Grab the rainbow popcorn and gather a group of your most opinionated cinephiles – Queer Screen's Mardi Gras Film Festival is back, this year with a program designed to start conversations.
Celebrating the best of homegrown and international queer storytelling, this year’s Mardi Gras Film Festival promises to “inspire lively debate” – with the organisers encouraging visitors to indulge in a good old-fashioned post-screening discussion. Another reason to head to one of Sydney’s best late-night locations? Well, if you insist.
Running for two weeks from February 15-29, there’s a whopping 161 films screening in cinemas across the city – both indoors and alfresco. Panel discussions, workshops, industry networking events and parties will also keep the conversation going.
Some of Sydney’s most iconic historical buildings are joining the list of venues playing host to MGFF24 – with a double bill of music and film taking place at the Sydney Opera House with Music from Queer Film set to be performed by the Sydney Cello Quartet, and a panel discussion taking place at the State Library of NSW tackling meaty topics including the portrayal of queer tropes on screen. If you like your films in the open air, MGFF24 will be taking over Westpac Open Air Cinema with a special screening of All Of Us Strangers. Other venues include Ritz Cinema Randwick, Cremorne’s Hayden Orpheum, Dendy Newtown, ol' faithful Event Cinemas George Street (and Hurstville), and even Redfern’s beloved art bar The Bearded Tit.
The festival opens with the Sydney premiere of British neo-noir thriller FEMME – a fierce psychodrama following the story of a drag star’s search for revenge following a homophobic attack. The director behind MGFF23’s opening film Of An Age (Goran Stolevski) will close out the program with another Sydney premiere – this time of his new Australian-based film Housekeeping For Beginners, which explores the poignant topic of found family.
Aside from those, there’s more cinematic brilliance happening than we could ever hope to wrap up – but we’ve teased out some hot picks below.
The festival will play host to three world premieres, with two of the those being Aussie-grown. Celebrating the life and work of Archibald award-winning artist Craig Ruddy, A Portrait Of Love will be screened on Monday, Feb 19, with both the director (Molly Reynolds) and writer (Roberto Meza, who was Ruddy’s partner for the final two decades of his life) attending for a post-screening question and answer session. Another global premiere comes from Australian director Timothy Desphina Marshall, whose chilling psychological thriller In The Room Where He Waits will premiere on Sunday, Feb 25. Joining the home-grown films premiering at MGFF24 will be Blue Lights – a sophisticated exploration of family and friendship from Argentinian director Lucas Santa Ana.
Other highlights will include Inqueerstion Queer Movie Trivia Night popping up at the Bearded Tit on Tuesday, Feb 27, a sing-along screening of The Sound of Music taking place on Friday, Feb 23, and a screening of the best short films of MGFF24 taking place on Saturday, March 23.
Tickets and passes for MGFF24 are on sale now. Queer Screen memberships are also available and offer discounted tickets and priority entry. If you can’t make it, the program will also be available for on-demand streaming nationwide from March 1. Visit queerscreen.org.au, or the Queer Screen Mardi Gras Film Festival app, or call (02) 9280 1533 to book.
