Seeing Queerly: a season of LGBT cinema

Another event celebrating queer culture for LGBT History Month is this brand new season of cinema taking place at various venues across the city. These films delve deeper than the mainstream - no 'Brokeback Mountain' here - with examples of pioneering work from directors making queer cinema before the term existed to describe it.

'Vito' and 'Taxi Sum Klo' will be introduced by Dr Andrew Moor of Manchester Metropolitan University, and there will be a post-screening discussion too.

Vito, Wed Feb 11, MMU New Business School, Manchester Lecture Theatre 5pm, free
A documentary about the man who brought us all out of the ‘Celluloid Closet’. Director Jeffrey Schwarz looks back at Russo’s life as a film fan, a film critic and latterly as an AIDS activist. In the aftermath of Stonewall (1969), Russo found his voice as an angry critic of LGBT representation in the media. Always defiant and eloquent, this moving and inspiring film tells the story of one of our movement’s most important figures. 

Taxi Zum Klo, Thu Feb 12, MMU New Business School, Manchester Lecture Theatre 5, free
Written and directed by Ripploh, who also stars in the film, this very personal – and graphic – sex comedy follows the constantly cruising lifestyle of Frank, a gay schoolteacher, and charts his relationship with sweet-natured, domesticated Berndt. The screening will be introduced by Dr Andrew Moor of Manchester Metropolitan University, and there will be a post-screening discussion.

Shortbus, plus Q&A Justin V. Bond, Sun Feb 15, Contact, £9/£6
Directed and written by John Cameron Mitchell, the man responsible for one of the greatest musicals of all time, 'Hedwig and the Angry Inch', this is a humane, sexy and uplifting queer comedy for the 21st Century set in and around the Shortbus sex club (‘for the challenged and the gifted’) in New York City. A celebration of love, sex and community, and as innocent as a film with this much sex in it can possibly be. And that's a lot of sex.

Will You Dance With Me?, Fri Feb 20, Sackville Lounge, free
Derek Jarman, the father of British LGBT cinema and maker of films such as 'Sebastiane', 'Last of England' and 'Edward II' took his camera into a London gay club one night and let it document what was going on. It is a rhapsodic snapshot of the gay scene in 1984 – a trip down memory lane for some, a fascinating time capsule. This experimental vérité-style film was screened for the first time in 2014 and it now gets its regional premiere in the UK.

Music afterwards from DJ Greg Thorpe, sometimes writer for Time Out Manchester.

All profits from the event will be donated to George House Trust and Albert Kennedy Trust. Donation buckets will be circulating at the venue.

FIND OUT MORE ABOUT LGBT HISTORY MONTH