Queer Screen ‘Goes to Cannes’ for a second year and will be packing five productions to represent at the acclaimed Marché du Film, occurring in conjunction with the 77th Cannes Film Festival on the French Riviera this month.
Seven festivals from across the globe were invited by the Marché du Film to showcase their selection of five original feature titles looking for sales agents, distributors, and festival programmers during the prestigious Cannes season. This year sees Queer Screen, producers of Sydney’s Mardi Gras Film Festival and Queer Screen Film Fest, returning to the invitation-only line-up for a second year as the ‘Goes to Cannes’ program’s only LGBTQIA+ partner.
Queer Screen’s festival director, Lisa Rose, said the return invitation is an enormous honour and a testament to the organization’s international standing. “We are thrilled about being invited back,” she said. “Last year’s participation significantly bolstered the presence of Queer Screen and Mardi Gras Film Festival on the global stage, but more importantly, as the only LGBTQIA+ film festival involved, it provided invaluable opportunities for filmmakers championing queer content.”
This year’s selection showcases narratives spanning the spectrum of gay, lesbian, pansexual, bisexual, and transgender experiences and includes three Australian and two international projects. From All Sides tells a culturally diverse story from Western Sydney. Heart of the Man, brought to you by a First Nations filmmaker, explores a father-son relationship. Experience the Australian landscape in the road trip movie Strange Creatures. Under the Influencer, an ambitious project from the USA, pushes boundaries, while Sabar Bonda (Arms Of A Man) from India offers a tender and personal narrative.
Queer Screen’s selections will be shown on Saturday, 18 May 2024, at 4 pm at Palais K, with filmmakers pitching in person. The film extracts and pitches will also be available online for Marché du Film attendees to view the following day.
Project Details
“Arms of a Man” (“Sabar Bonda”, India/UK/France)
Director: Rohan Parashuram Kanawade
Producers: Neeraj Churi
Production Companies: Lotus Visual Productions
A thirty-year-old city-dweller compelled to spend ten-day mourning of his father in the rugged countryside of Western India tenderly bonds with a local farmer struggling to stay unmarried. As the mourning ends, forcing his return, he must decide the fate of his relationship born under duress.
“From All Sides” (Australia)
Director: Bina Bhattacharya
Producers: Bina Bhattacharya and Alexander McGhee
Production Companies: Gemme de la Femme Pictures Pty Ltd
A multiracial bisexual married couple and their teenage children find themselves beset from all sides as they navigate work, school, sex, friendships, romances, and their colourful neighbours in the outer suburbs of Sydney.
“Heart of the Man” (Australia)
Director: David Cook
Producer: Blake Northfield
Production Company: Bronte Pictures
A young boxing prodigy coming to terms with his sexuality must battle between fulfilling his father’s dream and becoming his own man.
“Strange Creatures” (Australia)
Director: Henry Boffin
Producers: Rachel Forbes & Riley Nottingham
Production Company: Strange Creatures Pty Ltd, Humdrum Comedy Pty Ltd, Sweetshop & Green
Two estranged brothers are forced back into each other’s lives when they’re tasked with scattering the ashes of their recently deceased mother in the country town where she grew up.
“Under the Influencer” (U.S.A)
Director: Bryn Woznicki (Director); Lauren Neal (Technical Director)
Producers: Jill Bennett, Katie Hall
Production Company: Lion & Lamb Studio, Team Stillwell, Fair Play Films
When a struggling digital artist has her work appropriated by a popular art curator, will she remain a victim, or become the perpetrator of an even more villainous crime?
2024 is the twelfth edition of the Goes to Cannes program at the Marché du Film. The Marché du Film is held in conjunction with the Cannes Film Festival and this year over 14,000 film industry professionals head to Cannes to present and discover almost 4,000 films and projects in development at 33 screening venues. Queer Screen will be joined by Golden Horse Film Festival, Solothurn Film Festival, Hong Kong Industry’s Asia Film Financing Forum, Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival, Ventana Sur and fellow Australian festival the Adelaide Film Festival in the Goes to Cannes program this year.
