In collaboration with Queer East Film Festival, Deptford Cinema presents Funeral Parade of Roses by Toshio Matsumoto.

Matsumoto’s shattering, kaleidoscopic masterpiece is one of the most subversive and intoxicating films of the late 1960s. Loosely adapted from Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex and set in Tokyo’s dazzling underground gay scene, the film follows Eddie (played by the androgynous actor Peter), a transgender hostess at Bar Genet, who has ignited a violent love triangle with drag queen Leda (Osamu Ogasawara) and the club’s owner Gonda (Yoshio Tsuchiya). Blending documentary interviews, fictional narratives, and his own unrestrained avant-garde footage, Matsumoto leads us into a dizzying whirl of images and sounds. The film offers a frank, openly erotic and unapologetic portrait of an unseen community of drag queens. and has been restored in 4k from the original 35mm negatives.

 Preceded by short film Alienation

dir. Kang-chien Chiu | Taiwan | 1966 | 6min

This experimental short features a caterpillar crawling on a wall, a naked man seemingly masturbating, poetic captions and stills of crucifixion-like poses. Considered lost for 52 years, Alienation was found and restored in 2019. (With support from Taiwan Film Institute and Taiwan Docs.)

Queer East Film Festival brings East and Southeast Asian LGBTQ+ cinema to London, with a fortnight of screenings and events from 18 April to 2 May. Find what it means to be Asian and queer today from the unheard voices of storytellers, activists, academics, and those who dare to challenge social norms, history, and the law in Asia.

This screening is supported by Film Hub London, managed by Film London which is a partner of the BFI Film Audience Network, funded by the National Lottery.

• dir: Toshio Matsumoto

• year: 1969

• country: Japan

• run-time: 105 mins

• rating: 18

Full £6.00

Concession: Pay What You Can

Doors 19:00 - Film 20.00