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Queer East: On the Road 2024


Following the success of its London edition this April, Queer East embarks on a three-month nationwide tour, bringing a selection of festival highlights to big screens across the country, along with Q&As, conversations, and networking events.

This year’s Queer East: On the Road runs from September to December and features over ten films from the festival’s 2024 programme. Highlights include Bye Bye Love (Japan, 1974) by Isao Fujisawa, a rediscovered gem that offers a glimpse into radical queer filmmaking in 1970s Japan, and The River, by acclaimed slow cinema maestro Tsai Ming-Liang. The line-up also includes several films recently premiered in the UK by Queer East: I Am What I Am (Japan, 2022), The Missing (Philippines, 2022), A Song Sung Blue (China, 2023), and Love Bound (UK, 2024).

Now in its fifth year, Queer East has become one of the most recognised platforms for boundary-pushing LGBTQ+ cinema and moving image work about East and Southeast Asian queer communities. With its most ambitious and largest-scale programme ever, this year’s On the Road reaffirms the organisation’s commitment to diversifying the cultural landscape in the UK, nurturing dialogue on the multifaceted understandings of what it means to be Asian and queer today.

On the Road will visit 15 cities, including Exeter, Bristol, Glasgow, Leeds, Edinburgh, Brighton, Cambridge, Bradford, Kent, and Sheffield.

SCHEDULE

Note: The outline below lists the films that are currently confirmed for the tour. This will be regularly updated with details of venues, dates, and additional titles.

Exeter | Phoenix Cinema

The River
Wednesday 25 September, 20:15

The Last Year of Darkness
Saturday 28 September, 17:30

I Am What I Am
Sunday 6 October, 14:00


Bristol | Cube Cinema

The River
Sunday 29 September, 18:00

Bye Bye Love (50th Anniversary)
Monday 30 September, 20:00


Glasgow | CCA Glasgow

Bye Bye Love (50th Anniversary)
Thursday 10 October, 18:00
Presented in partnership with Scottish Queer International Film Festival


Edinburgh | Cameo Picturehouse

The Last Year of Darkness
Thursday 17 October, 20:30

The River
Friday 18 October, 18:30

Love Bound + Director Q&A
Saturday 19 October, 16:00

Bye Bye Love (50th Anniversary)
Sunday 20 October, 18:00

Short Form: Welcome to Neverland
Monday 21 October, 18:15


Brighton | Duke’s at Komedia

A Song Sung Blue
Tuesday 29 October, 20:45

Bye Bye Love (50th Anniversary)
Wednesday 30 October, 18:00

The Last Year of Darkness
Friday 1 November, 18:00

Short Form: Shades of Faith + Director Q&A
Saturday 2 November, 14:00
Presented in partnership with the Faculty of Media, Arts and Humanities at the University of Sussex.

Short Form: Let the Waves Carry You
Saturday 2 November, 17:15
Presented in partnership with the Faculty of Media, Arts and Humanities at the University of Sussex.


Leeds | Hyde Park Picture House

Bye Bye Love
Sunday 27 October, 14:30

The River
Sunday 17 November, 14:00

The Last Year of Darkness
Tuesday 19 November, 18:00


Liverpool | FACT Liverpool

Love Bound + Director Q&A
Tuesday 12 November, 19:00

Bye Bye Love
Wednesday 13 November, 19:00


Cambridge | Arts Picturehouse

I Am What I Am
October 28 16:25 & October 30 13:20

Bye Bye Love (50th Anniversary)
Wednesday 6 November,

Asog
Friday 8 November,

The River
Sunday 10 November,


Sheffield | Showroom

Love Bound
Monday 9 November,

Asog
Thursday 14 November,

Bye Bye Love (50th Anniversary)
Saturday 16 November,

The River
Thursday 21 November,

 

Bradford | Pictureville Cinema, National Science and Media Museum

Bye Bye Love (50th Anniversary)
November

Asog
November

The River
November

 

Kent | Gulbenkian Arts Centre

Belfast | Queen’s Film Theatre

Oxford | Ultimate Picture Palace

Nottingham | Broadway

 

 


Dates


25 Sep — 6 Oct
Event Past
29 Sep — 30 Sep
Event Past
10 Oct — 10 Oct
17 Oct — 21 Oct
27 Oct — 20 Nov
29 Oct — 2 Nov
12 Nov — 13 Nov
9 Nov — 21 Nov
Queer East -
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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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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I Am What I Am (UK Premiere)
2022
Directed by
Shinya Tamada
Running time
104 mins
Kasumi has never experienced any feelings of romantic attraction. Until now, she has managed to avoid too much scrutiny, but this all changes following her sister’s marriage and pregnancy, which prompts their mother to demand that Kasumi follow suit. But Kasumi refuses to let others define what happiness is, resolvin...

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The Last Year of Darkness
2023
Directed by
Benjamin Mullinkosson
Running time
95 mins
As the city of Chengdu changes, the future of Funky Town, a beloved queer-friendly techno club, is unclear. For a vibrant group of DJs, drag performers, artists, lovers, ravers, and skaters, the club is a sanctuary for underground partying and allows them to thrive after the sun sets. It’s the one place that accepts ...

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Love Bound (World Premiere)
2024
Directed by
Shanshan Chen
Running time
80 mins
LGBTQ+ activist Qiuyan Chen became an unexpected celebrity due to her courageous legal battle against homophobic university textbooks in the 2010s. However, this newfound fame came at a price: she was outed by her tutor, subjected to conversion therapy by her parents, and monitored by the Chinese government. To escape ...

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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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Asog
2023
Directed by
Seán Devlin
Running time
90 mins
This screwball tragicomedy stars a cast of real-life survivors of Super Typhoon Yolanda, focusing on the adventures of Jaya, a non-binary schoolteacher and comedian. Picking up the pieces in their life, Jaya decides to travel across the Philippines in the hopes of winning a drag beauty pageant. But a chance encounter w...

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Welcome to Neverland
2022 - 2023
Directed by
Test
Running time
84 mins
Vampiric schoolgirls, crocodilian men, and spectral lovers populate this eerie programme, in which myths, the supernatural, and alternative universes spark the queer imagination. Blurring boundaries between reality and fantasy, the filmmakers delve into weird and wonderful experiences that ignite the possibility of cha...

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