Lost Signal Cinema Club

This June, Lost Signal Cinema Club & Burrito Buoy teams up with Folkestone Pride to present a landmark work of Japanese queer cinema: Toshio Matsumoto’s groundbreaking 1969 film, Funeral Parade of Roses.

Set within Tokyo’s underground nightlife scene of the 1960s, the film follows Eddie — played by Peter (stage performer Shinnosuke Ikehata, later seen in Akira Kurosawa’s Ran) — a charismatic hostess and performer at Bar Genet. As Eddie becomes involved with club owner Gonda, tensions escalate with Leda, the bar’s influential madame, sparking a fierce rivalry that spirals toward a shocking and tragic conclusion.

Blending avant-garde experimentation with pop-art visuals, Matsumoto’s film draws inspiration from Oedipus Rex while weaving together elements of documentary, horror, comedy and melodrama. Influenced by the French New Wave — particularly the work of Jean-Luc Godard — the film would later leave a clear mark on Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange. More than anything, Funeral…