An incident broke out at the Brussels premiere of Love Lies Bleeding on Saturday (April 13).
During a screening of Rose Glass’ latest film, starring Kristen Stewart, a mass walkout occurred following a barrage of abusive comments.
According to Variety, more than 60 people left the premiere, which took place at Brussels International Fantastic Film Festival (BIFFF), and screening organisers reported at least three instances of physical violence.
The romantic thriller film, which was produced by A24, follows the relationship between a gym manager and an ambitious bodybuilder. In a four-star review, NME wrote: “Rose Glass, who co-wrote the film with Weronika Tofilska, has delivered a brilliant noir packed with those great pulp ingredients: sex, drugs and violence.”
As reported by Variety, some attendees described how “homophobic heckles and jeers” during the films’s sex scenes, and a scene portraying sexual coercion reportedly “drew applause.”
One attendee, Elina Fischer, told Variety: “Things spun wildly out of hand.” Describing their experience as “traumatic and horrible,” they added: “We were afraid for our lives, because the kinds of people who say such things during a film screening are the kinds of people who assault us. So we got scared and had to get out.”
Fischer explained the significance of the film and its relation to the incident that unfolded: “This film represents us. It was made for and by our community, so to have our experience ruined by homophobes is terrible.”
They added: “We all feel very sad, shocked and angry, because we feel that our position cannot exist without attack. [The fight against] homophobia still has a long way to go.”
A longer statement, which included some of the attendees’ worst moments from the event and shared with Variety read: “We know the difference between standard jokes and lesbophobic insults and commentary.”
The statement continued: “When audience members applaud during [what we feel to be] a rape scene, when they pantomime masturbation and catcall the actresses on screen by shouting ‘get naked,’ ‘she wants cock,’ ‘disgusting,’ and ‘dirty dykes’ at the slightest scene of lesbian intimacy, once spectators stand up to leave the theatre or ask for respect, only to be booed, insulted and physically assaulted, and once dozens of lesbians leave the theatre in tears, dirtied, degraded and shocked, we can’t speak of a ‘good-natured’ atmosphere.”
The first people reportedly walked out around 20 minutes into the movie, while some attendees remained to confront the hostile commentary coming from some audience members.
Another attendee described how insults were hurled at them once they had decided to leave. “It became something much nastier. Violent. We were overwhelmed, crying and we said to each other that this wasn’t normal.”
Following the walkouts, the incident became even more serious, with around 60-80 people gathering in the cinema lobby to protest the event itself. Attendees reportedly asked that the show be cut short instead of the distribution of admission refunds. However, festival organisers did not agree to the request, and the protest intensified, before being broken up by local law enforcement.
Attempting to impact the screening inside the cinema from the lobby, the aforementioned attendee explained: “We shouted so that they could hear us inside too, to spoil their experience of the film a bit, just as they had spoiled ours.”
BIFFF’s Jonathan Lenaert spoke on the incident: “We had programmed this film specifically because it touched on the LGBT community. We thought it was great that [this kind of] fantasy filmmaking was also opening to this community, giving us the perfect opportunity to welcome a new audience to our festival.”
He continued: “We have a duty to contextualise. To make sure that all communities feel welcome and on the same footing. The humour in the room should never be targeted and mean spirited, and all exceptions are intolerable.”
Lenaert added: “To be frank, a gram of shit will spoil a kilo of caviar, and right now, we’re going to do everything we can to remove that gram of shit. We will take direct measures: If someone makes inappropriate comments, they’ll be immediately thrown out.”
The following day, BIFFF released a statement apologising to the audience for “discriminatory remarks against any community” and calling Saturday’s events “unacceptable”.