Mardi Gras Film FestivalAround Sydney 12:00 am
It’s that time of year again when Mardi Gras takes over Sydney, bringing with it the glittering cinematic showcase of LGBTQIA+ excellence that is the Mardi Gras Film Festival.
Opening with the beautiful Australian film Jimpa, starring Olivia Colman, John Lithgow and Aud Mason-Hyde, there’s tonnes to see before the festival wraps two weeks later with American high school comedy She’s the He.
Here are ten of our top picks:
Pillion
Thirsty Heated Rivalry fam, we know you’re checking out Alexander Skarsgård as a biker leather-clad dom in this smoking hot British debut feature. Loosely adapted from Adam Mars-Jones’ novella, Box Hill, by writer/director Harry Lighton, it’s astonishingly sexy, absurdly funny and achingly bittersweet. Harry Melling’s the revelation, as the sub drawn into a fetish scene he barely understands, but embraces with his whole body, in this sex-positive delight that’s also a Christmas movie. Yippee-ki-yay.
The Chronology of Water
Another literary adaptation, this one marks the Cannes-berthing directorial debut of Personal Shopper star Kristen Stewart. Blown away by would-be-swimmer-turned-author and academic Lidia Yuknavitch’s powerfully raw memoir, Stewart made it her mission to bring it to life as a formally daring, non-linear fever of a film. Led by a towering performance from Imogen Poots, as a bisexual woman and addict attempting to rebuild her life after shocking childhood abuse, it’s a tough, but emotionally rewarding watch.
The Serpent’s Skin
South Australian filmmaker and mighty trans woman Alice Maio Mackay is a wunderkind, with a bunch of queer horror films under her belt while only just nudged into her twenties. That prolific work ethic and her anarchic punk spirit inspire chaotic good stuff. Led by Alexandra McVicker and Avalon Fast, her latest is a surprisingly tender romance that also happens to feature demonic possession and allows the cute couple to fight transphobes using psychic powers to pop their rotted brains. Hurrah!
Perro Perro
Argentine filmmaker Marco Berger has carved a career out of languorously erotic films soaked full of longing. Often, it’s gay men hankering after unattainable straight guys. But this astonishing fable, captured in crisp black and white, turns the tables. A group of friends hire a river cottage in the jungle, where Juan notices an affectionate stray dog following him. Only in this fairy tale-like reverie, the pup is also played by a naked man. No, it doesn’t get icky. Instead, it’s an ode to the bond with our best furry friends.
Bearcave
There’s a dreamy feel to this debut feature from Greek filmmakers Krysianna Papadakis and Stergios Dinopoulos. Expanding on their previous short, it’s set across parched days and balmy nights in a mountainous village to the north of the country. Hung on incredible turns from Xara Kyriazi and Pamela Oikonomaki, they play a down-to-earth farmer and her fashion-loving manicurist mate, with their connection transforming after visiting a mysterious cave that has fascinated them since childhood. A wild ride follows.
Queens of the Dead
Tina Romero, daughter of genre hero George A, adopts her father’s beloved brain-eaters in this debut feature. Starring Love Lies Bleeding’s Katy O’Brian, Pose matriarch Dominique Jackson and Margaret freaking Cho as Brooklyn drag club devotees, they pull together to defeat the undead shuffling their way across the bridge after zombies take Manhattan. A snort-laugh-inducing tribute to LGBTQIA+ communities fighting back against whatever shit the world throws at us, it’s gloriously silly fun.
Girl for a Day
Queer storytelling has dramatically diversified, but intersex representations remain elusive. French filmmaker Jean-Claude Monod’s biopic is based on the diaries of Anne Grandjean. Born intersex in 1765 and raised as a girl, she socially transitioned to become Jean-Baptiste after discovering she loved women. Chased from his village, settling in the city, he went on to marry. But some could not let happiness stand, in a powerful story about fighting for bodily autonomy that’s sadly all too current.
Night Stage
Horn in cinematic form, the latest from Marcio Reolon and Filipe Matzembacher, the Brazilian filmmaking duo behind Hard Paint, wears its sauciness on its sleeve. Mattias (Gabriel Faryas), a dancer, meets Rafael (Cirillo Luna), a closeted politician, in a park beat after dark, sparking an obsession with dangerously public play. All the while, Mattias is locked in ferocious competition with his straight roommate for a part in a new contemporary theatre production. What could possibly go wrong?
The Little Sister
Scoring both the Queer Palm award and Best Actress, for star Nadia Melliti, at Cannes, this Parisian-set coming-of-ager traces the journey of Fatima. A young Muslim woman living on the periphery, she’s big into football but otherwise keeps her cards close to her chest. But falling in with Return to Seoul star Park Ji-min’s nurse while studying at uni opens up a whole new way of being. Adapted by director Hafsia Herzi from the autofiction novel by French-Algerian author Fatima Daas, it’s a subtly unmooring film.
A Useful Ghost
You’ll never look at your vacuum cleaner the same way after watching Thai filmmaker Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke’s wild and unruly, darkly comic and frankly absurdly brilliant debut feature. Several of the appliances become haunted by frisky spirits who cause chaos, both physical and emotional, in their determination to be reunited with their grieving lovers. Unafraid to fly its freak flag while examining sexuality, family, fraught political history and more, it’s a fascinating genre mash-up that’s sublime.