Irish Film & TV UK (IFTUK) hosted its first Pride film festival recently.
Hosted in partnership with the London Irish LGBTQ Network, the Century Club and Peccadillo Pictures, the event was free to attend and was held at the exclusive Century Club in Shaftesbury Avenue.
The festival programme started on Wednesday 2 July with a screening of Graham Cantwell’s Who We Love, the story of best friends who navigate the troubled waters of school life and explore Dublin’s vibrant and sometimes dark LGBTQ+ scene under the sharp eye of the reluctant mentor Oonagh.
This was followed by a Q&A with the director and Peccadillo Pictures Founder & Managing Director Tom Abel, hosted by Irish actor, broadcaster and presenter, Derek Murphy.
Graham Cantwell told The Irish World: “It’s brilliant to be here with the film and to be able to see it move people and to be able to talk to them afterwards about it.
“It’s a lovely experience when you sit in a room full of people and watch them watch something you’ve created and respond to it the way that people have responded to it here tonight, it makes it worthwhile.
“It’s a tough gig, making a film is a tough thing to do and having experiences like this makes it all worthwhile, just knowing that the film is doing what it’s supposed to do.”
The film was always intended to open conversations on its difficult themes.
“As a filmmaker really what you hope to do is connect with people and have them connect with your work and find meaning in the work, maybe change how they feel about something or make them feel a bit better about themselves.
“We are living in a society and in a world where there are people who want to punish other people for the way they are, for who they love, for their beliefs or their thoughts, or just the way they look.
“And for those of us who are in a position to be able to say something about that, I think we have to.
“If you can do something to shift the needle, you’ve got to do it.
“A film like ours, a film like Who We Love is important because it can connect with a wide audience and you would hope that somebody would see it and maybe change their mind, maybe feel differently to how they did before they saw the film.
“I’ve had so many parents talk to me after they’ve seen the film and say, ‘I didn’t know that’s the way things are’ or ‘I felt a certain way and now I feel differently’.
“I’m hoping people might be able to use the film to start a conversation, to talk to the young people in their lives and maybe to see things from their perspective.”
The film depicts girls bullying girls very viscerally. Although it is rarely depicted, it happens.
“Unfortunately it’s not (unrealistic), it’s not uncommon.
“It does happen.
“It happens more than we would like it to happen and it’s happening publicly nowadays.
“The kids are filming it, putting it up online so if somebody’s being bullied and humiliated, it often goes out into the public sphere and complete strangers are seeing their humiliation and that can compound the problems for young people.
“We always said we didn’t want to make the Violet character an out and out villain.
“We wanted people to understand why she behaves the way she behaves and Venetia (Bowe) did such a good job with humanising her.
“What we hope is if somebody is maybe making life difficult for somebody else, this film might make them think twice about what they’re doing.
“It’s kind of a cry for change but it’s also just reaching out to try and make people aware of what’s going on in the world.”
On the new festival Graham concluded: “We need platforms.
“Irish films, queer films, any film that isn’t a mainstream film needs a platform to find an audience.
“Anything that gets a film in front of people and gets meaningful conversations started is something to be championed.”
The festival continued on Friday 4 July when Derek Murphy presented his specially curated mix of Queer Irish short films, web-series and music videos designed to promote queer Irish filmmakers and talent.
The screenings were followed by Derek Murphy chairing a Q and A with film maker Cara Mahoney, musician JD Kelleher whose music video The Devil is in the Detail was among the selection and director Anthony Jacob.
Derek Murphy told The Irish World: “We are absolutely delighted with how it went. We could not be happier.
“We have literally seen so many ridiculously talented filmmakers, ridiculously talented artists, drag queens, musicians, DJs, the whole shebang.
“We’ve had it all and I could not be happier with how it all went.
“We have such a diverse array of talent in the queer community and the queer Irish community and hopefully we gave that a bit of a platform over the last couple of days and we will hopefully continue to do it into the future.”
On the festival’s variety and audience reaction, Derek said: “We feel like we’ve tried to cover the gamut.
“On Wednesday night we had Graham Cantwell and his feature film.
“And then tonight we’ve shown lots of different artists.
“We’ve seen JD Kelleher, amazing Irish musician.
“We’ve seen Cara Mahoney, an amazing Irish filmmaker.
“We’ve had a night with Graham Cantwell and his feature film which has just gone down so well.
“It’s given such a platform to maybe under represented voices in our community because they deserve to be heard, they deserve to be seen.
“We’ve shown filmmakers, we’ve shown web series, we’ve shown music videos so we really have tried to cover the whole array of Irish queer talent.
“And there’s more.
“There’s so much talent out there.
“We just want to join together as a queer Irish community, help each other, represent each other and promote each other and lift each other up.”
While we have come a long way in terms of acceptance, Derek stresses there is more to do.
“We have come an enormous way.
“We still have further to go.
“It’s important for us to be seen, to be out there, to show people that we do exist, we do deserve to exist.
“We make beautiful art, beautiful music, beautiful theatre, beautiful film and we’re here.
“We deserve to be seen and we should be seen.
“Hopefully we’re going to see this festival live way into the future.
“This is our first year of it.
“I can only imagine how this festival could develop and grow into the future, and we want to see it develop and grow into the future.”
Cara Mahony, who wrote the produced the short film Fish, told The Irish World: “It’s so nice when you hear people actually enjoying it around you.
“It’s been a really nice energy, people seem to be responding well.”
Where did the idea for Fish come from?
“The director Ian (Yarwood) asked me to write a queer story with joy, so Fish was born.
“I’m a bisexual woman so it made sense to write something of that ilk and I wanted it to make it something joyful and fun and exciting.”
Cara spoke in the Q and A about how a bisexual identity isn’t really explored a lot in film.
“Often bisexuality is seen as this transitory space where women are just experimenting before they go back to men and men are dipping their toe into coming out as homosexual.
“It’s really important to me to demonstrate the bisexual narrative as something that is really inherent to our community and should be told as so and enjoyed as so.”
Cara has an project that sees her collaborating with someone else who has been featured in The Irish World.
“I do have a short film called Full Fat that I wrote that is directed by Louisa Connolly Burnham who directed Sister Wives.
“It’s doing really well on the circuit at the moment.
“It’s about how straight women sometimes use their queer friends for experimentation.
“It’s a dark comedy maybe shifting more into drama, but we’ll see.
“If you follow at @yonicproductionsltd on Instagram, you can hear more.”
Anthony Jacob added: “I feel extremely proud to be here.
“I feel it’s particularly important in our current climate where I feel like people’s rights are being suppressed that we can see representation on screen and people can be proud to see those things.
“In the end no matter what background you’re from, we all experience the same things and some people, I think, forget that, that we’re all human.
“We all deserve the same rights, and we should lift each other up and not put each other down.”
The festival then concluded with a set from drag queen Orla Nothin’, best known as the first drag queen on Say Yes To The Dress and for her appearances in the E4 series Queens of Clean, and a DJ set from Pinks.
Orla Nothin’ told The Irish World: “These things are so important at the moment.
“We need to be seen doing stuff and we need to make ourselves visible because the world is going to pot.
“Things like today are one of those things that needs to be out there, needs to be seen celebrating queer film.”
Although her act was comedic, Orla Nothin’ spoke seriously about some statistics.
“55% of the UK do believe that people should be able to come out as who they are which is an appalling statistic.
“79% believe that trans people should have their rights enshrined in law- I thought that was going to be a lot lower and I’m so happy that it’s that high.
“It needs to get higher though.
“There’s always going to be someone that’s an ism: Racism, homophobic, whatever.
“There’s always going to be that person, we just need to make sure that they are in the minority and not the majority.”
One short film starred Rory O’Neill who led the London St Patrick’s crowds last year as character Panti Bliss.
“It was huge, absolutely huge.
“I was in that parade as well.
“We were marching with the London Irish LGBT network and I was a bit upset that I wasn’t the only drag queen in it, but we met up with Panti afterwards and they’re so lovely.
“I think that being visible right at the front was wonderful.
“It’s all about being safe but being visible, showing people that we are here.
“We’re not trying to take over the world, we just want what’s rightfully ours, our rights enshrined.”
