Best recommended films to mark Community Pride

This year’s planned celebrations for LGBTQ Community Pride are another series of events impacted and cancelled due to coronavirus.

They take place annually to celebrate how far as a society we’ve come and, when it comes to equality and acceptance, how far society still has to go.

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So, to help people mark Pride at home, film experts from MetFilm School at London’s world-famous Ealing Studios, have recommended these top films to watch;

Pride

Starring Imelda Staunton and Bill Nighy, this BAFTA winning British comedy is inspired by a true story. It’s the summer of 1984, Margaret Thatcher is in power and the NUM is on strike, prompting a London-based group of gay and lesbian activists to raise money to support strikers’ families. Initially rebuffed by the Union, the group identifies a tiny mining village in Wales and sets off to make their donation in person. As the strike drags on, the two groups discover that standing together makes for the strongest union of all.

Beautiful Thing

A British film directed by Hettie McDonald tells of a long hot summer on a housing estate in South London. Jamie is bunking off school, while mum Sandra juggles work and relationship. Next door lives sassy Leah, and in the same block, Jamie’s classmate Ste, sporty and popular at school, is bullied by his drunken father. One-day, Steve seeks refuge in Sandra’s flat and ends up sleeping head to toe with Jamie.

Victim

Dirk Bogarde stars in this 1961 ground breaking film that deals with the blackmailing of gay men. The death of a young man leads to the discovery of a blackmail plot against several gay men in 1960s London. Directed by Basil Dearden.

Brokeback Mountain

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Winner of three Academy Awards, this sweeping epic starring the late Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal explores the lives of two young men who meet in 1963 and forge an unexpected lifelong connection. A story of forbidden and secretive relationship between two cowboys.

Orlando

Starring Billy Zane, Quentin Crisp and Tilda Swinton - after Queen Elizabeth I commands him not to grow old, a young nobleman struggles with love and his place in the world. His immortality begins a journey that takes him to our time, in the body of a woman. Based on a Virginia Woolf novel, this Bafta winner is a strange but highly acclaimed film.

Show Me Love

Two teenage girls in small-town Sweden. Elin is beautiful, popular and bored with life. Agnes is friendless, sad and secretly in love with Elin. This is a contemporary tale of the joy and pain of being in love, the comical and heart breaking aspects of growing up and the courage it takes to be different.

All About My Mother

This multi-award winning Spanish film tells the story of Esteban who wants to become a writer and also to discover the identity of his second mother, a trans woman, carefully concealed by his mother, Manuela.

Carol

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Starring Cate Blanchett, directed by Todd Haynes – this is a love story about photographer (Rooney Mara) who develops a relationship with an older woman in 1950s New York. Carol was nominated for 6 Oscars.

Blue is the Warmest Colour

This award-winning French film is an epic journey of emotional transformation. A very moving portrayal of love and life.

Jonny Persey, director of MetFilm, said: “I wanted our choices to showcase outstanding acting, cinematography, screenwriting and directing – a tall order, but I think we managed it with this selection.”

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