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 GarcÃa’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 →
Jeremy Goldstein’s Truth to Power Café and a new production of Jonathan Harvey’s Beautiful Thing straddle this year’s Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras Festival. For The Queer Review, Goldstein speaks with Harvey about his now classic play and what it means to him to see it revived. Jonathan Harvey is among our greatest living... Continue Reading →
Well, that was an eye-opener! As a 'gold star' gay man I’m not the most ‘cliterate’ person out there and the documentary The Dilemma of Desire (getting its Australian premiere at the Mardi Gras Film Festival) presented a lot of new information in an entertaining way. Artist Sophia Wallace’s work around ‘Cliteracy’ is woven through... Continue Reading →
Hong Kong director Ray Yeung’s Suk Suk (released as Twilight’s Kiss in North America) has been drawing rave reviews since its premiere at the Busan International Film Festival, and it’s easy to see why; gentle, subtle, and deeply moving, Suk Suk is a real gem. Pak (Tai-Bo) is a married taxi driver and grandfather coming... Continue Reading →
Thomas Wilson-White’s The Greenhouse (receiving its World Premiere at Queer Screen's Mardi Gras Film Festival in Sydney) is a queer fairytale, but if that sounds like it’s all prancing twinks in tight shorts running around the woods, I hate to be the one to disappoint you. Like all good fairytales, this one is about bigger,... Continue Reading →
Australian director David O’Donnell’s feature debut, Under My Skin, takes a fresh approach to telling the story of young couple Denny and Ryan, whose relationship is tested as Denny questions their gender identity. Denny is played by four non-binary and trans non-binary performers (Liv Hewson, Chloe Freeman, Lex Ryan, and Bobbi Salvör Menuez) to dramatic... Continue Reading →
There is something quintessentially Australian about finding privacy in a wide expanse of nature, and My First Summer uses the depths of Australian forests as a furtive playground for big emotions. A teenage girl, Grace (Maiah Stewardson), witnesses a reclusive writer, Veronica Fox (Edwina Wren), commit suicide in a local lake. She also spies another... Continue Reading →
Queer Screen’s 28th Mardi Gras Film Festival has announced its full lineup of queer treats that will debut both in cinemas in Sydney and online on-demand across Australia from February 18th to March 4th 2021. MGFF will screen 94 films including narrative features, docs, shorts, and episodics, with 70% of those available on-demand. The program... Continue Reading →
