It’s a new year which means a whole new round of some of the very best QUEER FILM FESTIVALS around the Globe. The first out of the block as usual is Queer Screen’s Mardi Gras Film Festival in Sydney, Australia which runs from 15th Feb – 29th Feb
The wonderfully diverse program for this year’s 31st Edition features 161 LGBTIQ+ films and events across 77 unique programs and then later on (1st March – 11th March) the Fest will host a variety of On Demand screenings including feature film encore screenings and shorts On Demand available throughout Australia.
For those of you lucky enough to be going Down Under here are : QUEERGURU'S TOP PICKS FOR MUST-SEE MOVIES
‘All Of Us Strangers‘ is the latest film from the award-winning Brit filmmaker Andrew Haigh. The film is set in contemporary London when one night in his near-empty tower block, Adam (Andrew Scott) has a chance encounter with a mysterious neighbor Harry (Paul Mescal), which punctures the rhythm of his everyday life. As a relationship develops between them, Adam is preoccupied with memories of the past and finds himself drawn back to the suburban town where he grew up, and the childhood home where his parents (Claire Foy and Jamie Bell), appear to be living, just as they were on the day they died, 30 years before.
Openly gay Scott has enjoyed a very successful career on stage, film, and TV and is known by many as the ‘hot priest’ in Fleabag. Mescal, also Irish like his co-star, came on everyone’s radar when he received an Academy Award nomination for his performance in Aftersun
Aristotle and Dante Discover The Secrets of The Universe is a beautiful, multi-layered coming-of-age tale. Based on the popular book by Benjamin Alire Saenz, writer, and director Aitch Alberto successfully combines interesting sub-plot after sub-plot without detracting from the main story of the film. Despite some tough themes including familial secrets, queer-bashing, violence, transphobia, confusion over identity, unrequited love and loneliness, this is ultimately a feel-good film. Strong performances by all the cast are accompanied by beautiful cinematography – from vintage 1980s interiors to expansive Texas landscapes. The excellent soundtrack includes 80s masterpieces from the likes of Bananarama, Bronski Beat, The Psychedelic Furs, and Shannon amongst others.
The film is dedicated to All Of Us Who’ve Had To Learn To Play By Different Rules.
Femme is an intensely dark, sexually explicit thriller that plays out in London’s nightlife. Jules (Nathan Stewart-Jarrett) is a drag performer called Aphrodite Banks. One night during a cigarette break at a club performance, he catches the eye of Preston (the super-hot George MacKay), a buff tattooed blonde guy lurking across the road. Jules gets back to his performance and thinks nothing more of the encounter. Then later that night, after the club and in a corner shop, he encounters Preston and a group of his friends who are all straight. A brief exchange occurs between Jules and Preston which results in Preston being embarrassed in front of his mates. Preston gets very angry and viciously attacks Jules with his thug friends once Jules has left the shop.
Directors Sam H Freeman and Ng Choon Ping’s award-winning Femme is first-rate. The duo successfully combines plot twists and turns, and tough then tender moments to keep the audience guessing as the fast-paced story plays out. Sexually charged, yet destructive relationships are explored – the emotionally, and sometimes physically violent, combination of lust and hatred are never far apart. Unpredictable, vulnerable characters add to the tension as does the evolving power dynamic between Jules and Preston. The theme of power runs throughout the film…queer power, drag power, losing power and reclaiming power. Stewart-Jarrett and MacKay have excellent physical chemistry between them and the complementary supporting cast, moody soundtrack, and realistic sex and night-time club scenes all combine to achieve a totally believable queer story. Highly recommended.
HOUSEKEEPING FOR BEGINNERS Macedonian filmmaker Goran Stolevski, whose previous film ‘Of An Age ‘ is a firm favorite of ours, gives us this wonderful melodrama that sees Dita (Anamaria Marinca), a reluctant and harried ‘mum-in-law’, suddenly forced to bring up her girlfriend’s two unmanageable daughters: cheeky upstart Mia and troubled Vanesa, a teenager going on 40!). A battle of wills ensues as the three continue at loggerheads with this unlikely family fighting to stay together through force of circumstance rather than compatibility and desire.
What was intended as one of the best ‘welcome home’ stories at Outfest LGBTQ Film Festival in Miami suddenly turned into a celebration of life for one of the stars of the award-winning Kokomo City. This trail-blazing documentary is the debut of Miami local D. Smith who directed, produced, and edited it and had been excited at screening it on their home terrority.
Their journey on how the film came to be made starts out of pure frustration after D Smith suddenly got blackballed from the music industry when they started to transition. They went from being in great demand producing songs for Lil Wayne,Keri Hilson, Billy Porter and André 3000. to being unemployed, broke, and homeless. In fact, Smith was still homeless when she began working on the project, with a camera being purchased by a host where she was once staying, and a laptop by a producer.
Mad About The Boy: you would never have guessed that (Sir) Noel Coward the very epitome of show business royalty in the 1920s came from a British working-class family. Known for his wit, flamboyance, playwright, composer, director, actor, singer, and sophisticated style icon. This fascinating documentary, by Barnaby Thompson, is an affection portrait of this queer genius makes compulsory viewing
Norwegian Dream is a dark, atmospheric drama that takes a deep dive into how our social and economic living conditions affect our ability to live our truest lives. Robert (the chiseled, super handsome Hubert Milkowski) is a 19-year-old Polish migrant-worker, living in a remote coastal area of Norway and working in a salmon processing factory. He’s left homophobic Poland behind to live a better life and also provide for his mother, who’s struggling financially and emotionally following the death of his father.
Directed by Leiv Igor Devold and written by Justyna Bilik, Norwegian Dream is a joint Norwegian/Polish-produced drama. This multi-layered, tough yet tender, coming-of-age story covers themes such as migrant working, insecure housing and employment, wealth inequality, racism, familial drama, self-absorption, coming-out and young love. The various moody sub-plots align seamlessly and combine together with excellent bleak Norwegian landscape cinematography, a heartfelt soundtrack and strong performances by the cast to create a memorable film.
THE LOST BOYS is the debut feature-length film by Zeno Grato a Belgian film director and screenwriter, and it rightly picked up an award when it premiered at the 73rd Berlin International Film Festival in 2023. It’s set in a juvenile reform center, a place governed by the prohibition of physical contact, where Joe and William fall in love. To love each other, they will have to break the law.
THE MATTACHINE FAMILY is a heart-touching story about queer parenthood. It is the story of a handsome couple Thomas (Juan Pablo Di Pace) and Oscar (Nico Tortorella) who are living a good life in LA. They are in love, busy, and happy foster parents to a young kid Arthur (Matthew Jacob Ocampo). When it’s time for Arthur to return to his birth mother, however, his loss affects the couple deeply and in different ways, and they realize they have different ideas about what being a family entails.
PS You may also like to check out http://Married filmmakers Andy & Danny Valentine talk about THE MATTACHINE FAMILY a story about gay parenting
The Summer of Carmen While enjoying a day at Athens’ queer beach, 30-something Demosthenes offers to help his bestie and aspiring filmmaker Nikitas in drafting an idea for his feature debut, inspired by the events surrounding a certain dog named Carmen. Two summers ago, Demosthenes was stuck in Athens dealing with health issues of his father. This serves as an excuse to reach out to his ex, Panos. Meanwhile, Panos got the overly cute Carmen, something he soon regretted. Likewise, Demosthenes seems to have regretted breaking up with Panos. Or did he not? Struggling to transform real events into a hero’s journey, the two friends question the no.1 rule of scriptwriting theory — the hero that changes — while turning a page in their long-lasting friendship.
For a film that is set around the death of a father and husband and the funeral that follows it, The Queen of My Dreams is so fresh, and super saturated in color that its vim, sparkle, and humor cannot help but shine through.
In this first film written and directed by Fawzia Mirza, the conflict between a mother and a daughter is shown, but rather than trudge predictably towards reconciliation the more interesting story of the parallels between their lives is shown.
Queer Screen-Mardi Gras Film Fest will begin
on 2/15 and end on 2/29. To see the whole
program and book tickets check out
https://queerscreen.org.au/
Queer Screen-Mardi Gras Film Fest will begin
on 2/15 and end on 2/29. To see the whole
program and book tickets check out
for full reviews on over 1800 queer films check out
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for full reviews on over 1800 queer films check out