BfI Flare festival turns 40: everything we know as LGBTQ film event returns
London was one of the first cities in the world to host an LGBTQ film festival. The London Gay & Lesbian Film Festival first took place in 1986 at the National Film Theatre, which has since been renamed as the BFI Southbank.
The event provided vital representation and helped legitimise queer storytelling as a genre. New York followed two years later with the launch of NewFest in 1988, following San Francisco’s Frameline, the world’s first queer film festival in 1976. This spring, Flare film festival celebrates forty years in the capital.
Flare film festival programmes contemporary LGBTQ film from around the world, alongside events spanning filmmaker Q+As, mixers, club nights, and workshops. The 40th edition will run from 18 – 29 March.
BfI Flare festival: how to enter your own film
The programme for this year’s festival has yet to be announced, although it typically features exclusive world premieres of both longform movies and short films. Last year’s programming featured dozens of new films, including Night Stage, a thriller about a politician who begins a secret affair; Hot Milk, the screen adaptation of Deborah Levy’s Booker Prize-nominated novel starring Emma Mackey, Fiona Shaw and Vicky Krieps that followed a mother and daughter seeking controversial healthcare treatment and A Night Like This, starring Harry Potter actor David Bradley, which documents the tale of two mismatched men who meet over the course of one night out in London and form an unexpected connection.
The festival will present five films watchable for free via the online BFI Player, from countries “where freedom and equal rights are limited.” Last year’s selection featured films from New Zealand, the USA, China and the UK, and over three million people watched the work online.
Submissions are currently open for BfI Flare festival 2026 for three categories. The deadline for submissions for short films (25 minutes and under) mid-length (50 or under) and feature-length (51 and over) is 5 December and there is more information about how to submit entries here.
The full Flare festival programme will be released on 17 February. Go to whatson.bfi.org.uk.