The wonderful folks over at BFI Flare have just released their list of 10 great lesbian films.
So far, so Buzzfeed. So what makes this compilation worth your attention?
For a start, Selina Robertson has packed the list with some proper indie classics. Many of these are, if not under-rated, definitely under-exposed: “Paris Was a Woman”, “Stranger Inside” and “Another Way” are just three of the inspired choices (each of which, by the way, come with a pithy, insightful summary). Aside perhaps from “Bound” and the more conventional (but still loveable) “The Kids Are All Right” most of these films often find themselves bumped off popular ‘top ten’ lists. In their place are put more mainstream, far safer picks like “Imagine Me and You”, “Kissing Jessica Stein” or even the pretty egregious “Loving Annabelle”.
Lesbian filmmaking is at an interesting moment in its history. Not one of the films on the Teddy Shortlist at this year’s Berlinale was lesbian, and yet, last year, Stacie Passon’s “Concussion” won the Special Jury Award there. That film was at once promising and possibly disheartening: deadpan, sexy and relentlessly bourgeois. What are we to think? Criticwire’s Sam Adams’ recently asked: “Have the Victories of Gay Rights Dimmed the Fires of Queer Cinema?” The line-up for this year’s BFI Flare LGBT Film Festival has plenty in it to suggest that the answer to this is a resounding “no”. But even so, if you’re looking to find the very best of lesbian cinema’s indie past, look no further than this fabulous list.
Find it here.
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