The revenge thriller Love Lies Bleeding celebrated its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival at the beginning of the year and thrilled numerous film fans at the Berlinale a few weeks later. Now the film with Twilight star Kristen Stewart was shown at the BIFFF in Brussels, where the premiere ended in chaos.
As Variety reports, it was during the performance homophobic and misogynistic statements from the audience, which caused more than 60 spectators to leave the cinema. There are said to have been at least three incidents of physical violence.
Love Lies Bleeding causes chaos in Brussels: fans leave the cinema because of homophobic behavior
In Love Lies Bleeding, Kristen Stewart takes on the role of gym manager Lou, who falls in love with aspiring bodybuilder Jackie (Katy M. O’Brian). The Love relationship between the two women takes up a large portion of the film, with several explicit sex scenes. According to Variety, this prompted parts of the audience in Brussels to loudly comment on what they saw in both queer and misogynistic terms.
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Kristen Stewart in Love Lies Bleeding
Viewer Elina Fischer explained to Variety that the event was for her “traumatic and terrible” ended, which is why she and around 60 other people from the queer community decided to leave the cinema hall, which had around 1,400 people:
Things have gotten out of hand. […] We were afraid for our lives, because people who say such things during a film screening are the people who are harassing us. So we were scared and had to get out of there.
In a joint statement, others present described the incident to Variety:
We know the difference between simple jokes and lesbophobic insults and comments. If spectators applauding during a rape scenewhen they imitate masturbation and catcall the actresses by shouting ‘take off your clothes’, ‘she wants cock’, ‘disgusting’ and ‘dirty lesbians’ at the slightest sign of lesbian intimacy, and then others watching stand up and follow Asking for respect, only to be booed, insulted and physically attacked, and numerous lesbian audience members leaving the cinema in tears, […] then we cannot speak of a ‘good-natured’ atmosphere.
The Brussels International Fantastic Film Festival (BIFFF) spoke out following the incident and made it clear that discriminatory behavior occurred during their screenings will not be tolerated under any circumstances. However, viewers like Elina Fischer would have liked the film to be contextualized within the festival program in order to avoid such incidents from the outset.
Love Lies Bleeding: In the cinema in Germany in summer
After its extensive festival run, Love Lies Bleeding from Saint Maud director Rose Glass will be released on June 13, 2024 move into German cinemas.