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Moffie director Oliver Hermanus, Sharon D Clarke, Lesbian visibility, Anna Meredith

Oliver Hermanus on his new South African film Moffie, Lesbian Visibility Week, Sharon D. Clarke on World Book Night and Anna Meredith's body-percussion piece Handsfree.

Oliver Hermanus's new film about a gay teenage conscript and his brutal experience of being in the South African army during Apartheid is called Moffie, a common Afrikaans anti-gay slur. He tells us how a fear of homosexuality fuelled the problem of toxic masculinity that is still so prevalent in the country, and why he used such a provocative title for his film.

This week is Lesbian Visibility Week and we鈥檒l be considering how far LGBTQ+ campaigning progress has extended to the visibility of lesbians and lesbian relationships across books, film and TV, with Erica Gillingham, bookseller at London鈥檚 Gay鈥檚 The Word bookshop and Emma Smart, programmer for the BFI鈥檚 Flare Festival of queer cinema.

Tonight is World Book Night, the annual celebration of books and writing that aims to encourage more adults to read for pleasure. Sharon D. Clarke, best known to TV audiences as Grace O'Brien in Doctor Who, will be joining Samira to read an excerpt from one of World Book Night鈥檚 specially chosen titles, Bedtime Stories for Stressed Out Adults. Digital copies of the book are available free via a link on the Front Row website.

As the recent Thursday evening tradition of ClapForCarers continues shortly after we come off air, composer Anna Meredith discusses Handsfree, her instrument-free, 'body-percussion' piece which involves extensive clapping, which has been performed many times around the world and was included as part of the 2012 Proms Season.

Main image: Kai Luke Brummer (Left) and Ryan de Villiers in the film Moffie
Image credit: Daniel Rutland Manners/Curzon Artificial Eye

Presenter: Samira Ahmed
Producer: Jerome Weatherald
Studio Manager: Donald MacDonald

Available now

28 minutes

Moffie director Oliver Hermanus

Moffie director Oliver Hermanus

Oliver Hermanus' film from 24 April 2020, certificate 18.

Images:

Main image above: Kai Luke Brummer as Nicholas Van der Swart听(Left) and Ryan de Villiers as Dylan Stasser in Moffie

Image credit: Daniel Rutland Manners/Curzon Artificial Eye.

Image to the left: Oliver Hermanus

Sharon D Clarke on World Book Night

Sharon D Clarke on World Book Night

Sharon D Clarke read an excerpt from the collection Bedtime Stories for Stressed Out adults to听mark听.听It's one of four books available to download for free from The Reading Agency. All the details are on the 91热爆 Arts website.

Image: Sharon D Clarke

Lesbian visibility in the arts

Lesbian visibility in the arts

Find out more about into Lesbian visibility in the arts.

Image: a statue of Sappho

Anna Meredith

Anna Meredith

Watch Anna Meredith's on her website

Image: Anna Meredith

Image credit: Gem Harris

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  • Thu 23 Apr 2020 19:15

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