Returning for a 32nd year, BFI Flare: The London LGBTQ+ Film Festival presents over 140 features and shorts at BFI Southbank and other venues across the capital between 21 March and 1 April. In addition to the screen selection, the festival has also laid on a range of special events, guest appearances, discussions, workshops and club nights to ensure the UK's longest-running showcase for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender cinema retains its reputation for excellence and inclusivity.

Among the treats in store is a Second Chance slate that allows audiences to catch up with some of the best queer pictures of the last few months. Alongside Emma Stone playing Billie Jean King opposite Steve Carell's Bobby Riggs in Jonathan Drayton and Valerie Faris's tennis sage, Battle of the Sexes, there will also be a chance to see Chilean trans star Daniela Vega's devastating performance in Sebastián Lelio's A Fantastic Woman, and Josh O'Connor and Alec Secareanu finding love in the Yorkshire Dales in Francis Lee's God's Own Country, which has been called the `British Brokeback Mountain'. Moreover, viewers will be able to see why James Ivory became the oldest ever winner of a competitive Oscar for his adaptation for director Luca Guadagnino of André Aciman's first love novel, Call Me By Your Name, which also saw Timothée Chalamet land a Best Supporting nod for his performance opposite Armie Hammer.

Ivory also features as a director, as Flare revisits the 1987 take on EM Forster's Maurice that he made with producer Ismail Merchant and screenwriter Kit Hesketh-Harvey. James Wilby leads a stellar cast, as he forms a platonic understanding with the well-heeled Hugh Grant in Edwardian Cambridge before becoming besotted with his friend's gamekeeper, Rupert Graves. The shadow of the trial of Oscar Wilde hangs over the proceedings and Rupert Everett explores the ramifications of the Irish playwright's fall from grace in The Happy Prince. As well as making his debut as a writer-director, Everett also plays Wilde during a continental exile that buffets him between capricious lover Bosie (Colin Morgan) and loyal literary executor Robbie Ross (Edwin Thomas) and prompts memories of happier times with his wife Constance (Emily Watson) and ennobled pal Reggie Turner (Colin Firth).

Reuniting couples also come to the fore in Erlingur Thoroddsen's Rift and Anucha Boonyawatana's Malila: The Farewell Flower. The former sees Björn Stefánsson realise that he is having a tough time reconciling himself with the past when he pays a visit to ex-lover Sigurður Thór Óskarsson on his remote family estate in northern Iceland. But, during the course of his stay, as sinister noises grow louder outside the house, Stefánsson starts to feel haunted by ghosts from his youth. In the latter, Sukollawat Kanaros contemplates becoming a Buddhist monk after his wife deserts him after their daughter's death. When he learns the former boyfriend Anuchyd Sapanphong is suffering from cancer, however, he comes to stay with him and becomes fascinated by his therapeutic practice of Bai Sri, the art of fashioning sculptures from folded banana leaves and interwoven jasmine blossoms.

The spectre of death also hangs over Robin Campillo's 120 BPM (Beats Per Minute), which harks back to the 1990s to recall the activities of the Parisian branch of ACT UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power). Co-written by activist Philippe Mangeot, this dwells on the tactics employed by the protest group to keep the emergency in the news and challenge Big Pharma's dismal performance in developing effective treatments. At the core of the story is HIV-negative volunteer Arnaud Valois's relationship with positive militant Nahuel Pe'rez Biscayart and the latter's ongoing conflicts with ACT UP's less confrontational leaders, Adèle Haenel and Antoine Reinartz.

Remaining in a political mood, the secretive Xhosa initiation ritual known as `ukwaluka' is exposed in John Trengove's The Wound, which follows Johannesburg teenager Niza Jay Ncoyini to the Eastern Cape, where he is circumcised and subjected to tasks intended to toughen him up by caregiving factory worker Nakhane Touré, who is more concerned with resuming his illicit gay relationship with married friend, Bongile Mantsai. The simmering undercurrent of homophobia that permeates this arresting study of modern South African masculinity is also evident in a more subtle form in Mazen Khaled's Martyr, which follows Hamza Mekdad and his equally disenfranchised mates, as they mooch around Beirut. However, a tragic accident while diving into the rocky waters off the Lebanese capital forces the men to reassess the way in which they express their feelings.

The region's conservative attitudes towards sexuality and gender travel as far as Chicago in Anahita Ghazvinizadeh's debut feature, They, which centres on teenager Rhys Fehrenbacher, who is taking hormone blockers to delay the onset of puberty while he decides whether to transition. With his parents unable to leave Iran, the boy confides in his experimental artist sister Nicole Coffineau and her boyfriend Koohyar Hosseini that he feels trapped between two worlds, as well as between two selves. Perth teenager Daniel Monks faces an equally difficult decision in Stevie Cruz-Martin's feature bow, Pulse. Disabled and facing a future of isolation and pain, Monks decides to have hid mind transplanted into the body of a beautiful girl (Jaimee Peasley). But the futuristic procedure has a momentous impact on her relationships with mother Caroline Brazier, best friend Scott Lee and homophobic bully David Richardson.

Dealing with a loved one's decision to transition is also the theme of Henrik Martin Dahlsbakken's Going West, as Norwegian music teacher Benjamin Helstad vows to keep a promise to dying mother Birgitte Victoria Svendsen to do something fun with his father. However, when he shows up on a rusty motorbike and sidecar to take Reidar Sørensen to a quilting contest on a remote lighthouse island, Helstad is surprised to discover that his dad is no longer hiding his passion for cross-dressing. By contrast, Buddhist knitting therapy is the craft in the spotlight in Naoko Ogigami's Close-Knit, which sees neglected 11 year-old Rinka Kakihara go to live with uncle Kenta Kiritani and his trans nurse girlfriend, Toma Ikuta, only for the mother of her only friend at school to try and rescue her from an unnatural household.

Events take a darker turn in Gary Reich's Uncle David 2, a sequel to the daringly divisive saga that raised eyebrows at the LLGFF in 2010. Still holed up on a bleak caravan on the Isle of Sheppey, David Hoyle plays host to a community of misfits. But the arrival of an androgynous new `nephew' sparks the interest of a couple of emotionally disturbed siblings. Further up river, Harris Dickinson (who suffers from a rare psychosomatic reaction to art known as Stendhal Syndrome) arrives in Soho from the Essex sticks and, having been robbed on his first night, falls in with a gang of high-class escorts dubbed `The Raconteurs' in Steve McLean's Postcards From London.

Alex Lawther also finds himself in a new town in Trudie Styler's adaptation of James St James's novel, Freak Show. But, having been encouraged to indulge his fondness for cosplay by mother Bette Midler, Lawther quickly learns that things are a little more straitlaced when he goes to live with father Larry Pine. Class wallflower AnnaSophia Robb is happy to accept Lawther for who he is, while sensitive jock Ian Nelson is comfortable being his friend. But Bible-bashing mean girl Abigail Breslin isn't going to allow weirdoes to take over her school. And that's why Lawther decides to run against her for homecoming queen. Martin L. Washington, Jr. takes another approach to fighting back in first-timer Shaz Bennett's Alaska Is a Drag. He works in the local fish cannery with twin sister Maya Washington, while aspiring to become a drag queen. But when boss Jason Scott Lee urges him to take up boxing to defend himself against bully Christopher O'Shea, Washington finds an unlikely ally in newcomer Matt Dallas.

The scene in which Margaret Cho belts out a drag tune is likely to become one of the most iconic moments of Flare 2018. But Brazilian chanteuse Samya de Lavor also has a way with a torch song, as she takes to the stage of a shady bar called Inferninho in Guto Parente and Pedro Diógenes's My Own Private Hell. Anything goes as far as transvestite proprietor Yuri Yamamoto is concerned, hence the bearded Wonder Woman and Rafael Martins in his pink bunny costume. But Yamamoto proves anything but accommodating when developers eye up her stretch of the Rio beach-front and sailor Demick Lopes's thuggish shipmates come looking to claim an unpaid debt. 

A theft bothers Shico Menegat in Filipe Matzembacher and Marcio Reolon's Hard Paint, as Bruno Fernandes has stolen his idea of doing private dances for online punters while coated in luminous paint. But, while Neon Boy sees the sense of joining forces with his webcam rival to double their takings, he is dreading having to stand trial for a past misdemeanour just as sister Guega Peixoto is about to leave the southernmost city of Porto Alegre to become a journalist on the other side of Brazil. And homophobia also rears its ugly head in Martín Rodríguez Redondo's Marilyn, as Argentinian farmboy Walter Rodríguez dreams of a life in the city after his beloved father dies. But, while mother Catalina Saavedra and Ignacio Giménez heartily disapprove of his fixation with women's clothing, even they are appalled when Rodriguez is brutally raped on his way home from taking the carnival by storm as his sensually free-spirited alter ego.

No edition of Flare would be complete without a raft of `coming out' pictures and Greg Berlanti's Love, Simon seems set to become a firm favourite. Adapted from Becky Albertalli's novel, Simon vs the Homo Sapiens Agenda, the story centres around teenager Nick Robinson, who seems to have a happy life with parents Josh Duhamel and Jennifer Garner and best friends Katherine Langford and Jorge Lendeborg, Jr. But Robinson is hiding the fact he is gay and, when he leaves his e-mail open on a message from an anonymous gay classmate, oddball Logan Miller blackmails him into arranging a date with Alexandra Shipp, who just happens to be Lendeborg's dream girl.

The threat of exposure also sours the romance between two Swiss footballers in Marcel Gisler's Mario. Max Hubacher takes the eponymous role, as the star striker of a grassroots team who finds himself falling for new signing Aaron Altaras. However, he is also a rival for his place in the starting line-up and, with the prospects of a professional career beckoning, Hubacher has to decide whether to play for himself or his teammates. Back Stateside, Harvard-educated preacher David Rysdahl returns to Hot Springs, Arkansas to take over his father's failing Baptist chapel in Jennifer Gerber's adaptation of Samuel Brett Williams's stage play, The Revival. Pregnant wife Lucy Faust proves supportive, as pushy parishioner Raymond McAnally urges Rysdahl to compete with the flashy local super-church. But his good intentions are deflected by an uncontrollable crush on drifter Zachary Booth.

Another unlikely liaison dominates Tali Shalom-Ezer's My Days of Mercy, as Ellen Page and Kate Mara find love on opposites sides of the capital punishment debate. Convinced that father Elias Koteas should not be on Death Row for the murder of their mother, Page and siblings Amy Seimetz and Charlie Shotwell travel the Midwest in a battered camper van protesting outside prisons staging executions. But, when they fetch up in Ohio, she feels drawn to Mara, even though she supports the lethal injection scheduled for the man who killed her cop father's partner. Scripted by British writer Joe Barton, this may seem an unusual scenario for a lesbian romance, but the mix of passion and politics feels right in these Trumpist times. Another Israeli director exploring similar territory is the debuting Limor Shmila, who introduces an autobiographical element to Montana, which, despite its title is set on the Mediterranean coast, as Noa Biron returns home for the first time in 15 years following the death of her grandfather. She feels drawn to teacher Neta Shpigelman, but is more concerned with cop uncle Avi Malka's friendship with his neighbour's young daughter, Netta Orbach.

Lena Hall plays the returning prodigal in Elizabeth Rohrbaugh and Daniel Powell's Becks, as she fetches up at widowed mom Christina Lahti's St Louis home after finding her musician girlfriend in bed with another woman in New York. Performing in a local bar, Hall becomes intrigued by housewife Mena Suvari. But she is married to Darren Ritchie, who gave Hall such a hard time over her sexuality in high school. Home truths also come tumbling out in Jenée LaMarque's The Feels, as Constance Wu and Angela Trimbur head into California wine country with seven of their friends for a bachelorette weekend. Trimbur is embarrassed by married sister LaMarque's drunken fling with her best pal Josh Fadem. But worse comes when Trimbur puts her engagement on the line by blurting out to an ensemble that includes singer Karin Tatoyan and chef Ever Mainard that she has never had an orgasm.

A roll of film unlocks some bittersweet memories in Melanie Mayron's Snapshots, as Piper Laurie resists the efforts of her alcoholic adopted daughter, Brooke Adams, to sell the lake house where she has lived for half a century. But, when pregnant granddaughter Emily Baldoni comes to stay, Laurie relives the summer of 1960 when her younger self (Shannon Collis) holidayed in the region with her husband, Max Adler, and lost her heart to vivacious stranger, Emily Goss, who was staying nearby with spouse Brett Dier. Another taboo romance blossoms as the scene shifts to São Paulo for Marco Dutra and Juliana Rojas's Good Manners, in which pregnant plantation scion Marjorie Estiano hires barely qualified black nanny Isabél Zuaa to look after her imminent baby. However, following a torrid night of full moon lesbian passion, Zuaa finds herself alone in a lycanthropic nightmare when the child is born.

The bookish Paula Hüttisch falls heavily for the rebellious Lara Feith after bumping into her in the woods behind the high-rise German estate in which she lives in Anatol Schuster's Air. But, while Hüttisch helps Feith escape those pursuing her, she has a tougher time attempting to heal the scars stemming from her mother's death and her father's neglect. The wounds come from a very different source as Spencer Maybee transfers his web series in to the big screen in The Carmilla Movie. Five years have passed since Laura Hollis (Elise Bauman) and Carmilla Karnstein (Natasha Negovanlis) saved the world and the latter was gifted human life. But her vampiric past refuses to be laid to rest, as she is haunted by the ghosts of victims like Emily and Charlotte Brontë (Cara Gee and Grace Lynn Kung) and the memory of old flame, Elle (Dominique Provost-Chalkley). So, before Carmilla's Resurrection Spell can expire, Laura calls for the assistance of the Scooby Gang: Lola Perry (Annie Briggs), LaFontaine (Kaitlyn Alexander), Mel (Nicole Stamp), and Kirsch (Matt O'Connor).

As always, Flare has gathered a number of fascinating and challenging documentaries on a range of LGTBQ+ issues. Among them are James Crump's Antonio Lopez 1970: Sex Fashion & Disco (a star-studded memoir of the fast-living artist whose fashion illustrations made him the toast of New York and Paris); Michael Fisher's Cherry Grove Stories (a celebration of the Fire Island enclave that afforded generations of gay men, lesbians and drag queens a sanctuary from the realities of the cruel world); Christian Sonderegger's Coby (a half-brother's account of how parents and partners cope with a transition in the village of Chagrin Falls, Ohio); David Weissman's Conversations With Gay Elders (pastor, husband and father Kerby Lauderdale describes coming out in later life and becoming a gay activist); Jason Barker's A Deal With the Universe (a home movie chronicle of the director's bid to transition and become pregnant with his partner, Tracey); Rubi Gat's Dear Fredy (a memoir of Fredy Hirsch, the gay Jewish sportsman who defied social convention in 1930s Prague and the SS in Theresienstadt and Auschwitz); Jessica Champeaux's F.A.M.I.L.Y. (a history of same-sex parenting in Belgium); Laura Marie Wayne's Love, Scott (a personal record of how Nova Scotia musician Scott Jones was left paralysed after an attack the courts and the media refused to recognise as homophobic); Michael Schmitt's Marikas Missio (Religious Studies teacher Marika Gruber is forced to choose between her partner Anke and the Missio Canonica she needs to teach the Catholic faith); Hikaru Toda's Of Love & Law (an account of Osaka couple Masafumi Yoshida and Kazuyuki Minami's bid to open Japan's first openly gay law firm); Jules Rosskam's Paternal Rites (an abused grandson employs a mix of drawings, collages, home movies and interviews to confront a past his parents are reluctant to accept); Jenny Mackenzie's Quiet Heroes (a tribute to Dr Kristen Ries and her partner Maggie Snyder, who ran the only practice in Utah willing to care for the sick and dying during the AIDS crisis); Bobbi Jo Hart's Rebels on Pointe (a paean to the rule-defying all-male ballet company, Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo); Tristan Aitchison's Sidney & Friends (an introduction to Kenya's underground intersex and trans community); Malcolm Ingram's Southern Pride (an assessment of the mood in Trumpist Mississippi, as white and black activists strive to stage Pride marches in their insular towns); Robin Berghaus's Stumped (an account of how gay film-maker Will Lautzenheiser fought back after losing his limbs to a rare infection); Anthony&Alex's Susanne Bartsch: On Top (a profile of the Swiss outsider whose flair for parties saw her become New York's Queen of the Night); Linda Cullen and Vanessa Gildea's The 34th (a portrait of Katharine Zappone and Ann Louise Gilligan, who led the campaign to extend marriage equality to same-sex couples in the Republic of Ireland); and Adam Sekuler's Tomorrow Never Knows (a chronicle of Shar Jones and Cynthia Vitale's journey after the latter is diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's soon after deciding to transition).