Strolling to Bermondsey from London Bridge, you move by way of a lengthy tunnel. “Am I going the fitting manner?” you may assume to your self, however you forge on, finally rising from the darkness, out into the open. The identical precept may be utilized to your vacation spot on the different finish: The Arzner. Because the UK’s first LGBTQ-focused cinema, The Arzner offers a devoted area for queer illustration on display screen, a darkish screening room through which better understanding of your self and others can come to mild.
An inviting presence within the centre of Bermondsey Sq., The Arzner opened its doorways in April. By way of its floor-to-ceiling home windows, a trendy, spacious and homely bar space may be seen, and it’s evident at first look that they’re proud to be so seen. This constructing has a lengthy historical past as a cinema area, and a part of the positioning situations is that it stays one. “I dwell across the nook, and I used to come back right here when it was a cinema earlier than” says co-founder Simon Burke, whose background is in hospitality. Piers Greenlees, the opposite half of the equation, comes from the movie world. On the competition circuit over time, he would see nice LGBTQ+ movies debut and resonate with audiences, and but they’d fail to filter all the way down to normal audiences. “Queer movies will at all times wrestle to get onto the massive display screen, as a result of studios don’t consider that there’ll be an viewers for them,” displays Greenlees. “They’ve received to be full of large names or large tales – they will’t simply be easy, relatable tales {that a} lot of audiences can connect with”.
Get extra Little White Lies
The pair’s first enterprise – close by queer-focused pub and occasions area The Rising – opened final yr to heat reception. When the chance to do one thing with the Bermondsey Sq. cinema web site got here up, it was a no-brainer. “Movie is a powerful enterprise, however the added deal with this being a cocktail bar makes it a extra commercially viable area, which I assume is what the earlier administration struggled with.” says Burke. Alongside the anticipated staples, The Arzner serves up a formidable choice of charmingly-themed cocktails, every named after necessary figures in LGBTQ+ cinema historical past, starting from Marlene Dietrich to Wong Kar-wai.
The Arzner – each the home cocktail and the venue – are named after Dorothy Arzner, a seminal determine who from 1927 to 1943 was the one feminine director in Hollywood. The choice to christen the venue after her got here after a lot of thought and consideration. “It was necessary for us to have a lesbian voice,” says Burke. “No queer cinema is broadly distributed sufficient, however lesbian movies haven’t been as celebrated as these specializing in the homosexual male expertise. Dorothy Arzner was publicly out for her whole profession, and that was necessary to me, together with how a lot of an affect she had”.
Greenlees and Burke haven’t come throughout a equally LGBTQ-dedicated cinema venue anyplace within the UK, and even within the US, and nobody that they’ve spoken to is aware of of an equal area both. “In the identical manner as you’ve gotten a devoted French cinema in London within the Institut Français, you’ve gotten us for queer cinema” says Greenlees.
Collaboration and dialog are on the core of what the Arzner workforce is constructing, having already fostered robust relationships with distributors that target queer titles resembling Peccadillo, Outplay, and TLA – and so they’ve begun dialogues with London’s coterie of queer cinema specialists about future prospects. The important thing to The Arzner’s dream, and the chance of their success, is that they don’t need to supplant what’s already been constructed within the capital by movie golf equipment resembling Pink Palace, Bar Trash, and Funeral Parade, however as a substitute to offer a house for queer cinema that exists year-round.