June may have been Pride month internationally but Pride is just starting to heat up (along with the belated summer weather) in this city.

Getting in on the annual celebrations, the Cinematheque (1131 Howe Street) has scheduled a series of queer cinema selections to get Vancouverites thinking about LGBT issues and culture in the weeks leading up to Vancouver Pride Week.

First up, there's Funeral Parade of Roses (Bara no soretsu), a 1969 Japanese New Wave film from avant-garde filmmaker Toshio Matsumoto.

The film has been unavailable for a long period in North America but thanks to a theatrical re-release, the Cinematheque will screen a new 4K restoration.

Based upon the Greek psychosexual classic Oedipus Rex, it's set within Tokyo's underground gay and drag scene of the 1960s and it incorporates experimental techniques, documentary interviews, and a variety of boundary-breaking elements.

It'll screen on various dates from July 8 to 14.

Stanley Kubrick expressed his admiration of Matsumoto's work, and credited his 1969 film as an influence upon his famous A Clockwork Orange. Kubrick's 1971 dystopian classic will be screened in a double-bill with Matsumoto's film on July 10 and 13.

After that, there's a new release to check out.

The Orinthologist (O Ornitólogo) is the fifth feature from Portugal's João Pedro Rodrigues. This film and his 2012 feature The Last Time I Saw Macao screened at the Vancouver International Film Festival.

This curious drama follows an ornithologist who embarks upon a quest for a rare black stork in northern Portugal. While kayaking, he finds himself swept away and becomes lost in what becomes a journey of self-discovery based upon the story of the Catholic priest Saint Anthony of Padua (or Anthony of Lisbon), who is the patron saint of lost things.

As he faces challenging tests, along the way he also encounters two lost Chinese pilgrims, naked horsewomen, demonic creatures, and a gay shepherd named Jesus. Not to mention sexual arousal.

The film screens on dates from July 14 to 20.

Meanwhile, from July 15 to 17, Donna Deitch's pivotal 1986 dramatic feature Desert Hearts will be back on the big screen in a new restoration.

A landmark in lesbian mainstream cinema, it's an adaptation of the novel by Jane Rule, an author from Galiano, B.C.

Set in the 1950s, a prim New York professor (played by Canadian actor Helen Shaver) is seeking a divorce from her husband and during a stay at a ranch in Reno, Nevada, she finds herself surprised by the advances of a bohemian female sculptor, yet drawn to her as well.

For full details on the screenings, visit the Cinematheque website.