‘We want people to enjoy the party, but we also want them to ask what a queer dystopian future might be’

The Palace Collective have unveiled a three-day programme for its International Film Festival. With screenings as exciting as they are varied, the festival offers something unique to the Bristol queer scene.

Bristol Pride’s Queer Vision is the city’s only other LGBT+ filmmaking platform, but this festival demonstrates the growing vitality of the grassroots queer scene year-round. It illustrates why the city is fast being recognised as one of the best places for queer people to live.

Organiser Harry Silverlock says, “we were inspired by the other leading queer festivals we visited like SQIFF (Scottish Queer International Film Festival) and San Francisco’s Frameline.  “A week after welcoming open submissions, over 500 entries were received, say organisers.  “We had to stop people submitting,” Harry says, “and we realised what we knew all along, there aren’t platforms for these films.”

The festival’s international scope owes much to the history of The Palace Collective. Established by Thea Hope in 2017, the Collective rented a 700-year-old nobleman’s estate in rural Poland for British, German and Polish queer artists. From this shabby palace, they hoped to bring together a community that could inspire borderless collaboration. Having run an underground festival for two years, 2019 marks the point the festival truly gets off the ground.

“We wanted to collate queer films for queer audiences,” Harry says, “and there’s a real beauty to that. We’re actively thinking for the future about how to engage straight audiences in what we do.” But, Harry adds, “as a white gay man, I know we have it good. We need to step aside and let other voices within the LGBT+ spectrum be heard.”

Coordinating the festival was the job of a programming and screening committee, Harry explains. “We are community focused, it feels grassroots. We had objectives to include industry-made films and short films that covered lots of areas of queer identity.” The programme includes three shorts programme entitled Queer As F*ck, Community Activation and Palace.MIXX.

Queer As F*ck is billed as “titillating, tender and subtle” shorts that look at at the personal assertion of identity. Community Activation looks at the social sphere of queer life and asks, why do labels exist? “Discovering your tribe”, Harrys says, “is important” but removing divisions within the “diverse spectrum of queer life” is important for the community to come together as one. Palace.MIXX features experimental films that cover surreal concepts and dystopian futures.

The festival is headlined by three full-length feature films. Fluidø is a 2017 German film set in the post-AIDS future of 2060. This erotic sci-fi film has a queer Bladerunner aesethtic and is, Harry says, “a must-see”. “It’s sexual content and its indie aesthetic means it’s unlikely to be shown in Britain again”. In a post-modern future a new sex drug called Delta explodes onto the scene, triggering a new war on drugs and a gender-fluid generation.

Fluido is one of the films showing over the festival

The Last of England features a live score from Joe Summers, Rosa Irwin-Clark and Thomas Summers. “It’s a big scoop to be able to show this film with a live score,” explains Harry, “as producer James McKay is very protective of his work.” The film was Derek Jarman’s directorial debut and it features Tilda Swinton in a 1987 commentary on life under Thatcher. “Even today, this film questions what it is to be British in a very relevant way. Perhaps more so post-Brexit,” Harry continues.

The Last of England

Closing night features Shakedown, a film documenting fifteen years in an underground club for black queer women in Los Angeles. The club was shut down by police but before it closed, director Leilah Weinraub captured the essence of this inspiring club and the innovators behind it, like Ronnie Ron, the butch creator, and Mahogany, the legendary mother of the scene.

The final night concludes with the Queer Dystopian Palace Party hosted by electro duo RR 911, Ya Ya Bones and Molejoy. “We want people to enjoy the party, but we also want them to ask what a queer dystopian future might be. I think that future might already be here,” Harry explains.

Palace International Film Festival runs from 14 to 16 March.

Read more: Watching Talking LGBT+ Bristol