BFI Flare festival to open with UK premiere of Sundance hit ‘Girl Picture’

The 36th BFI Flare: London LGBTQIA+ Film Festival (March 16-27) is to open with the UK premiere of Alli Haapasalo’s coming-of-age drama Girl Picture and to close with the world premiere of Kevin Hegge’s feature doc Tramps!.

Finnish director Haapasalo’s Girl Picture won the World Cinema Dramatic audience award at last month’s Sundance Film Festival and will screen in the Berlinale next week.

The story of three girls at the cusp of womanhood, it follows them over three consecutive Fridays as two of them experience the earth moving effects of falling in love, while the third goes on a quest to find something she’s never experienced: pleasure.

Based on screenplay by Ilona Ahti and Daniela Hakulinen, Girl PIcture is produced by Leila Lyytikäinen and Elina Pohjola for Citizen Jane Productions. Copenhagen-based LevelK is handling international distribution.

Tramps! looks at how in London in the 1980s, an onslaught of art students arriving in the city resulted in a unique cross-fertilization of British art, fashion, music and film culminating in a group known as “The New Romantics”.

Hegge’s film shifts the focus onto the diversity of work being made by the lesser-celebrated, yet equally influential contributors to the scene. Hegge’s previous film She Said Boom: The Story Of Fifth Column screened at BFI Flare in 2013.

Written and directed by Hegge and produced by Hegge and Brian Robertson of Low End, Tramps! is edited by Neil Cavalier and features music by Verity Susman and Matthew Simms.

The full programme for the BFI Flare: London LGBTQIA+ Film Festival will be revealed on February 15.

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