Queer East Festival is taking LGBTQ+ Asian cinema on the road

The Queer East, a film organization that highlights LGBTQ+ films from across East and Southeast Asia, is holding its fifth edition tour this fall. The tour will showcase an eclectic mix of new and classic queer films spanning the Asian diaspora.

The tour, titled On the Road, is an expansion of the organization’s “record-breaking” fifth edition festival held in London this past April. Taking place across multiple regions in the UK, the tour kicks off on September 25 in Exeter and is scheduled to run through December.

The festival began in 2020 to address the erasure of Asian experiences within broader queer cinema. Highlights from the catalog of over 100 films include the recently recovered 1974 Japanese classic Bye Bye Love, 1997 Taiwanese family drama The River, 2023 animated Filipino film The Missing, and 2023 Chinese coming-of-age film A Song Sung Blue.

“The festival was established in response to the systemic lack of Asian representation on the big screen, onstage, and behind the scenes,” reads the organization’s website. “Global events over the past few years have once again reminded us that fair and authentic racial and sexual representation is crucial for our society.”

Entertainment with an edge

Whether you’re into indie comics, groundbreaking music, or queer cinema, we’re here to keep you in the loop twice a week.

“The richness of Asian and queer heritage forms a vital part of this country’s identity,” it continues. “Through a diverse and forward-thinking programme, the festival aims to amplify the voices of Asian communities and challenge the conventional norms, labels, and stereotypes associated with queer Asian portrayals.”

Related

The gays are obsessed with Julianne Moore and Tilda Swinton’s showmance

It’s far from sexy subject matter, and yet the two highly decorated actresses have still managed to leave sapphics swooning.

Andrew Scott and Greta Lee will star in this surreal romance

My Notes on Mars represents the first English-language venture for Hungarian director Lili Horvát.

Representing the whole spectrum of queer Asian experiences is in many ways an impossible task, but a team of 12 guest curators have built on the success of previous years to construct a wide-ranging, inclusive model.

“I don’t really like the idea of ‘we are curators, we are one voice, we need to control a narrative,’” festival director Yi Wang said in Little White Lies. “Especially when we are talking about the East and Southeast Asian region. It’s like 20+ countries, 20+ languages, and 20+ different cultures. I like having a decentralised model with many voices. Every curator brought their own knowledge and expertise to the festival.”

Since its start in 2020, the festival’s scope has only grown in its fifth year to include year-round schedules and encores. With the upcoming tour just getting started, organizers are already looking ahead to the next year, accepting submissions for the 2025 season.