LGTBI visibility and representation in cinema
Casal Lambda is promoting the Film Festival Fire!!! on Filmin and the French Institute with films and documentaries from 25 countries.
From 9 to 19 June, Casal Lambda is promoting the 27th LGTBI Film Festival of Barcelona Fire!!!. The on-site event will take place in the hall and on the terrace of the French Institute. The festival aims to normalise the presence of the LGTBI collective on the big screen. According to the Observatory of Diversity in Audiovisual Media, the presence of LGTBI characters in films and TV series in 2020 was 7 per cent — a percentage that in cinema did not reach 4 per cent — while an estimated 20 per cent of the world's population does not identify as strictly heterosexual. Meanwhile, trans or bisexual people, migrants or older people, among others, are either invisible or stereotyped.
The Film Festival Fire!!! fights against all these biases by showing films that take these premises into account. A total of 22 feature films, 20 short films and 9 documentaries from 25 cinematographies from Africa (Egypt), America (Argentina, Brazil, Canada and the United States), Asia (Georgia, Israel, Lebanon and Taiwan) and Europe (Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Kosovo, the Netherlands, Norway, Serbia, Spain, Switzerland and Cyprus) will be screened.
In addition to the screenings, which will take place in the afternoon and evening sessions, the Film Festival Fire!!! offers a programme of meetings with directors for professionals and a laboratory for the creation and development of LGTBI films — called Fire!!! LAB — with the aim of encouraging their production and commercialisation. From 13 to 15 June, the scriptwriters and authors of the six selected projects will receive advice from leading professionals in the audiovisual industry, such as Almudena Monzu, Adrián Silvestre, David Matamoros and Ángeles Hernández.
Before the opening session, on 8 June at 7 p.m., there will be a round table discussion on Professional football and homosexuality with the vice-president of the Panteres Grogues club, Toni Travieso, and the sports journalist Henry de Laguérie, on the documentary Footballeur et homo, au cœur du taboo by the activist Yoann Lemaire. On the 15th at 6 p.m., there will be another one, at the LGTBI Centre of Barcelona, on How to represent the unrepresented: LGTBI inclusion in film scripts, with the participation of the editor and director Elio Colen, the social manager Zaida Carmona, the scriptwriter and director Ferran Navarro-Beltrán and the journalist Alba Laguna.
All tickets have assigned seats and cost 8 euros. Individual season tickets of five passes for 30 euros, with a free tote bag, can also be bought. You will find the two types of tickets at this link.
In addition to the on-site schedule, the public will be able to enjoy the film line-up of the Film Festival Fire!!! on Filmin with a two-month subscription to the platform for 15 euros or pay 3.95 euros for each film.