The Gold Diggers plus extended introduction

Presented as part of Birds Eye View’s QUEERIOUS programme featuring an extended introduction by BEV director Melanie Iredale.

Sally Potter’s ground-breaking debut explores themes of power in relation to capitalism and sexuality from a feminist and collaborative perspective. The film was written and produced by Lindsay Cooper, Rose English and Sally Potter, and made with an all-women crew, all of whom were on equal pay. Featuring ‘swinging sixties’ icon Julie Christie and Colette Laffont as two star crossed lovers, this musical and comic adventure tells of their inter-connected quests to understand the nature of money and the feminine ideal in a story that simultaneously subverts and sends up the Hollywood narrative.

+ short film Are You Still Watching? by Sissy Screens: Tali Polichtuk & Kitty Chrystal (Australia 2021, 6’) Forced into near-isolation during Melbourne’s COVID-19 lockdown, 20-year old Jamie keeps themselves entertained bingeing on queer film and TV. What begins as mere escapism turns sensual when they start having sexual delusions involving their favourite queer characters. Fantasy and reality merge as they recount their erotic encounters to their physician and receive an unusual diagnosis. Are You Still Watching? captures lockdown boredom and being perpetually horny and the emancipatory power of the queer imagination, told through vibrant animation.

Birds Eye View’s QUEERIOUS programme will explore a multitude of desires on screen in ways we all too rarely see in cinema. Through stories of sexual (re)awakenings and queer love through a feminist lens, the season aims to help us to question, learn and enjoy our sexual selves. Queerious will tour across the UK. Presented in partnership with Club Des Femmes.