Queer Screen's 32nd Mardi Gras Film Festival

Queer Screen is calling on cinema lovers to come together at the 32nd Mardi Gras Film Festival in Sydney from 13 to 27 February. Highlights from the program will be available to stream, on demand, around the nation from 28 February to 10 March. Tickets are on sale now at queerscreen.org.au.

Bring the whole gang, a date, or your best mate. Invite a friend, a foe, or a frenemy. Come as a couple, a throuple, or a third wheel. Or be your own best friend and fly solo. “Come for the love of cinema, the love of queer films, and the love of community,” said Festival Director Lisa Rose.

As we come together to celebrate our collective love of queer cinema, we will also be farewelling Lisa, who is moving on from Queer Screen. Our longest-serving Festival Director, Lisa has been at the helm for eight years. Prior to accepting the role, she was a volunteer Board Director (and Co-chair of the Board) for five years.

“The film industry has changed dramatically throughout my time with Queer Screen. The volume of LGBTQIA+ content we see, as well as how and where we see it, continues to evolve,” she said. “Yet the sense of belonging that comes when the lights dim and a room full of queer people experience a queer story together remains a constant. Even when a film has the audience divided, the feeling of community that envelops us is unifying.”

Lisa’s final festival includes almost 150 of the world’s best LGBTQI+ films, presented across 72 sessions at Event Cinemas (George Street and Hurstville), Dendy Cinemas Newtown, and Ritz Cinemas Randwick. Special events at the State Library of NSW and additional screenings at The Rocks Laneway Cinema and Bank Hotel complete the program.

Opening and closing nights

The Festival opens with YOUNG HEARTS, an adorable, crowd-pleasing, coming of age tale set in rural Belgium, where 14-year-old Elias is navigating his burgeoning feelings for new neighbour, Alexander, with the support of his loving family.

To close the Festival, charming French comedy-drama SOMEWHERE IN LOVE also sees the world open up for its main character, fifty-something single mother Nicole, whose unexpected romance with the beguiling Nora offers some respite from her fractured relationship with teenage son, Serge.

We love a Première

We’re thrilled to be hosting the World Première of IN ASHES, a raw debut from Denmark-based filmmaker Ludvig C. Poulsen, about an awkward twenty-something who is struggling to get over his ex, and getting hooked on hook-ups in the process.

A total of twenty MGFF25 feature films are Australian Premières, including DRIVE BACK HOME, a darkly funny film in which two estranged brothers (Alan Cumming and Charlie Creed-Miles, The Fifth Element) are trapped on a road trip in 1970s Canada with a taxidermied pug.

THREE KILOMETRES TO THE END OF THE WORLD, which won the Queer Palm at Cannes and was in the running for the Palme d'Or, has been hailed as a masterpiece. With restrained tension, nuanced performances and stunning cinematography, the film follows a young man’s fight for justice after a homophobic attack in his rural Romanian hometown.

Other standout premières include LILIES NOT FOR ME, a lyrical English period drama about a romance between a novelist and a doctor who believed he could “cure” their homosexuality, and LAYLA, set in London’s present day queer club scene, where a British-Palestinian drag performer meets and falls for a strait-laced marketing executive.

For the love of chosen family, forever friends, and (mysterious) strangers

An unorthodox love triangle unfolds under the shadow of the AIDS epidemic in TO LIVE, TO DIE, TO LIVE AGAIN – a moving French melodrama about the power of chosen family. In LOVE IN THE BIG CITY, a decade-spanning and vibrant South Korean comedy-drama, a closeted gay man and an outspoken woman become life-long friends

Winner of the Berlinale Teddy Jury Award in 2024 (and from the director of MGFF fave And Then We Danced), CROSSING follows a retiree’s search for her runaway niece in vibrant Istanbul. An intersex runaway (writer River Gallo, in a star-making performance) flees from the New Jersey mob with help from a mysterious cowboy (Australia’s own Murray Bartlett, The White Lotus) in PONYBOI.

Real-world love

A heartwarming documentary spanning from the 1940s to today, UNUSUALLY NORMAL follows the lives of a family comprising two lesbian grandmothers, four lesbian mothers and one lesbian granddaughter.

I’M YOUR VENUS is a cathartic ode to Venus Xtravaganza, murdered trans star of 1990 ballroom documentary Paris Is Burning. Overflowing with love for its subject, it focuses on her two families (biological and ballroom) as they honour her legacy.

Our exceptionally strong documentary program also features profiles of singer/songwriter Ani De Franco (1800-ON-HER-OWN), artist Jürgen Baldiga, who chronicled West Berlin’s 1980s radical queer scene (BALDIGA: UNLOCKED HEART), lesbian feminist Sally Gearhart, an activist in San Francisco in the 1970s and ‘80s (SALLY!), and Black trans singer Jackie Shane, who rose to stardom during the 1960s (ANY OTHER WAY: THE JACKIE SHANE STORY).

For the love of Liza

To coincide with our Australian premiere screening of Bruce David Klein’s new documentary LIZA: A TRULY TERRIFIC ABSOLUTELY TRUE STORY – a dazzling profile of an enduring gay icon and Hollywood survivor – we are thrilled to also be presenting CABARET on the big screen. Winner of eight Oscars, the film remains as timely now as ever.

Love hurts

A young teacher falls into a destructive path of all-consuming obsession when a passionate and tumultuous love affair is cut short in darkly sexy Brazilian drama STREETS OF GLORIA. Swaggering butch Renuka’s instant chemistry with timid wannabe rapper Devika gives way to romance as they rebel against patriarchal expectations in THE SHAMELESS, an extraordinary, haunting drama that premiered at Cannes.

Low budget love

Wickedly funny satire, Kaye Adelaide’s THE REBRAND follows lesbian influencer power couple Thistle and Blaire as they commission a documentary about themselves to salvage their image after being cancelled, while Lauren Neal’s UNDER THE INFLUENCER, a pulpy, micro-budget thriller, follows a Black lesbian artist who seeks comeuppance upon discovering a cunning white curator has been exploiting her. Then there’s prolific low-budget Aussie filmmaker Alice Maio Mackay’s take on the festive season in grisly neon slasher, CARNAGE FOR CHRISTMAS. All three filmmakers are on our INTERSECTIONAL GENRE FILMMAKING ON A MICROBUDGET panel (see below).

For the love of women and song (wine optional)

This is becoming a habit! Following the success of last year’s The Sound of Music sing-a-long, we’re reprising the fun-filled event with nun other than Whoopi Goldberg’s SISTER ACT on the screen, accompanied by sinful shenanigans from the Sisters and Brothers of The Order of Perpetual Indulgence, Sydney.

A total riot, SCARECROW IN A GARDEN OF CUCUMBERS, was one of the first ever trans-led feature films. Starring Warhol icon Holly Woodlawn, this ‘70s sketch musical comedy was recently rediscovered after a long time lost. With cameos from Lily Tomlin and Bette Midler (who is said to have turned down the lead in Sister Act because her fans wouldn’t want to see her playing a nun!), it can finally claim the cult audience it’s long deserved.

Retrospective love @ The Rocks Laneway Cinema

Don’t miss the camp classic THE BIRDCAGE, in which a gay couple (Robin Williams and Nathan Lane) try to convince their son’s ultra-conservative future in-laws they’re not gay. In the equally beloved lesbian classic IMAGINE ME & YOU, Rachel (Piper Perabo) locks eyes with Luce (Lena Headey) while walking down the aisle and tries to convince herself she didn’t just make a big mistake. Count the stars in the night sky above and the iconic guest stars on screen at these free events.

Special events

Australia’s richest queer short-film competition, MY QUEER CAREER, will see eight entries battle it out to win over $16,000 worth of cash and in-kind support. Speaking of fierce competition, Inqueersition, our hugely popular trivia night, is on again at the Bearded Tit.

A panel discussion, It Should’ve Been Queer, will have us bonding over what could have been, while the Queer Screen Pride in Film: Industry Development Series will help local queer filmmakers look ahead with two more panels: Queering the Writer’s Room and Intersectional Genre Filmmaking on a Microbudget, plus a masterclass, From Script(ment) to Screen and a networking event.

On demand encore screenings

Once again our hybrid festival includes an on-demand encore season, available nationally from 28 February to 10 March. The diverse selection of films include DRIVE BACK HOME, THE REBRAND, and UNUSUALLY NORMAL, as well as the MY QUEER CAREER finalists and all our popular shorts packages (Asia Pacific Shorts, Bi+ Shorts, Gay Shorts, Hot Boy Shorts, Light-Hearted Shorts, QueerDOC Shorts, QueerScream Shorts, Sapphic Shorts, T4T Shorts, Trans and Gender Diverse Shorts, and Women Loving Women Shorts).

Our partners

Queer Screen’s 32nd Mardi Gras Film Festival is supported by Allianz, our Major Partner. “Allianz is presenting a range of key sessions, and supporting our Community Screenings, allowing us to offer significantly discounted, $12 tickets,” said Queer Screen Co-Chair Angela Ruchin.

Queer Screen is also grateful to receive funding from our Government Partners, Screen NSW and the City of Sydney. Co-Chair Abs Osseiran said: “On behalf of Queer Screen, I extend my heartfelt thanks to all our partners, whose support has a positive impact on filmmakers and audience members alike. Their contribution enables us to deliver two festivals a year and, through programs such as Pitch Off and the Completion Fund, directly support queer storytellers.”

For the love of Lisa

Acknowledging Lisa Rose’s impending departure, Abs Osseiran said the Board Directors and Associates would like to express their heartfelt thanks for the significant contribution she has made to the organisation. “Without Lisa’s drive and vision, Queer Screen would not be what it is today.

We will celebrate her achievements throughout this year’s Festival and look forward to her ongoing engagement with Queer Screen when her time as Festival Director comes to an end. There will be some exciting changes for Queer Screen coming, which we will share in due course.”

Angela Ruchin added: “Under Lisa’s guidance, Queer Screen has built an international reputation which culminated in our organisation being invited to participate in the prestigious Marché du Film for the Goes to Cannes program – not once, but twice.

As we look forward, we will build on Lisa’s vision with our two annual festival events, which continue to make their mark despite the increasing challenges facing the festival circuit globally.”

Tickets and passes for MGFF25 are on sale now. Queer Screen memberships are also available and offer discounted tickets and priority entry. Visit queerscreen.org.au, use the Queer Screen Mardi Gras Film Festival app, or call (02) 9280 1533 to book.