Curated by City Eye in partnership with ‘a space’ arts, our Hub Room Screening featured a programme of 8 short films produced by artists and filmmakers exploring themes of queerness, identity, community, class, nature, neurodiversity, leisure, loss, and overcoming obstacles. This programme included films submitted in response to a call-out to LGBTQIA+ filmmakers, as well as three films submitted in recent years to our Southampton Film Week SFW: Shorts competition.
Queer Shorts was the second part of the programme, following Queer Screenings: Short Films by Queer Artists, which was presented by ‘a space’ arts at God's House Tower as part of its Pre-Pride Weekender from 19-21 August.
PROGRAMME
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1. The Sappho Project: Fragment 147
Dir. Sari Katharyn | 2021 | 7:40 “μνάσεσθαί τινά φαιμι καὶ ἕτερον ἀμμέων” “someone will remember us I say even in another time” (trans. Anne Carson, 2003) Made during lockdown by student artists, this animated film is a collective piece of art, dedicated to one of the most famous lyrical fragments that remain from the lesbian poet Sappho: fragment 147. Through dozens of translations of her words, recorded by queer women from all over the world, and the portrayal of the evolution of art movements, we pay tribute to queer woman through the ages—though we may never know their names, we celebrate their lives. Film Instagram: @fragment147 | Film Twitter: @fragment147 | Producer’s Instagram: @insarity |
2. LET RIP: A PERSONAL HISTORY OF SEEING AND NOT SEEING
Dir. Lee Campbell | 2019 |8:24 Shortlisted for Best Artist Film at SFW: Shorts in 2020. “This film charts my teenage-hood; discovering my (homo)sexuality in private, away from my parents. A scrapbook but on film – a moving scrapbook of having lived through phases of what realising you are gay might mean – layers and fragments of my personal history of being ‘clever at seeing without being seen/ “ Dr Lee Campbell is an artist, poet experimental filmmaker, writer, Senior Lecturer at University of the Arts London, curator of regular performance poetry night POW? Play on Words in South London and founder of Homo Humour, the first of its kind project contemporary queer male film and moving image practice4s that explore humour and LGBTQ+ storytelling. His experimental performance poetry films, in recent years, have been selected for many international film festivals. Instagram: leejjcampbell + lndnqueerfilmmaker | Facebook: leejjcampbell | Twitter: leejjcampbell |
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3. Hidden
Dir. Jess O'Brien | 2019 | 6:21 Shortlisted for Best Fiction at SFW: Shorts in 2019. Solomon reads aloud a poem with a beauty that surprises his classmates except one, Katie. The poem has a meaning and two secrets only they know about. Jess O’Brien is an 18-year old writer, actor and director, producing her own films since 2015. In 2014, she starred in ‘Flawless’ a short film by filmmaker Keith Allott that screened across the world at twenty-four film festivals including Aesthetica. By 2017, she had written and directed her first four shorts and had two films screened at the Empire Cinema In Leicester Square; her first two films ‘Coping’ and ‘Hinterland’ featured at eleven film festivals while her third film ‘Girl A’ was selected for forty-three festivals including the BAFTA Qualifying London Short Film Festival, BFI Future Film Festival, FilmFest Dresden, Shorts On Tap, CineYouth in Chicago, Fastnet Film Festival, KinoFilm Manchester and FilmBath Festival and was awarded best drama at the Sydney World Film Festival, 'Best New Director' at the Winchester Short Film Festival, Best Film 16-19 Category at the INDIs, Best Younger Film at the Beeston Film Festival 2018 and 'Best Director' at the Festival de Cinema Escolar de Alvorada. |
4. LET ME BE BRAVE
Dir. Asten Holmes-Elliott | 2016 | 10:00 Made with LEAP Sports, this film shows the importance of sport in the lives of transgender people, in the same way that it is important in the lives of others. It is a resource aiming to raise awareness of the barriers to sports participation for trans people. Asten is an artist and filmmaker whose work examines ideas of identity, otherness and belonging. They use a variety of mediums including illustration, painting, photography and filmmaking to research, archive and historicise fringe communities and resist their erasure and exclusion. Asten uses unconventional gallery space to encourage accessibility and approachability whilst amplifying visibility and community cohesion. Many exhibitions are interactive, where both artist and audience become performer and subject. They have worked with the BBC, The Wellcome Collection, and the GOMA – their work has been shown worldwide. |
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5. Hold the Sausage
Dir. Cal Freeman | 2021 | 5:19 Through an experimental lens, we see the drama unfold as Saoirse is interrogated by her Nanny after refusing her Sunday roast sausages. Saoirse is a contemporary Irish Catholic teenager, showcasing the progressive youth and nature of Northern Ireland - 'wrecking' her Nanny's nerves in the process. Cal is an emerging Irish Writer & Director based in Manchester. He/him focuses on telling stories that unravel the joys and struggles caused by contradictions in our identities by pulling together ideas of cultural pride and heritage, love, family and justice. |
6. Journey to the CharBagh
Dir. Abdullah Qureshi | 2019 | 17:27 Drawing upon Sufi traditions of interpreting Islamic sacred texts that celebrate love and equality, Journey to the CharBagh is a poetic and experimental exploration of queerness from a Muslim perspective. The narrative focuses on the figure of the Buraq, a winged mythological creature with the ability to travel to heaven, encountering terrestrial and celestial beings, moving toward a spiritual and queer awakening. Abdullah Qureshi is a Pakistani-born artist, curator, and educator. Within his practice, he is interested in using painting, filmmaking, and collaborative methodologies to address personal histories, traumatic pasts, and sexuality. Through his on-going doctoral project, Mythological Migrations: Imagining Queer Muslim Utopias, he examines formations of queer identity and resistance in Muslim migratory contexts. In 2017, Qureshi received the Art and International Cooperation fellowship at Zurich University of the Arts, and in 2018, a research fellowship at the Center for Arts, Design, and Social Research, Boston. In 2019, he joined the Center for Feminist Research, York University, Toronto as a visiting graduate student. He is currently a Doctoral Candidate at Aalto University in Finland, supported by Kone Foundation, and pursuing his MFA in Film at York University, Toronto. Instagram: @maq39 |
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7. Bitter Taste
Dir. Khloë Windsor | 2021 | 8:38 Shortlisted for Best Fiction at SFW: Shorts in 2021. After a night with friends, antisocial 22-year-old Emily reluctantly confronts her significant other over their shared secrecy. Review: "Bitter Taste is a truly captivating short film that showcases far more than a relationship simply falling apart due to secrets. It communicates a story underlined by an important social commentary and eye for detail that resonates long after its initial running time." - Ethan Soffe |
8. GOODFELLOW
Dir. Asten Hoomes-Elliott | 2014 | 2:00 A film about a young man named Robin Goodfellow coming to terms with his autism and exploring ideas of being 'normal'. See LET ME BE BRAVE above for Asten’s biography. |
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And to get the Southampton Pride party off to a heartwarming and rallying start come and join City Eye and John Hansard Gallery for a screening of Pride the 2014 film directed by Matthew Warchus and starry Bill Nighy, Imelda Staunton, Dominic West and many more... you can book your tickets and get all the details here
Charity No. 1089882 | Company Reg. 2786596
