Keshishian kick-starts queer film festival

In amongst the film critics, fashionistas and scene queens at Mint Leaf we spotted Brian Paddick and Peter Tatchell dipping into the canapes, as well as the great David McAlmont effortlessly oozing fabulousness. Will Young was also in attendance, looking very clean-cut. Unflinchingly polite when bombarded by a bunch of excitable mumsy lesbians, and sweetly tolerant of invasive amateur papparazzi, we noticed Mr Young was discreetly cradling the hand of his terrified looking new squeeze, an angelic boy so extremely youthful he appeared positively milky - we were almost inclined to whisk him off to the hills and release him into the wild. Also appearing vulnerable, for different reasons, was veteran theatre critic Nicholas de Jongh, who tottered bravely through the handsome throng, wearing an expression that mingled dark disdain with abject terror - the kind of countenance only the very elderly can compose, or those captured by newsreel footage in the aftermath of a natural disaster.

The eclectic programme for this year's festival is crammed full of treats, including a centenary celebration of Bette Davis. Introducing his own film last night, Keshishian referred to her significance as a gay icon, remarking that, in viewing Hollywood's golden age retrospectively, it initially appeared to him that gay men were superficially invisible on the silver screen - but, upon closer inspection, he realised that gay men had been present, only that they were played by Katharine Hepburn, Bette Davis and Barbara Stanwyck.

The 22nd London Lesbian & Gay Film Festival runs until 10th April 2008. Additional screening of Love and Other Disasters on Sat 29 March @ 13.45 (NFT1)