I’ve Heard the Mermaids Singing + Intro

Patricia Rozema's groundbreaking film will be presented as part of Birds Eye View’s QUEERIOUS programme with a short introduction from BEV director Melanie Iredale. 

Opening with a video-recorded confession from Polly, a secretary, this comedy tells of her voyeuristic fascination for her new boss, the ambitious Gabrielle, owner of an art gallery. The two women are like night and day - the new temp is absent-minded and innocent beyond her years with spiky orange hair and the curator bourgeois, polished and with a gift for gab - yet a strong connection builds through their shared love of art, curiosity and appetite for love. Directed by Patricia Rozema (Mouthpiece, 2018), a significant player in the Toronto New Wave, I’ve Heard the Mermaids Singing is a playful, humorous and complex look at the many different kinds of desire and admiration between women.

+ short film Wavelengths by Pratibha Parmar (UK 1997)

An exploration of the time honoured quest for love and human intimacy in the polished world of computers and the Internet. Set in gay bars, dreams, and cyberspace, this perceptive and highly visual film from Pratibha Parmar (Nina’s Heavenly Delights, My Name is Andrea) contemplates one woman's search for emotionally safer sex. Mona's girlfriend has left Mona with a broken heart, an empty goldfish tank, and—in her altered state—the ability to pick up other people's conversations. Stuck in the post relationship blues, Mona just can't seem to move on...that is until she discovers "cybersex".

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.