When most people think about Australian LGBTQ movies they usually immediately just think of the 1994 smash hit The Adventures of Priscilla Queen of The Desert. However nowadays the country produces some stunning work that covers all genres of queer cinema and which have made their filmmakers major players in the world of LGBTQ movies. Here then are queerguru’s Top Ten Picks, and all but the bonus one, are still available to view on major streaming platforms .
1 & 2) This devastatingly heartbreaking true story of two young Australian men Timothy Conigrave and his ‘husband’ John Caleo is so good that it needs to be told twice. Well, actually three times if you also count the award-winning play that ended up being staged all around the world. Conigrave wrote his memoir that both movies and the play are based upon that focused mainly on his 15 year relationship with Caleo, after his partner had died of Aids and he himself was fast approaching his own impending death from the disease. When it was published posthumously in 1995 it became an enormous best seller, and was acknowledged as a seminal account of the whole AIDS pandemic.
Holding The Man is the dramatized version of Conigrave’s book that bore the same name, whilst Remembering The Man is a documentary that covers very similar ground but also features a wealth of archival material – including still photographs, student films, television footage and home movies – as well as interviews with Conigrave and Caleo’s friends, carers and colleagues.
3) Head On : is a 1998 film directed by Ana Kokkinos, and was based on the novel Loaded written by Christos Tsiolkas. It stars Alex Dimitriades as a young, repressed gay man of Greek descent living in inner city Melbourne. The film gained notoriety upon its release for its sexual explicitness, and it received really good reviews from critics, who praised its stark realism, the lead performance by Dimitriades and the uncompromising subject matter.
4) Women He’s Undressed : Gillian Armstrong’s captivating documentary on three-time Academy Award Winning Costume Designer the larger than life Orry-Kelly starts out with a rather wonderful statement ‘He called himself a hem stitcher, yet he really was a Hollywood Star. In the country he’s come from, that’s bloody amazing, but no-one has ever heard of him’. The country it refers too is Australia which a very young Orry George Kelly left for the US in the 1920’s to find fame and fortune on Broadway and ended up being a major player in Hollywood.
5) Monster Pies : This very touching wee coming of age romance is set in a Melbourne suburb in Australia in the 1990’s when people still watched VHS tapes and wore baggy jeans. Michael is a teenager living with his divorced mother who is always off working, and with only one friend to his name, is very much a loner. Until one day when there’s a handsome new boy in school called Will, and the two of them are paired off in class to make a project based on Romeo and Juliet. They decide to make a film about Frankenstein’s monster who against all odds falls in love with Wolf man. Life then apes art and the boys also fall in love, although neither of them could ever be called a monster.
6) Scrum : traces the success of the Sidney Convicts Rugby Team as they participate in the Bingham Cup Tournament in 2014 is probably one of the most uplifting LGBT documentaries for a very long time . It’s very essence is embedded in a story of hope, and how something so intrinsically wonderful came out of tragedy after the world learnt of the bravery of Mark Bingham who fought to save one of the planes that crashed in the terrorists attacks of 9/11. Mark, an out gay man, had a passion for rugby and had been the co-founder of two gay-inclusive rugby teams and so a movement that quickly grew wanting to honor his memory decided on the Bingham Cup to be played for by gay rugby clubs, even though there were only 6 of them in existence at the time.
7) Gayby Baby : Filmmaker Maya Newell has followed her successful Australian TV series ‘Growing Up Gayby’ with this new full length documentary that takes a look at the lives of four different children whose parents all happen to be gay. It is evidently a subject that is dear to her heart having grown up with two mothers herself. The timing could not have been more perfect as the Australian Government are currently coming under pressure for still refusing to even tackle the whole subject of legalising same-sex marriage, thus continuing to deny these families the legal recognition they need and deserve.
8) 52 Tuesdays : This is the year that sees 16 year old Billie lose both her virginity and her mother. The former is impossible to retrieve, but as for the latter, its not that her mother has forsaken her, but more the fact that she has transitioned her gender. This unusual prize-winning movie was filmed literally over 52 consecutive Tuesdays with non-professional actors who were giving their scripts on a weekly basis. It actually almost feels like a docu-drama at times as the plot flitters between an observation of the transitioning, to a lesson on being a parent after Billie gets into serious trouble at school.
9) All About E : an impressive first feature film from writer/director Louise Wadley is an intriguing Australian lesbian movie that ticks a lot of boxes as it is an energetic crime-caper road movie with a beautiful exotic looking heroine with a very romantic streak that has some very sensual girl-on-girl action that has been wowing crowds Down Under and is now destined to do the same in the rest of the World.
10) Drown is a very powerful homoerotic tale of homophobia set in a surf full of handsome built men in skimpy speedos. This is very much Len’s tale and he is played with such a magnetic force by Matt Levett (best known as Charlie McKinnon in ‘Home & Away’ Australia’s most famous Soap Opera) that it overshadows the other characters. It’s a pity as Jack Matthews who bares all as Phil is a talented actor too, as is ex Brit Harry Cook as Meat.
Bonus : Ballroom Rules : even though this movie is now impossible to find, we still needed to include it. This totally enchanting documentary is a deliciously hilarious look at same-sex couples in Australia as they practice to enter the ballroom dancing competition at the Gay Games. The story starts in the autumn of 2009 and just nine months away from the World Gay Games in Germany, and Anny a vivacious blond dance instructor in Melbourne decides to cobble together a team to represent Australia in the Ballroom Dancing Competitions. Her wee gang of lesbians and gay men are an odd assorted looking bunch and have very little experience on twirling around the floor. But what they lack in talent and youth, they more than compensate with their passion and energy.
