Joss Morfitt presents paper at BFI Research Showcase event

MLAC’s Joss Morfitt presented a paper exploring the British Film Institute’s pioneering history of queer film programming. The paper, entitled “Anatomising Queer Curatorial Histories: ‘Images of Homosexuality’ and the BFI’s Legacy of Queer Film Programming”, explored a season of films organised by film scholar Richard Dyer in 1977, the first to do so within an institutional context in Britain. Featuring a selection of almost fifty films, the season stands as an important vantage point upon which to gauge the political valence of ‘queer’ politics in Britian at this time. This paper underscores the reflexive aspect of Dyer’s initiative, in which he sought to critique the ‘problematic’ qualities of existing lesbian and gay films—queers depicted as shameful, pathological, or nefarious, etc. At the same time, the season evinced a utopian aspiration to radically redefine the way in which we consume ‘queer’ media, to think more critically about the ways in which queer people would like to be represented, and to highlight filmmakers that were already striving for those utopian ideals.

Presented alongside a range of BFI-partnered academics from across the UK, the event showcased the diversity and breadth of research supported by the Institute, with projects on post-war migrant cinemas, video game archival preservation, costume design and invisible labour, and women’s cinema of the late 20th century all featured.