[A grumpy letter to the festival. Perhaps I should sign myself Brigadier-General, as in those parody Monty Python letters to the Times.]
Dear LLGFF,
So the 22nd London Lesbian & Gay Film Festival is on tour; and just three movies from its series will come to Newcastle, at the Tyneside Cinema, in mid-August, with about a week's notice through flyers in the cinema itself.
And there are at least three disappointments: that it was scheduled so late and casually (we didn't make the brochure this year, but are on a sticker attached to the brochure instead); Newcastle dates aren't mentioned on the LLGFF website, even today; and, most frustratingly for me, neither of the films about HIV+ men (Derek or Before I Forget) are coming here. Instead we're getting a lesbian film, a film about gay guys who act nearly straight, and a Gregg Araki film with no gay or lesbian content which has somehow weaseled into the already very skimpy programme.
As an 'aging' (51 y.o.) gay man with AIDS, who is a member of the local HIV patient group and who speaks fifteen or twenty times a year at a variety of classes and public venues about my experiences, I'm accustomed to semi-humorously dismissing the awareness of the local scene about either men or HIV. Although there are nearly six hundred HIV patients in the Northeast, and more than a third of them gay men, and probably more of those in the 'aging' category than not, I understand that the lesbian contingent tends to be more active here; and that nobody in the Northeast is ever very interested in the HIV+ community anyway.
I also understand that the Tyneside Cinema, although it has Neil Tennant as a major patron, has other things to do than pay much attention to the LLGF festival every year. It is always scheduled in August, when the fewest people are around; it always involves very few films, tucked in a corner as it were; and it is always hugely underpublicized.
I also understand, as I am myself a foreigner from California who moved here six years ago, that LGBT culture in the UK happens mostly in London and Manchester, and that nobody in London normally gives a toss about the provinces, especially the distant Northeast.
But it's still acutely disappointing. Six years in the UK provinces has made me accustomed to the mildly contemptuous disinterest of Londoners and their well-funded institutions, the uninvolvement of locals, and the avoidant boredom that the local community seems to feel at any mention of HIV; and of course it's disappointing to consider another pointless exercise by Araki that has nothing to do with anyone's personal experiences or needs up here.
But I can't help feeling that it could all be different.
Cheers,
...
[Sent also to the Tyneside Cinema, via its apparently carefully screened website e-mail, as well as to various LG figures in the Northeast.]
***
Hmm, well, helpful and polite answers from the LLGFF and the Tyneside Cinema, which have left me pretty mollified: it appears that they are going to show seven of the nine films from the tour, including both of the ones I want to see, but in two groups (the second in September). So clearly My Demographic, such as it is, is also included in this festival.
I still think that London institutions tend to ignore the UK provinces, but it appears that this one isn't doing that.
And I am still unenchanted to see Gregg Araki pushed to the front of the queue, but I guess that's a matter of personal taste....
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