Galway Film Fleadh features line-up of stunning queer titles

The Galway based film festival returns for its 34th year with a dedicated 'Out on Film' programme of LGBTQ+ titles.

Events . Written by Leah Downey.

'Shame//Less' will be showing as part of Galway Film Fleadh.
Image: via Youtube

Galway Film Fleadh begins today with a week-long programme of international film titles depicting stories that span a variety of nationalities, sexualities and relationships. The Fleadh’s central goal is to be a platform for the boldest new films and to bring audiences and filmmakers from around the world together to celebrate their shared passion for film.

This year, queer filmmaking is at the heart of the festival, with Shame//Less kicking things off tonight. The award-winning theatre and performance maker, Stefan Fae, took charge of production and creative direction. Shot in Dublin’s iconic Boilerhouse sauna, Shame//Less  transports the viewer on a kaleidoscopic cruise of Dublin’s queer underbelly.

The film is an artistic response to the findings of ‘Culture and Sexual Risk: An Ethnographic Analysis of Gay Male ‘Sexual Worlds’ in Ireland Today’, inviting its audience to “peer through the glory hole of post-marriage Equality, post-Repeal, post-Twink answering machine message world and to see if you like it like that.”

The showing will be followed by a Q&A with directors Stephen Quinn, Noel Donnellon and Luke Falkner alongside the Chair of Galway Community Pride 2022, Rob Partridge.

It is the first part of an LGBTQ+ specific series taking place throughout the Fleadh, ‘Out on Film’. Other queer films featured include Loving Highsmith, Boulevard! A Hollywood Story, Girl Picture and How to Tell a Secret.

Another notable LGBTQ+ film will be Too Rough, a UK-directed short film in which a “hungover and hysterical Nick wakes up next to his boyfriend Charlie and must conceal him from his homophobic and dysfunctional family”. It will be shown as part of the World Shorts: Programme 2.

The festival is a central feature of Ireland’s cinema culture, with the industry growing in tandem with the event since its inception in 1989. In 1997, the Fleadh hosted the inaugural edition of the Galway Film Fair, the UK and Ireland’s first dedicated film market.

This year marks the 34th annual film festival but the heart of the festival remains the same. The Fleadh describes itself as “[welcoming] a diversity of filmmaking from all around the world, crossing all generations and cultural backgrounds. We bring luminaries to the craft and everyday cinephiles together to share in the wonder of cinema”.

Check out the complete programme of films on Galway Film Fleadhs official website here!

© 2022 GCN (Gay Community News). All rights reserved.

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