Awards given out at Queer Film Fests don’t just recognize the excellence of the winning films but also give a much-needed boost to the future of the films. To this end, we would like to add QUEERGURU’s congratulations this morning to Sam McConnell, director, and Brock Yurich, the writer and star of TEST, who are the Emerging Narrative Feature Competition Winner: at Sydney’s 13th Queer Screen Film Fest! 

We sat down with the pair of them back in June at the Provincetown International Film Festival where it had just been voted the Best Narrative Feature of the Fest and Queerguru’s own David Allen had written, “Few movies set the scene with such succinct clarity as ‘Test’ from writer (and lead) Brock Yurich and director Sam McConnell. Here, we watch as a handsome and very muscled man, wearing nothing but a cock sock, is rollered in fake tan by an older woman while singing a hymn and giggling”  

The other movie that deservedly won big at Queer Screen was JIM QUEEN, which picked up the Audience Favourite Award. This deliciously funny animated film, directed by Marco Nguyen & Nicolas Athané is about a horrific virus is sweeping the city of Paris, one that turns gay men into heterosexuals.  Quelle horror! This subversively clever animated satire is as “unapologetically sexy, quirky, and funky as it is destined for cult-classic status”.

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