“Real life doesn’t give closure, but filmmaking can”
IMAGE BY GABI LISBOA
Starring Emma Laird, Alex Burunova’s film Satisfaction follows Lola, a gifted composer, who encounters the charming Philip at a party. Their bond is immediate and electric, carrying them to the beautiful Greek islands. It’s there that Lola connects with Elena, an intriguing woman she meets at a nudist beach, which forces Lola to confront her buried past and unspoken feelings.
Satisfaction will be screening as part of BFI Flare’s 2026 programme. DIVA caught up with director Alex Burunova ahead of the festival to find out more.
Why was it important for you to tell this story?
This story stayed with me for almost a decade because it was tied to something deeply personal, a traumatic experience I had never fully confronted. Real life doesn’t give closure, but filmmaking can. My job as a storyteller is to take the chaos of life and turn it into order – with a beginning, an end, and a lesson. With Satisfaction, I wanted to transmute my pain into art, to show that healing – even from trauma – is possible.
There is also so much we don’t talk about. We, as women, have been socialised for centuries to silence ourselves. It was important for me to make a film about finding the agency to speak up.
Was there a specific moment or reference point which inspired your film?
Yes. I was directing theatre when an actress asked me for a character’s backstory. I improvised something instinctively, and halfway through saying it out loud I suddenly understood I was describing something from my own life. I just stopped and broke down. That was the beginning of Satisfaction. The story was holding me back. Making the film was how I took my power back.
Did making this film change how you understand your own queerness?
Absolutely. Years ago, someone said something to me that stayed: Sexual identity isn’t just a spectrum. It’s a journey in time. Making Satisfaction made me realise identity isn’t something you arrive at once and protect forever. It changes as you change.
I think we’re finally beginning to talk about queerness beyond labels, about fluidity not as confusion but as growth. Working on the film pushed me to question my own gender expression, and how much identity shifts depending on where you are in life. Trauma can pause exploration. Healing lets it begin again, because queerness isn’t a fixed identity. It’s permission to keep changing.
BFI Flare is a celebration of LGBTQIA+ storytelling. What do you hope LGBTQIA+ audiences at BFI Flare take away after watching your film?
I hope audiences leave with empathy, but more than that, I hope someone recognises themselves and feels less alone. Queer experience can be isolating, and if the film gives someone even a fleeting sense of someone else understands this, it has done its job. Celebrating queerness isn’t about perfection, it’s about honouring complexity, vulnerability, and courage.
BFI is celebrating its 40th anniversary this year. What LGBTQIA+ film from the last four decades has changed your life and why?
I inhale queer cinema because there’s still not enough of it, so the films that exist carry enormous weight. Portrait Of A Lady On Fire changed me because it showed that a lesbian love story could be painterly, cinematic in the grandest sense. It was intimate but felt monumental. It gave me permission to think that queer stories deserve scale, and artistic rigour – queer love can just exist, and be art.
Why is it so vital that we continue to support and celebrate spaces like BFI Flare for the next 40 years?
Visibility alone isn’t enough. Queer stories need context, community, and platforms. Festivals like BFI Flare create spaces where audiences recognise themselves and where risk-taking is rewarded. Supporting them ensures queer voices keep emerging, complex and unapologetic.
BFI Flare has been running since 1986. What do you think queer audiences in 1986 would make of your film?
I hope they’d find it surprising. Although every character is queer, Satisfaction isn’t about coming out or suffering because of queerness. It’s a human story that simply exists in a queer world.
The characters are artists and lovers trying to heal and figure themselves out. Their sexuality isn’t the problem or root of the conflict. It’s just part of who they are.
Why do you think LGBTQIA+ filmmaking is so important in 2026?
The pendulum is swinging backward in many parts of the world. There’s less demand for queer cinema, fewer lesbian and genderqueer films, and distributors are actively sidelining certain voices. That makes it exactly the moment to keep creating. Queer cinema claims space, and refuses erasure. Every film made right now is an act of cultural resistance. When the world tells queer artists to be quieter, that’s when we have to make noise.
What queer cinematic ancestor would you want sitting next to you at your BFI Flare screening and why?
Pedro Almodovar. I think we would have fun.
The 40th BFI Flare: London LGBTQIA+ Film Festival takes place 18 – 29 March at BFI Southbank. SATISFACTION premieres at BFI Flare on 22 March. You can find out more about BFI Flare here: whatson.bfi.org.uk/flare
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