With a huge World Pride Amsterdam 2026 incoming in August, one thing will be loudly clear. 20 years before even Stonewall, a new road to LGBTQ+ emancipation opened in Amsterdam.
2026 marks 80 years of COC Netherlands, the world’s oldest and largest LGBT+ organisation founded by Dutch Resistance rebels ‘Bob Angelo’ (Niek Engelschman) and Jaap Van Leeuwen. Did the ‘Angel Man’ know what he was starting?
It was a legendary UK LGBT+ pioneer who saw the movie potential. The late Andrew Lumsden was the out former Fleet Street editor who gave us Gay News, and a 1972 Pride pioneer. At 83, he became a first-time movie producer. Andrew didn’t live to see the film completed but if we learn anything from Bob’s 80-year legacy, it’s that legacy doesn’t die – it just grows. Andrew’s will be no different.
One of the film’s stars, artist, activist and performer Dan De La Motte says, “Andrew was very weak and at the end of his life when he dispatched me and Dan Glass to film with Szymon Adamczak. I’ll always be very grateful to Andrew for this, and so much else he did, both for me and for my community in the decades before my birth.”
Dan Glass is used to preconceptions. “Depending on who you ask I’m an ‘Activist of The Year’, ‘Scum’ (Nigel Farage) or a ‘Furious Gay Activist’ (Daily Mail).” Gay, Jewish and a vocal campaigner for Palestinian rights, he found his own great aunt at Amsterdam’s Holocaust Names Monument during filming. “No words do justice for how moving it was. Until then, Doris felt ephemeral, haunting… What she went through in hiding and in the camps was so tragic, I hoped it was untrue.” His words ring out in the movie, “So many of them are children…”
Polish theatre and performance maker and driving force behind Warsaw’s new Queer Museum Szymon Adamczak found himself “really moved by Andrew’s vision to re-tell a fascinating history of queer anti-fascist resistance movements in The Netherlands and UK. That’s his last gift. Interestingly, the Warsaw museum has had overwhelming attention from international press, but significantly less interest in Polish media.”
Bringing Dutch perspective to the on-screen team, Dutch-Indonesian author Monique Doppert had already written entertainingly frank book ‘Amsterdam – A Queer History’, just out in its new English edition (published by Boom Amsterdam). “The city’s gay history is often sanitised as ‘tolerance,’ but the real story is messy, radical, and built by outsiders. If queers and straight allies read it – and watch the movie – and realise their ‘normal’ is actually a hard-won privilege, then we’ve done our job.” Monique’s been tracking the creation of Amsterdam’s new Walk of Pride visitor trail. “A permanent trail turns invisible history into concrete reality—it forces tourists and locals to walk through our struggle, not just past rainbow decorations.”
Tottering along that Walk of Pride in her highest and fabulously impractical heels will be one of its makers, the completely unboxable Jennifer Hopelezz. No sensible walking flatties for Jennifer. Is she club owner (of three top Amsterdam LGBT+ venues)? Activist? House mother to all who might need her? “All of the above,” says Jennifer demurely. ‘Demure’? Yeah, right… Visible and increasingly famous, that gets people talking about overlooked issues and people. “In the Walk we celebrate many trans and intersex people, and this goes to show that this is not ‘woke ideology’, but these people have always existed in all cultures and all times.”
A fearless sexual-health activist, Jennifer’s a key reason the Netherlands is getting its act together on PrEP availability. “After leading the response to the AIDS crisis in the 80s, Holland slipped behind. We were late bringing in PrEP and it’s still not accessible for everyone if they can’t afford it. And no real organisations working on breaking down HIV stigma.”
Bob: Man of The Angels is no dry history documentary. Directed by Rob Falconer (sellout hit Gay Man’s Guide To Safer Sex Director’s Cut, Legendary Children All of Them Queer) it replays the battle for survival under a murderous Nazi occupation and birth of COC through the lens of modern Amsterdam, shot through with dazzling imagery from Dutch artist activists like international fashion photographer Erwin Olaf, and a powerful, haunting electronic soundtrack by Tall Houses. Title songs Man of The Angels and An Endless Desire release July 1 across most music stores.
Dutch trans photographer and filmmaker Prins de Vos’ work debuts in the UK with Je Weet Wie Je Bent and de Vos’ own film Beds 2: Levon in the Curzon show. Prins calmly defuses even the most toxic misrepresented tropes about trans identities. Also, Queer sexualities in all their wildly erotic, non-conforming diversities are seen head on through Prins’ lens. Like gorgeous Leo Di Caprio lookalike Levon who finds uncompromising sexual expression the best weapon to combat trauma – in a full-on scene you won’t forget… No backing down, only beautiful human truth, and the super-catchy new song from Freddie Lewis, Boy Your’e A Writer, out now.
Humanitarians Peter Tatchell and LGBT+ History Co-founder Sue Sanders take us on a day at the office with angry protestors outside the Hungarian Embassy in Actify. With 59 years of worldwide activism, Tatchell is still the Daddy of Human Rights. The point is the now 66 countries still persecuting LGBT+ people globally. And Peter gets past every obstructive regime: “Take Balochistan. I’m now well known there. Many people have told me, ‘I used to hate homosexuals. I believed all the propaganda. But you stood with us, and now I’m rethinking my attitude.’
Award winning educator Sue Sanders nails the message, saying, “Look round to see who’s missing and work out why they’re not there, and change the situation so they can be.”
Actify screens with Bob: Man of The Angels, Je Weet Wie Je Bent and Beds 2: Levon.
18 cert. Thurs 16 Jul 18:20 Curzon Soho, 99 Shaftesbury Avenue W1D 5DY
Live Q&A with Peter Tatchell and Sue Sanders
London: Click here to get tickets. Booking discount code 16 Jul: BMOTA10 online or show at door
Amsterdam: The films play a short run at Filmhuis Cavia Amsterdam 20:30 29 Jul, 2-3 Aug during World Pride Amsterdam 2026, more info here
