The Celluloid Closet

A whistle-stop tour through a century of queer representation on screen, The Celluloid Closet is as entertaining as it is essential.

Narrated with dry wit by Lily Tomlin, the film dives into Hollywood’s long, complicated history of coding, censoring and occasionally celebrating queer lives - from blink-and-you’ll-miss-it subtext to the rare moments of full-blown visibility.

Packed with film clips and sharp, insightful commentary from figures like Susan Sarandon, Whoopi Goldberg and Tony Curtis, it’s a documentary that manages to be both deeply informative and endlessly watchable.

Equal parts film history lesson and cultural reckoning, it reveals just how much has been hidden in plain sight and what that has meant for generations of audiences searching for themselves on screen.

This screening is part of an M4C research project led by Gina Matuska, exploring queerness, community and cinema in Birmingham. Alongside the film, a display of ephemera and interview extracts invites audiences to dig into local queer film histories and perhaps add a few stories of their own.