Queerguru's TOP PICKS OF MUST SEE MOVIES (Part 1) @ Sydney's Queer Screen Mardi Gras Film Festival

Celebrating its 32nd year , the Queer Screen’s Mardi Gras Film Festival has grown into one of Australia’s largest film festivals of any kind, and one of the top five queer film festivals in the world. It is highly regarded by filmmakers all over the world, and is the most important platform for promoting LGBTIQ titles to distributors and exhibitors in this territory. It is Queerguru’s favorite fest in the Southern Hemisphere, and we are so thrilled to now be one of their Media Sponsors for 2025

As is our custom we have studied this year’s program in great detail to come up with OUR TOP PICKS OF MUST SEE MOVIES. One proviso though, this time the QUEERGURU team simply couldn’t agree on just 10 films, so we have split the list in two parts. Here’s the first part in alphabetical order:

Any Other Way – The Jackie Shane Story the spotlight shines on pioneering 1960s Black trans soul musician/performer Jackie Shane whose star shone brightly in the 1960s before she abruptly disappeared in the 1970s, remaining a recluse for fifty years until a brief comeback before her death in 2019. This fascinating documentary combines interviews with Shane, her family, fellow performers, industry associates, and current black trans commentators, amazing archive footage, and beautiful animation, to tell the life story of the ground-breaking singer/activist with such a special voice.

CHUCK CHUCK BABY : is love better the second time around? This whimsical musical comedy drama is set in a small town in North Wales where Helen lives with her ex-husband, his 20-year-old girlfriend, their new baby – and his dying mother Gwen. Her life is a grind, and like all the other women she toils with at the local chicken factory, is spent in service of the clock.

Director Levan Akin won the prestigious TEDDY Award at the Berlinale for this stunning portrait of Istanbul and a segment of its inhabitants, locals and immigrants showing their cultural roots, solidarity, and care for each other. It’s a moving story that provides an unusual intimate glimpse of the trans community in a country that represses any visibility related to the colors of the rainbow. CROSSING is a movie that so needs to find the audience it deserves

DESIRE LINES is an inclusive celebration of gay trans men and gay trans-masculine lives “Can a vagina be masculine?” This, and many more thought-provoking questions, are posed by interviewer/director Jules Rosskam, in his innovative new documentary which examines the lives of trans men who also became gay men after transitioning. Rosskam’s film, which premiered at Sundance, combines drama with documentary.

DUINO. In a kind of real-life Call Me By Your Name meets Saltburn, Argentinian filmmaker Juan Pablo de Pace and his friend Andrés Pepe Estrada have written a touching memoir of unrequited teenage love, how it impacts our emotions growing up and how our romantic memories change with time. It’s a subject that resonates with many gay men and that is why this movie is so affecting.

The film begins with an obsessive director (Juan Pablo playing himself) trying to finish an autobiographical film about his first love. The director is Matias, who was a shy, working-class boy from Buenos Aries when he first met posh, entitled, Swedish student, Alexander on a scholarship to an international school in Duino, Italy in 1997. They hit it off immediately and are always in one another’s company. When Alex gets expelled for a stupid prank, they are separated, but the distance between them only strengthens their bond.

Heart of the Man is an Australian coming-of-age queer drama that explores the life of Queensland-based 18-year-old amateur boxer Chris Wundurra (Parker Little). Under the very watchful eye of the previously successful ex-boxer, ‘The Wonder Man’ now turned coach, father Sammy (David Cook), Chris is religiously training for his first proper fight. The problem is that he is only boxing to please his father, rather than himself. Directed, written, and produced by David Cook, as well as co-starring him, Heart of the Man is a powerful, heartfelt observation of life, based on Cook’s own experiences. Cook is of First Nation origin and it’s refreshing to have a queer film with such a diverse cast of different ethnicities.

Some 18 months ago Italian/American queer filmmaker Marco Calvani unexpectedly found himself staying in Provincetown for 6 months in the off-season. This is the time of year when this gay mecca at the tip of Cape Cod, is empty of all the summer tourists and has a full-time population of just 3000 souls. It’s when Calvani fell in love …… with the town that is …. and the result is that he ended up writing/directing High Tide his debut feature film.

I’m not sure how Calvani pulled it off but for a small budget feature (shot in just 14 days) it also has a remarkable first-class cast of supporting actors that included Marisi Tomei, Bill Irwin, Todd Flaherty, and Tangerine’s Mya Taylor. But even so despite their performances, and an exceptional one from the remarkably talented Marco Pigossi, (the actual real-life BF of Calvani) the real star is Provincetown.

PS You may like to check out QUEERGURU’s interview with the filmmaker HERE)

When Queerguru interviewed out-and-proud queer Iraqi drag queen/activist/writer/actor/journalist Amrou Al-Kahdi in 2017 it was obvious to us that our paths would cross again. Based in London at the time they were known as Glamrou and the founder and star of Denim the drag superstar group, and managed to make short films as well.

Now they have written + directed their debut feature-length movie, an uplifting and edgy queer love story called LAYLA which created quite a buzz when it premiered in Sundance. Layla is the tale of a non-binary Muslim drag queen (an award-worthy performance by Bilal Hasna) who lives in a small cluttered apartment in London’s Soho with a coterie of very colorful drag friends. It’s a vivacious sight and is part of the uplifting energy that Al-Khadi has imbued with throughout the whole film.

LESVIA. This compelling debut documentary from Tzeli Hadjidimitriou chronicles about four decades in a small farming village of Eressos on the island of Lesbos, where lesbian women from around the world have been gathering since the late ’70s. ( the opening line is ” all women from all over the fucking places on earth“…lol)

American writer-director Will Seefried’s first feature film, Lilies Not For Me, has a strong cast of promising newcomers, including the brooding Fionn O’Shea in the lead, it is a confident, original debut, and suggests that Seefried is a name to watch. Set in 1920’s England it follows the experience of a young Irish author, Owen, in a hospital where he has been sent to ‘cure’ his homosexuality, and the plot of the shocking semi-autobiographical novel he is writing. He narrates the tale to a sympathetic mixed-race nurse whom he is being compelled to ‘date’ as part of the treatment.

The gay love story in his novel is tastefully presented in the manner of an idyllic Merchant Ivory drama which contrasts starkly with the trauma and torture of the authoritarian hospital.

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Queerguru’s TOP PICKS OF MUST SEE MOVIES (Part 1) @ Sydney’s Queer Screen Mardi Gras Film Festival