• Outburst Queer Arts Festival 2018 Film Review

    Christopher Honoré’s Sorry Angel is an AIDS film where the presence of the virus comes through in tone and colour rather than political sentiment. The writer and director bathes the interiors and costuming of his cross-generational French romance in hues of blue. It is the colour of melancholy, of the autumn sky just before the light gives out — and, crucially, of hospital wards. Jacques (Pierre Deladonchamps) is a mildly successful but emotionally withdrawn Parisian novelist (imagine!) who is HIV positive but still in reasonably good health. But it’s the 1990s, and so his condition is more or less fatal. He has…

  • Outburst Queer Arts Festival 2015

    Set to be another ten day celebration of LGBT creative culture, the equal parts bold and brilliant  Outburst Queer Arts Festival will return to Belfast from November 12 to 21. Spanning film screenings, theatre performance, visual art and various special events, the festival this year’s outing features everything from a LGBTQ pop-up book club with Patrick Gale, Genderama – a creative project about gender – OUTBURST: OUTLOUD and HOUSE at the Mac, an unmissable night celebration the New York House Ballroom Community. We’ll be previewing our “must-see” events soon. In the meantime go right here to check out the full listings and check out the…

  • Transition Cinema: Outburst 2014 Review

    The film programme of the 8th annual Outburst Queer Arts Festival, screened at Belfast’s QFT, offered a showcase of some of the most interesting additions to international queer cinema. A running theme in this year’s films is that of identities in transition. Characters move from female to male, naive to mature, adolescent to adult, loser to big-shot, in to out. Sometimes they escape their current identities through bravery and curiosity; other times they are forced to by events out of their control. New identities and arrangements promise liberation and novelty, but navigating the changes brings unseen problems. Sometimes they make…

  • Outburst Queer Arts Festival 2014

    Taking place from November 14 to November 22, the eighth annual Outburst Queer Arts Festival will return with eight days and nights of world class and new local, theatre, performance, film, visual art and discussion, celebrating lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender creativity in venues across the city of Belfast. From neo-cabaret duo Bourgeois & Maurice (pictured) and a screening of 52 Tuesdays to David Hoyle’s Queer History Tour and Gayllifrey: a queer celebration of Doctor Who, the festival traverses each and every creative medium to deliver a festival “sharing and exploring LGBT experiences and bringing exciting, entertaining and challenging new work to…