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Queer East: Encore 2024


Queer East returns to the Garden Cinema this September with a series of encore screenings, offering London audiences the opportunity to revisit some of the festival’s sold-out events. From 11-29 September, we will showcase three films from China, Japan, and Taiwan, along with Q&As and introductions. The line-up includes the opening and closing films from this year’s festival: A Song Sung Blue, the Cannes-nominated debut feature by Geng Zihan, is a bittersweet portrayal of a girl’s coming-of-age; while Bye Bye Love, directed by Isao Fujisawa, is a rediscovered classic from 1974 that offers a rare glimpse into early Japanese queer filmmaking. The showcase also features Tsai Ming-Liang’s The River, as part of the cinema’s season Taiwanese Cinema: Now and Then.


Dates


11 Sep — 29 Sep
Event Past
Queer East -
The River
1997
Directed by
Tsai Ming-Liang
Running time
115 mins
In director Tsai Ming-Liang's shockingly subversive family drama, Hsiao-Kang gets roped into participating in a film shoot, in which he plays a dead body floating in the Tamsui River in Taipei. But the polluted, dirty water provokes a health crisis, as Hsiao-Kang is suddenly struck by debilitating neck pain. His concer...

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A Song Sung Blue (UK Premiere)
2023
Directed by
Geng Zihan
Running time
92 mins
Harbin, north-east China: after her mother goes abroad for work, 15-year-old Xian is forced to live with her father, a free-spirited photographer whom she has barely seen since her parents' divorce. He’s in a relationship with his assistant, who has an 18-year-old Chinese-Korean daughter called Mingmei. A restless su...

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Bye Bye Love (50th Anniversary)
1974
Directed by
Isao Fujisawa
Running time
85 mins
Until the 2018 discovery of a film negative in a warehouse, Bye Bye Love was long considered lost: a new print gives audiences a rare chance to revisit this radical work from 1974. Following two young people, Utamaro and Giko, on a doomed summer road trip through Japan, Isao Fujisawa’s poetic, surreal work reflects o...

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