"For four decades, BFI Flare has championed bold storytelling"
BFI Flare: London LGBTQIA+ Film Festival has unveiled its 2026 programme as it marks its 40th anniversary.
Taking place between March 18-29 at BFI Southbank, the festival will host screenings, panel discussions, talks, DJ nights, and special events, offering audiences an immersive celebration of queer cinema.
This year’s programme features 31 world premieres across both features and shorts, with a total of 65 features and 62 shorts from 47 countries.
The festival is organised around four thematic strands: HEARTS, BODIES, MINDS, and a new anniversary section, TREASURES, dedicated to celebrating the history of LGBTQIA+ cinema.
Opening the festival will be Jennifer Kroot’s world premiere documentary, Hunky Jesus, which follows the San Francisco-based social justice group The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence and their annual Easter Sunday celebrations.
Sister Roma, a long-standing member of the San Francisco chapter, will join a talk titled Divine Dissidence: A Sistory of the Sisters, alongside members of UK chapters reflecting on their history and impact.
The festival will close with the UK premiere of Sandulela Asanda’s romantic drama Black Burns Fast, which follows Luthando, a scholarship student at a prestigious South African boarding school.
Her carefully structured academic year is upended by the arrival of a new girl in her class, forcing her to confront long-suppressed desires and rethink everything she thought she knew about herself.
BFI Flare’s 2026 programming team said: “As we celebrate our 40th anniversary, we are delighted to present a programme full of cinematic gems and compelling events.
“For four decades, BFI Flare has championed bold storytelling and created a vital space for connection and visibility.
“We look forward to welcoming talent from the UK and around the world to the BFI Southbank to share their films with our audiences.
“At a time when visibility and authentic representation remain as vital as ever, we are proud to continue providing a platform where our communities can see themselves reflected on screen unapologetically, truthfully, and with pride.”
A highlight of the festival will be a BFI Flare Screen Talk with Russell T Davies, who will discuss his career and his upcoming Channel 4 drama Tip Toe, which examines contemporary challenges facing LGBTQIA+ communities.
World premieres this year also include Madfabulous, Celyn Jones’ period drama about Henry Cyril Paget, starring Callum Scott Howells, Ruby Stokes, and Rupert Everett, and Hiroaki Matsuoka’s Beyond The Fire: The Life Of Japan’s First Pride Parade Pioneer, chronicling the life of Teishiro Minami, who led Japan’s first Pride march.
Ethan Fuirst’s Can’t Go Over It explores the gradual breakdown of a friendship during an annual hiking trip, while Daniel Ribeiro’s I Am Going To Miss You follows a T4T couple navigating cohabitation.
Other premieres include D’Arcy Drollinger’s Lady Champagne, Nick Butler’s Lunar Sway, Out Laws, To Dance Is To Resist and Isabel Daly’s Cornwall-set drama Washed Up.
BFI Flare’s Special Presentations include Paloma Schneideman’s Big Girls Don’t Cry, a portrait of queer adolescence and the first feature to emerge from Dame Jane Campion’s A Wave in the Ocean programme, and a restored 4K screening of James Bidgood’s 1971 experimental landmark Pink Narcissus.
Documentaries will feature prominently, including Barbara Forever, 10s Across the Borders, The Broken R, Jaripeo, Mickey & Richard, Treat Me Like Your Mother, and We Are Pat.
Other narrative highlights include Montreal, My Beautiful, Satisfaction, Queen of Coal, The Last Guest of the Holloway Motel, Mysterious Skin, The Watermelon Woman, and Campbell X’s Low Rider.
Trans narratives remain central to this year’s programme, with titles including Death and Life Madalena, I Am My Own Woman, The Serpent’s Skin, What Will I Become?, and Africa’s first transgender film, Woubi Chéri.
Asian cinema is represented by Impure Nuns, The Deepest Space in Us, Warla, and Whisperings of the Moon, while South American stories feature in Baby, Cherri, Keep Coming Back, and Perro Perro.
BFI Flare will also present four of the most acclaimed queer films from the past year: Pillion, Dreamers, Baby, and Little Trouble Girls.
Alongside screenings, the festival will host events including Heartstopper Forever!, The Makers with Cheryl Dunne, and a 40 Years of BFI Flare exhibition at Queer Britain.
The festival continues its international outreach through the 12th edition of Five Films For Freedom in partnership with the British Council, offering five short films for free online to audiences worldwide, particularly in countries where LGBTQIA+ rights remain restricted.
Since its launch in 2015, the initiative has received nearly 29 million views across more than 200 countries. The 2026 selection will be available on BFI Player and announced on 20 February.
Tickets go on sale for BFI Members on February 24, with general release from February 26.
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