic has unexpectedly and brutally thrown all of our lives into question. But, some of us are affected more than others. This screening asks you to consider what living — or, simply, surviving — in our difficult time is like for people who already exist on the margins.
University of Oxford China Centre Lecture Theatre, Dickson Poon Building, Canterbury Road, Oxford, OX2 6LU
Accessibility information
BOOK TICKETS HERE
Click HERE to read more about the films
17 June (Friday) | 15:00-17:00 BST | Oxford
‘old/young forbidden years’
Today, lesbian and, especially, gay identity are increasingly co-opted by capitalist institutions, eroding their radical potential. For many, these labels are now synonymous with a privileged, English-speaking, white, urban consumer in their twenties or early thirties. This selection invites you to imagine what lies beyond these narrow and exclusionary boundaries by screening the lives of queer people, who are rendered invisible in mainstream culture due to their age.
University of Oxford China Centre Lecture Theatre, Dickson Poon Building, Canterbury Road, Oxford, OX2 6LU
Accessibility information
BOOK TICKETS HERE
Click HERE to read more about the films
17 June (Friday) | 19:00-21:00 BST | Brighton
‘difficult modes of survival’
The COVID-19 pandemic has unexpectedly and brutally thrown all of our lives into question. But, some of us are affected more than others. This screening asks you to consider what living — or, simply, surviving — in our difficult time is like for people who already exist on the margins.
ONCA Gallery, 14 St George’s Place, Brighton, BN1 4GB
Accessibility information
BOOK TICKETS HERE
Click HERE to read more about the films
22 June (Wednesday) | 17:30-19:30 BST | Oxford
‘home reinvented: radical communities/belonging’
Traditional culture paints home as the idyllic site of middle-class comfort and safety. But, many — especially, minorities and those who exist on the margins — experience it as a place of rejection, patriarchal oppression and, even, violence. We bring you a selection of films that strive to create an alternative ‘queer’ home, inclusive and welcoming to all those who need it.
Rhodes House, South Parks Road, Oxford, OX1 3RG
Accessibility information
BOOK TICKETS HERE
Click HERE to read more about the films
25 June (Saturday) | 11:00-12:30 BST | London
‘home reinvented: radical communities/belonging’
Traditional culture paints home as the idyllic site of middle-class comfort and safety. But, many — especially, minorities and those who exist on the margins — experience it as a place of rejection, patriarchal oppression and, even, violence. We bring you a selection of films that strive to create an alternative ‘queer’ home, inclusive and welcoming to all those who need it.
Stevenson Lecture Theatre, British Museum, Great Russell Street, London, WC1B 3DG
Accessibility information
BOOK TICKETS HERE
Click HERE to read more about the films
25 June (Saturday) | 13:30-15:00 BST | London
‘old/young forbidden years’
Today, lesbian and, especially, gay identity are increasingly co-opted by capitalist institutions, eroding their radical potential. For many, these labels are now synonymous with a privileged, English-speaking, white, urban consumer in their twenties or early thirties. This selection invites you to imagine what lies beyond these narrow and exclusionary boundaries by screening the lives of queer people, who are rendered invisible in mainstream culture due to their age.
Stevenson Lecture Theatre, British Museum, Great Russell Street, London, WC1B 3DG
Accessibility information
BOOK TICKETS HERE
Click HERE to read more about the films
26 June (Sunday) | 14:00-15:30 BST | London
*UK Premiere* Jamie Chi’s ‘Safe Distance’
This screening is the UK-wide premiere of Safe Distance, a documentary by filmmaker Jamie Chi. Jamie’s film explores queer Chinese individuals’ lived experiences and narratives in the UK, during the COVID-19 pandemic. The film is based on interactions with 31 queer-identified interviewees who come from different Chinese societies and backgrounds, including mainland China, Hong Kong, Canada, the Netherlands, the UK, and Singapore, all of whom are currently based in the UK. Safe Distance examines intersecting issues, including identity, intersectionality, mental health, discrimination, migration, the notion of home and community.
The Wolfson Theatre, New Academic Building, LSE Lincoln’s Inn Fields, Holborn, London, WC2A 3LJ
Accessibility link
BOOK TICKETS HERE
Click HERE to read more about the film
26 June (Sunday) | 16:00-18:00 BST | London
‘queer human[?] – bodies in flux’
What does ‘queer’ really mean? Is all desire human? This selection urges the viewers to look at the queer body anew. Is there even a body? And, is it human?
The Wolfson Theatre, New Academic Building, LSE Lincoln’s Inn Fields, Holborn, London, WC2A 3LJ
Accessibility link
BOOK TICKETS HERE
Click HERE to read more about the films
30 June (Thursday) | 14:30-16:30 BST | Warwick
‘desiring a queer utopia’
Many understand ‘queer’ as a synonym for LGBT+ identity. But, it is a notoriously slippery and stubbornly unfixed term. What does it mean to desire ‘queerly’ or otherwise? We invite you to explore this question through the films in this selection. All of these imagine new ways to realise love, from the utopic to queerly strange or, even, eerie.
FAB 0.03, Faculty of Arts Building, University of Warwick, CV4 7AL
Accessibility link
BOOK TICKETS HERE
Click HERE to read more about the films
Please note your ticket gives you access to the whole of Global South Initiative First Annual Conference (30 June and 1 July). Together with Global South, we encourage you to attend the Conference to build community and make queerly unexpected connections between different events. However, you are welcome to attend the screening on its own.
Plus, we have an exciting collaboration with Asian Arts & Culture Trust (AACT) in May 2022 in Toronto, ‘AACT x Asian Heritage Month: Conversations with Elders’.
For details of the full programme, please go to our festival’s full programme page
Please contact queerasia@gmail.com for any further information or queries.