Five To Watch: Top Flicks at Mardi Gras Film Festival, According to Queer Screen’s Festival Director

The annual Mardi Gras Film Festival kicks off on February 17 and runs until March 3. Curated by Queer Screen – an organisation that celebrates and promotes queer film and screen culture – this year’s festival is showing 119 films from 37 countries. That includes 32 narrative features, 15 documentaries, a retrospective and nine shorts programs.

Thanks to the Omicron outbreak, the 2022 festival will run to a hybrid model – LGBTQI+ cinephiles can stream more than half the program online, while in-person screenings will happen across Sydney, including at Event Cinemas George Street and the Hayden Orpheum.

Queer Screen’s festival director Lisa Rose shares her top five picks for the Mardi Gras Film Festival, and explains why they are must-sees.

Wildhood
“This is the centrepiece of our Focus on First Nations program strand, and is a stunning film set in Canada’s Atlantic Provinces. Wildhood is about a two-spirit youth who runs away from an abusive home, taking his little brother to search for his mother. Along the way he meets an Indigenous dancer and they form a unique bond. It’s part coming of age, part journey of self-discovery, part romance, part road-trip film, in one. Most of all, it’s a beautiful story about connection and empowerment.

“Wildhood screens at the opening night gala on February 17, with lead actor Phillip Lewitski attending. A second screening is on February 26.”

Sweetheart
“A quirky, comedic coming of age about AJ, who is pretty sure no one understands her. She sticks out like a sore thumb when her mum insists she joins the family at a coastal holiday park that time forgot. Everything changes when AJ meets Isla, a beautiful lifeguard, and begins to reconsider what she knows about herself and others.

“The director Marley Morrison recently made the longlist for BAFTA’s Outstanding Debut by a British Writer, Director or Producer award – an incredible achievement, which reflects the quality of this film.”

Finlandia

“This one is a mythical, magical realist drama, with a fictional story based around an actual muxes (third gender) community in rural Mexico. The muxes are Indigenous Zapotec people and in the film, they band together to create exquisite traditional dresses while they heal from their individual battles. It’s a beautiful film that deserves to be seen on the big screen.

“The director was partly inspired by a Vogue UK and Mexico cover story in December 2019 featuring Estrella Vazquez, a 37-year-old Zapotec muxe.”

B-Boy Blues
“Sadly, we still don’t see enough films that centre [on] African-American gay men on screen. Thankfully, B-Boy Blues, an adaptation of the seminal 1994 novel by James Earl Hardy, fills the void spectacularly. The film is about a journalist who falls for a courier, and it is enchanting from start to finish.

“It balances humour, drama and sexiness perfectly and is a wonderful way to close out the festival on March 3.”

Rebel Dykes
“Part of our Rebels With a Cause strand, this documentary tells the story of a radical community of lesbians in 1980s post-punk London. They lived as squatters, partied at BDSM nightclubs, organised anti-Thatcher rallies and tried to change the world. It’s a raucous story about women who refused to behave nicely. We’ve been reminded how important that still is here in Australia recently.

“ Rebel Dykes screens before our 25th anniversary tribute screening of the Wachowskis’ Bound, which needs no introduction.”

Tickets are on sale now for cinema sessions in Sydney and to stream, on demand, nationally. The festival runs from February 17 to March 3.

queerscreen.org.au