POOLE’s Lighthouse arts centre is hosting the first Poole Pride day on Saturday 8th June in celebration of our community and its many beautiful identities. As well as a full day of free events including a family-friendly daytime variety show hosted by Chris Jarvis, the extraordinary Proud Pooches dog show and a cabaret showcase of local LGBTQ+ performers, the arts centre also has the town’s first Queer Film Festival from 4th to 7th June.

There is also an exhibition, We Didn’t Know Whether It Was a Revolution or a Party, artwork inspired by the archive of pioneering gay activist John Chesterman.

The four-day celebration of contemporary queer cinema, which is organised in association with Arts University Bournemouth, features ten full-length films and a double bill from local queer film-maker Rob Falconer, supported by entries to the Lighthouse Short Film Open Call.

“We wanted to concentrate on more recent films as well as films from outside the UK and US,” says the Lighthouse programming executive Ashton Corbin. “There’s a really strong mix of titles and genres with a couple of regional premieres, and we’re really proud to be able to present work by new and emerging local queer film-makers who answered our open call to submit work for the screen.”

Rob Falconer will talk about his two films – the surreal film essay Sleeping Dragon and Legendary Children (All of Them Queer), a powerful documentary about the pioneers of LGBTQ+ activism – in a special post-screening Q&A. He recalls his visits to Lighthouse, or Poole Arts Centre as it was then, as a teenage performing arts student at Poole College: “The Jellicoe Theatre course was run by a force of nature, Terry Clark. He had this knack of spotting what you were good at and knowing what would be best for you. He saw something in me and was absolutely fierce with me, he really sat on me to keep me on track.

“He told me to go to university not to drama school, but of course off I went to Guildhall in the Barbican that produced actors like Daniel Craig and Ewan McGregor. Sarah Lancashire and Shirley Henderson are the famous names from my intake. I worked as an actor for 15 years, but actors don’t generally get to keep control over their art or voice. Terry spotted that I wanted to call the shots, not just be in them.

“I never went to film school. I learned a lot from watching and talking to crews on set instead and it all went from there. I do still perform, though you’ll never likely know it’s me. That way people approach your work at face value, no ego required.”

Rob’s double bill on Friday 7th June closes the Lighthouse Queer Film Festival with Legendary Children (All of Them Queer), which follows many of the original Gay Liberation Front, including Peter Tatchell and Tom Robinson, through the summer of 2022 as Pride 50 celebrated half a century of a movement that has changed life in Britain (and around the world) forever; the evening also includes Sleeping Dragon, Rob’s short about George Hodson, an activist who survived with HIV for 45 years until his death last year.

From the outset, Poole Pride has been supported by Bournemouth’s well-established Pride event, Bourne Free, and most of the artists who were booked for an unfortunately cancelled Poole Pride concert will now appear at Bourne Free’s annual event in Meyrick Park on Saturday 6th July.