'I cannot tell you how important Iris is'

Iris - aka the 'gay Oscars' - is a film festival for all, whatever your gender or sexuality - and this year's edition brings a programme of films and events that truly deserve their place on the world stage, writes Jenny White.

- Jenny White

FOR writer and director Charlotte Serena Cooper, having her debut film shortlisted for the "gay Oscars" is the biggest highlight of her career so far.

When the London-based writer and director comes to Cardiff for the Iris Prize LGBTQ+ Film Festival, which runs from Monday, October 13, to Sunday, October 19, she and her wife Lianne will be enjoying a free “minimoon” stay at the Clayton Hotel, the festival's partner hotel, in recognition of the fact that the film was made using money that would have been spent on their honeymoon.

“We got married two weeks before we shot the film - and I now know that planning a wedding is nothing on planning a short film,” says Charlotte. “It was my gorgeous wife’s idea to make the film rather than getting a honeymoon,” she adds.

With the film on this year’s Iris programme, neither of them regrets the decision. The film, Bury Your Gays, punctures the common trope in which onscreen gay characters are typically killed off and/or have a tough time compared with the “straight” characters.

The term “bury your gays” was coined to highlight this issue and often pops up on social media.

“Queer characters are killed off way more than straight characters and they're rarely allowed to be happy,” says Charlotte. “If you think of any queer character from film and TV, often they're absolutely miserable - they’re worried about coming out, they’re being bullied, they're unwell, they're in a violent relationship.”

This trope has caused a huge amount of damage for too many years - as Charlotte knows from her own experience of coming out.

“I turned to film and TV shows just to look for characters like myself, and all I found was shame,” she says. “The fact that all these characters taught me shame, and it was a big sort of reason why I didn’t come out in my teens. I came out sort of quite late in my 20s, because I thought it was a difficult life that I didn’t want.”