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Jacques Nolot’s latest, Before I Forget

LLGFF on Tour

The BFI presents the LLGFF on Tour. Following a record-breaking two weeks of the 22nd BFI London Lesbian & Gay Film Festival a selection of highlights will visit around 40 venues across the UK and Ireland.

This year the Festival attracted audiences in excess of 27,000 people and LLGFF on Tour will give opportunities for audiences across the country to share that experience. The titles selected for the Tour are Before I Forget, Breakfast with Scot, Derek, Finn’s Girl, Otto; Or, Up With Dead People, She’s a Boy I Knew, Smiley Face and Spider Lilies. The Tour starts at London’s Rich Mix on 23 May and will continue until October across the UK including Watershed and Arnolfini in Bristol, the National Media Museum in Bradford, Chapter in Cardiff, the GAZE festival in Dublin’s IFI, Queens Film Theatre in Belfast, Edinburgh Filmhouse, Showroom in Sheffield, Cornerhouse in Manchester, and the Glasgow Film Theatre. Full venue and screening details will be available on the website www.bfi.org.uk/llgff as they are confirmed.

Jacques Nolot’s latest, Before I Forget, is a vastly accomplished study of self-reflection seen through the eyes of a 58-year-old man with HIV.

Presented in long, unhurried takes, the film follows Pierre (played by Nolot himself) as he goes about the habitual routines of day to day life, at once dealing with his illness, contemplating his existence and reminiscing over past loves. While not as sexually uninhibited as his previous Glowing Eyes (aka Porn Theatre), Nolot retains his forthright yet unsensationalist approach to sex, giving the film a rare and often uncomfortable honesty. As a study of aging and a life filled with regrets, it is often emotionally devastating, but what really lifts the film from the depths of despair is the sly undercurrent of wit that pervades throughout, and the fierce intellect with which Nolot tackles his sombre subject.