Lost Reels presents Lianna (1983) from 35mm + online Q&A with John Sayles and Maggie Renzi.

Written, directed and edited by John Sayles, Lianna concerns the unhappily married Lianna (Linda Griffiths) who, after developing a crush on her female teacher Ruth (Jane Hallaren), embarks on an affair causing her to reassess her sexuality. This is complicated by her pompous unfaithful college professor husband Dick (Jon DeVries), Ruth’s uncertainty about the durability of their relationship, the rejection of her best friend Sandy (Jo Henderson), and the stress placed on her relationships with her children.

The screenplay by Sayles is smart, illuminating and true. Lianna enjoys the liberation of her new life but also experiences a lack of confidence and fear of rejection. The less progressive attitudes to same-sex relationships in the 1980s are explored through her experiences of lesbian bars, hook-ups, and the changing dynamics with her friends. Lianna broke new ground with its realistic depiction of an ordinary woman in mid-life discovering her sexuality and making the necessary, often painful changes. 

Both a queer classic and a deeply felt chronicle of a woman’s personal journey, Lianna has been virtually unseen in the UK since its limited release in 1984 and is currently unavailable on any domestic home media or streaming platform. Lost Reels is proud to bring this pioneering film back to UK audiences from an original 35mm print together with an online Q&A discussion with filmmaking legend John Sayles and his producer and partner Maggie Renzi.

Web: LostReels.co.uk
Instagram/Bsky/Threads/YouTube: @lostreelsuk

A dark-haired woman (Laura Elena Harring) is left amnesiac after a car crash. She wanders the streets of Los Angeles in a daze before taking refuge in an apartment. There she is discovered by Betty (Naomi Watts), a wholesome Midwestern blonde who has come to the City of Angels seeking fame as an actress. Together, the two attempt to solve the mystery of Rita's true identity. The story is set in a dream-like Los Angeles, spoilt neither by traffic jams nor smog.

There’s a killer on the loose in New York City, and he’s targeting gay men in the West Village. Fortunately for the NYPD, he’s got a type – slim, dark-haired, handsome – and officer Steve Burns (Al Pacino) fits the bill. To crack the case, Steve must journey into the city’s nocturnal underworld of S&M and leather bars, hoping to catch the killer’s eye – but will he lose himself along the way? Controversial with both straight and gay audiences upon its initial release, Friedkin’s film still retains its power to shock and unsettle 45 years later.

When inexperienced criminal Sonny Wortzik (Al Pacino) leads a bank robbery in Brooklyn, things quickly go wrong, and a hostage situation develops. As Sonny and his accomplice, Sal Naturile (John Cazale), try desperately to remain in control, a media circus develops and the FBI arrives, creating even more tension. Gradually, Sonny's surprising motivations behind the robbery are revealed, and his standoff with law enforcement moves toward its inevitable end.

A frustrated housewife, Francine Fishpaw (Divine), tries to maintain her sanity while taking care of her dysfunctional household. Elmer (David Samson), her husband and the owner of an adult theater, is sleeping with his secretary, and her delinquent teen son, Dexter (Ken King), and pregnant teen daughter, Lulu (Mary Garlington), aren't helping matters any. But when Francine meets dashing Todd Tomorrow (Tab Hunter), the owner of a theater specializing in art films, her life appears rosier.

Presented in Odorama – Scratch 'n' Sniff Odorama cards will be handed out to ticket holders on a first-come, first-served basis, while supplies last (if you are coming as a couple, take one card, please, so we have enough to go around). 

In Berlin in 1931, American cabaret singer Sally Bowles (Liza Minnelli) meets British academic Brian Roberts (Michael York), who is finishing his university studies. Despite Brian's confusion over his sexuality, the pair become lovers, but the arrival of the wealthy and decadent playboy Maximilian von Heune (Helmut Griem) complicates matters for them both. This love triangle plays out against the rise of the Nazi party and the collapse of the Weimar Republic.

On a Friday night after hanging out with his straight mates, Russell heads out to a nightclub, alone and on the pull. Just before closing time, he picks up Glen. And so begins a weekend - in bars and in bedrooms, getting drunk and taking drugs, telling stories, having sex and building a deep emotional bond.

Now a classic in gay cinema, WEEKEND was the breakout film from writer/director Andrew Haigh and a turning point for British queer cinema. Featuring a one-night stand that turns into an unforgettable weekend - WEEKEND truly is a must-see LGBTQ+ film.

When a beautiful stranger leads computer hacker Neo to a forbidding underworld, he discovers the shocking truth--the life he knows is the elaborate deception of an evil cyber-intelligence.

For Pride Month, Funeral Parade is proud to present The Angelic Conversation, Derek Jarman’s sensuous cinematic love poem.
 
Made in the tradition of Jean Cocteau and Kenneth Anger, this Super 8mm daydream is by turns erotic, nightmarish, and ethereally beautiful. Made between arthouse classics The Tempest (1979) and Caravaggio (1986), this film grew out of a series of home movie improvisations and experiments which Jarman subsequently woven into a haunting tapestry of images and textures – he would later say that it was his personal favourite of his own film work. Featuring the music of Coil and Shakespearean sonnets read by Judi Dench, The Angelic Conversation remains a powerful and stirring meditation on the nature of desire and romantic love.
 
With an introduction from film curator Sarah Cleary.

Petra von Kant is a successful fashion designer – arrogant, caustic, and self-satisfied. She mistreats Marlene (her secretary, maid, and co-designer). Enter Karin, a 23-year-old beauty who wants to be a model. Petra falls in love with Karin and invites her to move in.

Raised a boy in East Berlin, Hedwig undergoes a personal transformation in order to emigrate to the U.S., where she reinvents herself as an ‘internationally ignored' but divinely talented rock diva, inhabiting a ‘beautiful gender of one'.

In this loose adaptation of Shakespeare's "Henry IV," Mike Waters (River Phoenix) is a gay hustler afflicted with narcolepsy. Scott Favor (Keanu Reeves) is the rebellious son of a mayor. Together, the two travel from Portland, Oregon to Idaho and finally to the coast of Italy in a quest to find Mike's estranged mother. Along the way they turn tricks for money and drugs, eventually attracting the attention of a wealthy benefactor and sexual deviant.

A couple take a trip to Argentina but both men find their lives drifting apart in opposite directions.