Queer East Festival announces full 2025 programme, the most expansive edition in its history.
Showcasing boundary-pushing LGBTQ+ filmmakers and artists from East and Southeast Asia and its diaspora communities, Queer East Festival returns with an eclectic and expansive film, arts, literature, and performance programme across London from 23 April to 18 May 2025. With screenings across London’s iconic cinemas and venues, including the BFI Southbank, ICA London, and Rio Cinema, alongside arts and community spaces such as The Place, The Barbican, and QUEERCIRCLE.
Activism, community, and the collective memory of queer history take centre stage in this year’s programme. Highlights of the extensive film programme include Crazy Love (Michio Okabe, 1968), an avant-garde cult classic documenting the radical spirit of Japan’s creative and artistic scene in Shinjuku in the 1960s, and We Are Here, (Zhao Jing, Shi Tou, 2015), a heartfelt documentary on lesbian advocacy. The festival’s opening event at BFI will see the UK premiere of historical epic Kubi (Takeshi Kitano, 2023), and the closing screening at ICA will be the UK premiere of South Korean transgender documentary, Edhi Alice (Ilrhan Kim, 2024).
Queer East continues its flourishing city-wide arts programme, including cross-disciplinary group exhibition { guttural },,,{ fleshless } at Greenwich LGBTQ+ arts champions QUEERCIRCLE, open to the public 26 April - 17 May.
For its debut live theatre presentation, the festival is hosting the international premiere of When the cloud catches colours, at The Pit, Barbican (24 – 26 April), led by Singaporean theatre maker Chng Yi Ka.
Queer East’s dance programme returns to The Place, with aWokening by Hong Kong-Canadian artist Winnie Ho (Fri 16 May), which blends physical performance, immersive scenography, and sensory dramaturgy.
For the first time, Queer East Festival introduces a literature programme, with talks from author Xuanlin Tham on their recent book Revolutionary Desires, and Chi Ta-Wei on his 1995 queer sci-fi novel The Membranes and Queering Objects II, a poetry workshop hosted by National Poetry Competition winner Eric Yip.
The Expanded programme, as the name suggests, expands how audiences can experience film, blending screenings with workshops, performances, and interactive viewing. Highlights include: Queered Out! At Museum of the Home, which includes a screening of We *KNEAD* to talk (Nandal Seo, 2024), Things and Tingling, a midnight event at Rio Cinema, lingers on the desire of material fetishism and Steamy Intimacies is back for a second year, presenting Taiwanese maverick Shu Lea Cheang’s early films.
Queer East Festival 2025: 23 April to 18 May 2025
Further Information: Home - Queer East