Throughout his many years working at the British Film Institute (BFI) and on its annual LGBTQ+ film festival, my friend and work associate Brian Robinson – who has died of brain cancer aged 67 – was celebrated as a champion of queer cinema. He was also a flamboyant showman who strode on to stages at the BFI Southbank with supreme confidence, establishing mischievous rapport with film-makers and audiences.
Brian joined the BFI in London as a press officer in 1987, in 2000 becoming communications manager for archive and heritage. In the same year, he joined the programming team of the BFI’s London Lesbian & Gay film festival (retitled BFI Flare in 2014), stepping down only in 2024 after being diagnosed with glioblastoma. Over these several decades, he grew as an elder of London’s LGBTQ+ film community and a larger-than-life character with a rich social network.
Born in Portadown, County Armagh, in Northern Ireland, to Sophia (nee Hewitt), a primary schoolteacher, and Robert Robinson, the owner of a pharmaceuticals company, Brian attended the Royal school, Armagh, and studied law and French at Sussex University, graduating in 1981. That year he met Pas Paschali, a journalist, at a party in Islington, north London, and they began a relationship, becoming civil partners in 2007 and marrying in 2017.
The pair were both among the collective that launched the queer arts and culture magazine Square Peg in 1983. Before joining the BFI, Brian worked at the Greater London council information centre on Shaftesbury Avenue and as a press office assistant with the Association of London Authorities (now known as London Councils).
He had a deep love of art and design, and transformed his London home in Waterloo into a shrine to 1960s pop art aesthetics. When the Design Museum mounted its Stanley Kubrick exhibition in 2019 and needed a Djinn red chair and sofa to recreate the space station set of 2001: A Space Odyssey, Brian was able to loan the rare items. His home was also the scene of numerous parties, sometimes coinciding with the BFI Flare festival, where the host delighted in mixing guests young and old, local and international, from different creative disciplines and across all sexualities.
Brian was at heart a curator – of film, objects and people – and he was also a well-informed and enthusiastic tour guide, especially in Paris and Venice, where he also owned apartments. He served on juries selecting the best LGBTQ+ films at major film festivals – the Teddy award (for entries to the Berlinale), the Queer Palm (Cannes) and the Queer Lion (Venice) – as well as the jury for the UK’s Iris prize.
Brian’s brain tumour and the resulting treatment caused aphasia – a cruel blow for such a supremely entertaining talker, celebrated equally for his wit and recondite knowledge.
He is survived by Pas, and by his brother, Mark, and sister, Linda.
