by FilmInk Staff
14 – 24 November 2024
Opening this week, the 34th annual Melbourne Queer Film Festival (MQFF) will see filmmakers descend on the red carpet for screenings and events from 14 – 24 November. The program celebrates queer music culture through the provocation: Formative Sound and Vision, and will feature 42 feature films, 18 Australian premieres, 18 Melbourne premieres, 19 documentaries, 11 short film packages and 90 short films held at ACMI, The Capitol, Palace Cinema Como and Cinema Nova.
Highlights include:
Gay Chorus Deep South (2019, USA) Showing at The Capitol on 23 November. Sundance New Frontier alum David Charles Rodrigues’ gorgeous documentary Gay Chorus Deep South follows the San Francisco Gay Men’s Choir pilgrimage through America’s Deep South to change the hearts and minds in the aftermath of Trump’s 2016 election win. This moving documentary explores the southern states least likely to support LGBTQIA+ rights and the power of music to bring polarized communities and families back together.
Baby (2024, Brazil, France, Netherlands) Melbourne Premiere, showing at The Capitol on 20 November. Brazilian filmmaker Marcelo Caetano picked up the 12th Sebastiane Latino Award for “bringing necessary nuances to a story of the underworld and empathy to characters who live their queer love or create rainbow families.” Baby tells the story of Wellington (João Pedro Mariano), who gets out of two years’ juvenile detention to discover his no-good parents have skipped town. The São Paulo teenager refuses to collapse. Falling in with old mates, a chance encounter with forty-something Ronaldo (Ricardo Teodoro) outside a porn cinema leads to a surreal relationship somewhere between lover, father and sex work business.
Strange Creatures (2024, Australia) Melbourne Premiere, showing at ACMI on 16 November. Nate (Metro Sexual star Riley Nottingham) is a proud pansexual man who used to be really tight with his big brother Ged (Wellmania’s Johnny Carr), but something bad went down and the siblings haven’t spoken in years. Summoned to suburban Melbourne to celebrate their mum’s birthday, she promptly dies overnight and they’re forced to work things out while on a road trip back to the remote northern NSW town where they grew up, so they can scatter her ashes. Written and directed by Metro Sexual co-creator, Henry Boffin, who will be attending MQFF for this screening.
In the Room Where He Waits (2024, Australia) Showing at ACMI on 18 November. Star of stage and screen Daniel Monks (Pulse, MQFF 2017, Kaos, National Theatre Live’s The Seagull) embraced the horror genre with maniacal glee thanks to a memorably mean supporting role in queer Instagram-influenced slasher Sissy. But the spotlight’s squarely on his towering talent in Timothy Despina Marshall (previous Iris Prize winner) and his goosebump-inducingly spooky debut feature. Both Monks and Marshall will be in attendance for this screening at MQFF.
One World Shorts will screen five films from across the globe at Palace Cinema Como on 20 November. One of the highlights in this selection is directed by Palestinian female filmmaker, Dima Hamdan, who recently won the 2024 Iris Prize, the world’s largest LGBTQ+ short film award. Hamdan is a self-taught filmmaker and journalist based in Berlin. Her film Blood Like Water, showing in this shorts package, is based on a true story of Shadi’s secret adventure accidentally dragging his family into a trap where they only have two choices; either collaborate with the Israeli occupation, or be shamed and humiliated by their own people.
Lesvia (2024, Greece) Australian Premiere, showing at ACMI on 16 November. The Greek island of Lesbos gifted its name to the international term for women who love women. Flash forward a few thousand years, and it remains a cultural outpost for the free of spirit, as this beautifully drawn, lyrical documentary by local filmmaker and photographer Tzeli Hadjidimitriou outlines. Lesvia details how lesbians of all stripes and every corner of the globe have flocked to this place since the ‘70s.
Any Other Way: The Jackie Shane Story (2024, Canada) Melbourne Premiere, showing at ACMI for Opening Night on 14 November. From the producers of the Emmy Award-winning Hip-Hop Evolution (2016) and Executive Producer Elliot Page comes this stirring, Frameline “Out in the Silence Award”-winning documentary which shares the extraordinary story of a pioneering Black trans performer of exceptional talent and stage presence, who in no way hid her queerness and refused to be anyone but her authentic self.
The Visitor (2024, UK) Melbourne Premiere, showing at The Capitol on 15 and 22 November. Arguably Canadian’s most proactive Director, Bruce LaBruce brings us his latest punk-art contribution to queer cinema. This new crotch twist shifts the engorged drama from Italy to contemporary London, where Bishop Black’s Visitor emerges from a suitcase as a refugee who soon invites themselves into a filthy rich, binary bending family’s mansion, seducing them to the cause one-by-horny-one. This NSFW fury was up for the Teddy Best Feature Award at this year’s Berlinale and examines refugee hysteria in the UK explicitly in more ways than one.
Teaches of Peaches (2024, Germany) Showing at The Capitol on 22 November. This Teddy Award–winning documentary portrait follows genderqueer Canadian electro-punk performance artist and producer Peaches on her barnstorming “Teaches of Peaches Anniversary Tour” in 2022. Expertly splicing together exhilarating footage from that tour with raw footage taken from Peaches’ breakthrough years two decades prior, it’ll come as no surprise to learn that co-director Judy Landkammer was not only this hyperkinetic film’s editor, but Bruce LaBruce’s on The Visitor as well.
David Martin Harris, MQFF CEO, said: “The 2024 MQFF is an enormous celebration of queer joy and solidarity at a time when community connection couldn’t be more important. With over 100 screenings across Melbourne, audiences this year are invited to explore the intersection of music and film – everyone is welcome to enjoy the international plethora of queer voices, stories and songs that this festival offers. Come for a film and stay for karaoke in the festival lounge!”
As well as a stellar film line-up, MQFF will also present several free events and public programs, including MQFF Speed Dating, Camp-As Karaoke, Queer Film Trivia, all at the Festival Lounge at ACMI. In keeping with the Festival’s “Formative Sound and Vision” theme, My Formative Queers turns its gaze — and gays — to music videos, those short films that captured the soundtracks of our youths, featuring a keynote by international guest of the fest, Darryl W. Bullock, author of David Bowie Made Me Gay: 100 Years of LGBT Music.
The Melbourne Queer Film Festival (MQFF) is the biggest and longest-running queer film festival in Australia, screening the best Australian/International queer films. MQFF aims to engage the community with the best LGBTQIA+ content in order to educate, entertain and celebrate diversity. MQFF is proudly supported by government partners: City of Melbourne, VicScreen, Department of Families Fairness and Housing, and City of Stonnington; as well as major partners: ME Bank, Origin and Prime Video. Melbourne Queer Film Festival (MQFF)
Festival dates: 14 – 24 November 2024
