Jennifer M Kroot’s film Hunky Jesus, narrated by George Takei, is the opening event of this year’s BFI Flare, the festival of LGBTQ+ moviemaking. It is about an outrageous annual talent contest for the hunkiest Jesus-a-like, whose contestants are often oiled, with the kind of buttocks not mentioned in the New Testament, and sometimes engage in pole dance-type cavorting around the cross, declaring that they want to be nailed and rise again.

It is organised every Easter in San Francisco as part of an exuberant, defiant celebration by the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, a group of queer drag nuns, performance artists and activists who, with great stamina and commitment, apparently never come out of character. And all in the cheeky spirit of Tom Lehrer’s comic song The Vatican Rag.

In truth, watching this may require a bit of perpetual indulgence, especially as a great deal of it is just celebratory footage of the outdoor event. But there is amusement in seeing this cheerfully shallow and sincerely hedonistic carnival, particularly on the part of those competing for the parallel category of Blessed Virgin.

Of course some in the church are shown to be furious and disapproving, though it’s not clear if the Sisters ever thought about mocking other religions in the same way. One sister makes a valid point: “You don’t own Jesus. You don’t own Easter.” No, perhaps not, although one gently supportive cleric here voices his own qualms: “I have mixed feelings about the sexualisation of Jesus.”

As to what the real, historical Jesus would have thought, a Sister drolly wonders if he mightn’t have felt like competing for the title himself and losing. (In fact, sexual transgression and sexual identity were surely of no great interest to Jesus.) A weird seriousness sometimes settles on those speaking about the event and the Sisters themselves, whose brand identity has grown over decades: “The ministry has spread across the globe.” But why not … as boorish and humourless homophobia continues to spread as well?