Wednesday 27 April 2022

BFI Flare 2022: the stats


The 36th edition of BFI Flare: London LGBTQIA+ Film Festival (16-27 March), the UK’s leading LGBTQIA+ film event, closed on 27 March and celebrated being presented back at BFI Southbank after two years of being delivered online due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Overall the Festival saw 25,023 attendances across BFI Southbank and on BFI Player, with an additional 4.5k online views of BFI Flare events, which included the Festival’s Programme Launch on BFI Flare Facebook and BFI YouTube. 58% of all ticket buyers were new to BFI Flare.

Partnering for the eighth year, BFI Flare and the British Council made five LGBTQIA+ short films from the BFI Flare programme available to global audiences for the duration of the festival with the ground-breaking Five Films For Freedom. The LGBTQIA+ digital campaign attracted over three million views from around the world with figures from international content partnerships still to be counted. The project allows audiences worldwide to show solidarity with LGBTQIA+ communities living in countries where human rights are restricted and this year’s selection spanned from China, Croatia, India, Panama and the UK.

Over 12 days between 16– 27 March, BFI Flare welcomed its audiences back to its home venue with 56 feature premieres and 84 shorts screened from 42 countries. For BFI Player, 10 features premiered virtually and 6 short films were screened for free plus Five Films For Freedom.  The Festival hosted 6 World Premieres, 7 International Premieres, 1 European Premiere and 25 UK Premieres from across the features programme. BFI Flare welcomed 174 filmmakers and their teams (106 international, 68 UK-based) in person from 33 countries. Two filmmakers joined the Festival virtually. 

Particular favourites at this year’s edition included Opening Night film GIRL PICTURE, with director Alli Haapasalo presenting the film fresh from its screening in this year’s Berlinale and its World Cinema Dramatic Audience Award win at Sundance. The Closing Night world premiere of, Kevin Hegge’s feature documentary TRAMPS! celebrated the unique cross-fertilization of British art, fashion, music and film in the early 1980s, foregrounding the queer talent which came out of the London scene. Special guests included Jeffrey Hinton, Scarlett Cannon, Dave Baby, Michael Costiff, Philip Sallon, David Holah, Les Child and Princess Julia who opened the Closing Night party with a TRAMPS! inspired DJ set.

Source/images: BFI