In the 1970s, while the rest of the world was struggling to show LGBTQ+ characters as anything other than jokes or morality tales, one country led the way with fully-fledged gay characters front and centre. Australia’s Number 96 was a sexy soap opera about the lives of people sharing an apartment building, putting sympathetic gay... Continue Reading →
New Zealand filmmaker Welby Ings’ debut feature, Punch, lives up to its title with some powerful drama, stunning visuals, and a sexy subject. Jim (Jordan Oosterhof) is a rising boxer on the eve of his first professional fight, trained by his father (Tim Roth). Their lives are lived in service to Jim’s boxing career with... Continue Reading →
The Perfect David (El Perfecto David) is a dark, brooding look at obsession, control, and the pressure to look perfect, but maybe not in the way you'd expect. David (Mauricio Di Yorio) spends every spare moment working out. From the moment he rises to when he falls asleep. His obsession is taking a toll on... Continue Reading →
Eugen Jebeleanu refuses to pull his punches in his acclaimed and award-winning first feature Poppy Field (Câmp de Maci). What begins as a romance becomes an intensely claustrophobic character study of a closeted policeman in Romania. When Cristi (Conrad Mericoffer) brings his long-distance boyfriend, Hadi (Radouan Leflahi), to his apartment, it’s clear how uncomfortable Cristi... Continue Reading →
Two very different documentaries playing at the Mardi Gras Film Festival 2022 focus on individual LGBTQ+ activists in different walks of life: controversial gay rights warrior Peter Tatchell in Hating Peter Tatchell, and progressive Islamic campaigner Seyran Ateş in Seyran Ateş: Sex, Revolution and Islam. Seyran Ateş is a human rights lawyer and Imam, born... Continue Reading →
UPDATE: Screens at the 40th Anniversary Outfest Los Angeles LGBTQ+ Film Festival on Wednesday, July 20th at 9:45pm at Directors Guild of America, Theater 1. It’s not easy making a film with an emotionally distanced lead character, an enigma can only be so interesting without letting the audience in, so it’s a real achievement that... Continue Reading →
Outfest LA 2021 Audience Award winner, writer-director Lyle Kash Death and Bowling, which gets its Australian premiere at the Mardi Gras Film Festival, is a surprising, surrealistic look at a trans man’s grief and a mediation on trans lives, how gender trans folks are presented on screen and the complex motivation to be seen. Will... Continue Reading →
Luis Mariano García’s Mayfly is utterly endearing. A coming-of-age story, sprinkled with magic realism that steps over many of the clichés to deliver a charming take on a well-worn genre. Emillia (Danae Reynaud) is a serious, studious high-schooler with her eyes on the prize of a place at a prestigious architecture school. In the library... Continue Reading →
The melting pot of L.A. simmers in the heat of the joyous spoken-word musical, Summertime, settling perfectly into the Sydney-summer mood of the Mardi Gras Film Festival. Reader, I tell you the truth when I say it made me love a city I never got along with, and appreciate my own sunny, seaside Sydney even... Continue Reading →
Horacio Alcalá’s Finlandia is a sumptuous, multifaceted drama filled with life, love, and despair; a glorious explosion of creativity and cultural insight. It refuses to be limited in its scope, dealing with the lives of a group of muxes, gender nonconforming artisans recognized as a third gender by the Zapotec people in Oaxaca, Southern Mexico.... Continue Reading →
