London Short Film Festival: Hackney cinemas to play leading role as programme announced for 2017
Still from the film Raniya by Sidsel Møller Johnsen
Amidst the penury and abstinence usually associated with January there is always one beacon of hope in Hackney’s cultural calendar.
For next month sees the London Short Film Festival rear its head, offering solace from the chilly gloom with the promise of cutting-edge independent films in a warm cinema with a large box of popcorn.
Hackney Picturehouse and Moth Club will be among this year’s host venues for the London Short Film Festival, screening shorts spanning music, comedy, LGBTQ, fashion and culture.
This year’s festival includes a special focus on LGBTQ filmmaking and issues with the event New Queer Visions: Roots Manoeuvre, a diverse set of tales that raises –but doesn’t necessarily answer – a panoply of questions about crossing borders and identities taking shape.
It will be followed by New Queer Visions: A Special Relationship, a series of shorts and documentaries encompassing everything from anime, sharks and country music.
Scene from Fergie Time by Alexander Gudmestad
New films starring Thomas Turgoose and Vicky McClure from This Is England will be screened as part of the London Lives segment, a series of documentaries, animations and dramas that explore all walks of life in the city, from the sex shops of Soho to the suburbs of Enfield.
Another segment, provocatively entitled Fucked Up Love, showcases short films about dysfunctional relationships, extra marital affairs, polygamy and a couple who break into and have sex in other people’s houses.
Scene from Ocean Within
Other events include Women Under the Influence, a selection of dramas about women succeeding against the odds, ‘Til Death Do Us Part, an intimate look at older love and long term relationships, and Gothic, a series of ghost stories and gothic-tinged tales.
London Short Film Festival
6-15 January at venues across London including Hackney Picturehouse and Moth Club
shortfilms.org.uk