welcome to scene
MANCHESTER’S NEW LGTBQ+ FILM & TV FESTIVAL
From Ian McKellen to Layton Williams, Tony Warren the creator of Coronation Street and Yasmin Finney star of Heartstopper, Greater Manchester has always been the birthplace of amazing LGBTQ+ screen talent. We are the home of MediaCity, Queer as Folk, the world’s longest running soap, and new series like BBC Three lesbian witch drama Domino Day.
So, we thought it was about time the city had its own festival that celebrates queer film, TV and everything in between. From Friday 16th - Thursday 22nd August this summer, SCENE will celebrate new and classic LGBTQ+ cinema and TV, as well as the film, TV and new media content queer audiences love.
Hosted on outdoor and indoor screens, and in interesting spaces across Manchester city centre, the inaugural festival will showcase the best of the year’s LGBTQ+ films and premieres of new work, as well as Q&As, talks, cabaret shows and fabulous parties.
Well, this is Manchester!
The programme starts with a bang celebrating 25 years of Queer As Folk, the series that put Canal Street and queer Manchester on the map when it burst onto our screens in 1999. Writer Russell T Davies, Executive Producer Nicola Shindler and cast including Denise Black and Carla Henry will be joining host Owain Wyn Evans for a chat, looking back on the show and it’s impact.
After a screening of a classic episode chosen by Russell T, we throw a party that takes us back to the tunes, gogo dancers and ‘shag tags’ of the 90’s scene.
We’re also celebrating new BBC One hit Lost Boys and Fairies, with writer Daf Jones and star Sion Daniel Young joining us to talk about the emotional story behind the series.
It’s also amazing to think it’s 10 years since Channel 4 dating show First Dates first hit our TVs. With the rise of more LGBTQ folks on shows like I Kissed A Boy/Girl and controversies and complexities over whether we can be ever included on Love Island, come and enjoy a Mimosa at Ducie Street Warehouse and see how this unique show has been telling our stories since 2014.
The mix of classic and new is at the heart of the festival, as well as the mix of film, TV and online content. Really, it’s all about our stories and lives.
The Lesbian Bar Project is an online series that charts the fortunes of sapphic scenes across the world and the impact, as more and more lesbian bars close in major cities. We’re showing their new film FLINTA at Manchester’s iconic lesbian bar Vanilla. The film dives deep into Berlin’s thriving ‘Female, Lesbian, Intersex, Non-Binary, Trans and Agender’ nightlife.
We’re also thrilled to welcome David Weissman to SCENE. His legendary documentaries chart the deeply personal and universally epic story of gay San Francisco in the 60’s through to the 1990’s and we’re screening two of his docs with intros and Q&As with David down at Factory International/AVIVA Studios.
One of my favourites from the programme, A House Is Not A Disco, explores the East Coast during the same time, a picture of Fire Island New York’s gay beach haven in the 1970’s, through AIDS and how the gay paradise is changing due to climate change, and the freedom and fluidity of a younger queer generation.
On Monday, we remember what Pride is all about at The People’s History Museum with Striking With Pride. This is a Sky documentary about Lesbians and Gay Support the Miners (whose story inspired the 2014 film ‘Pride’) with a chance to meet the filmmakers, explore the museum’s original collection of LGSM protest banners and enjoy choral versions of 80’s dance classics sung by The Sunday Boys choir.
We have a thread of queer music documentaries too, from R’n’B star Lil Nas X in honest tour-doc Long Live Montero, to the complicated life of the transgressive Genesis P-Orridge and the innovation of hard house DJ Tony DeVit.
We also have a fitting celebration of the music of Arthur Russell, brought to life with a screening of David Wolfe’s documentary Wild Combination along with a stunning 10 piece Manchester Camerata ensemble performance of Arthur’s work at AVIVA Studios.
Also at AVIVA (which stands on the grounds of the former Coronation Street set) Trans Creative’s Kate O Donnell presents ‘Hayley and Me’, a cabaret show about trans-representation on TV through the lens of the soap’s first trans character Hayley Cropper and her story. That’s followed by a Camp Quiz testing your soap knowledge hosted by Make A Scene.
The programme also includes Life Is Excellent, a mini-doc hosted by Russell Tovey paying tribute to little known artist David Robillard, including a Q&A with Russell’s Talk Art podcast co-presenter Robert Diament and producer Susie Hall.
Oh, and did we mention we have a big outdoor screen showing FREE family-friendly films out in the sun on First Street?
Pull-up a deck chair and enjoy a season of Camp Cult Musicals including The Wiz, Grease 2 and Xanada, and PG musicals to sing and dance along to. We start the weekend with a big outdoor screening of The Wizard of Oz which surely has to become a new annual tradition!
First Street is a hub for us, with HOME joining as a Festival Partner, and we can’t wait to celebrate their John Waters Season with special screenings of two of his early celluloid atrocities, presented with a SCENE sick bag for those who might find them all a little too much!
We declare the Saturday as ‘John Waters Night’ with a showing of Pink Flamingos complete with edible dog poops (gulp) and a Manchester Drag takeover of the HOME arts centre. The Filthiest Carnival Alive will roll-in with a divine cabaret and John Waters-inspired circus that has to be seen to be believed.
Speaking of Drag, we end with a big celebration on screen as Stephen Elliot’s The Adventures of Priscilla Queen of the Desert turns 30. Drag Race UK’s Divina DeCampo introduces an anniversary screening of the Aussie classic, followed by a mega cabaret paying homage to Drag on film and TV that we’re calling ‘Dragged To The Movies’.
This Closing Party will feature performances from Divina singing songs from Hedwig and the Angry Inch (the role she won 'Best Performance in a Musical' for at the 2022 UK Theatre Awards), Gallifrey Cabaret’s Carrot will be riffing on Jinkx Monsoon’s recent turn in Dr Who, and local dark Drag Princess Liquorice Black will, of course, be Elvira.
For me, the joy of the festival will be delving into, and discovering, new future favourites.
We’re showing Manchester premieres of many new narrative features, shorts and documentaries including India’s First Best Trans Model Agency, Rudrani Chettri’s extraordinary story of her friends in the Hijra community in Delhi as they set out to become models.
Many of these newer films and shorts are being shown at YES, in our The Pink Screening Room. We have Greek nudist beach meta comedy The Summer With Carmen, asexual romcom Slow, and the brilliantly-titled and deeply personal What’s Safe, What’s Gross, What’s Selfish and What’s Stupid, which explores LGBT people’s challenges conceiving.
All films are just £5 or FREE, to make viewing them as accessible as possible, including a FREE screening of lesbian cheerleader drama Backspot.
We have Shorts galore too, including a selection of winners from international festivals. Irish shorts are presented by Dublin LGBTQ+ Film Festival GAZE and The Iris Prize hosts a workshop for film lovers to create a quick pitch for your own title.
All tickets for SCENE are under £15 and we’re donating profits from sales to Manchester Pride Charity in support of queer arts, culture and communities in our city region.
We hope you’ll take this festival to heart and it becomes a mainstay of the way we gear-up for the traditional four day Manchester Pride Bank Holiday weekend, alongside Superbia, and all the amazing independent queer events hosted by venues and brilliant LGBTQIA+ producers, creatives and party starters.
So come, discover, try something you know you like and lots of things you like the look of.
To paraphrase Queer As Folk’s Nathan Maloney… “We’re doing it, we’re really doing it!”
Gary James Williams
SCENE Festival