Before anywhere else in Australia, Melbourne became home to a major annual celebration of movies. That was more than seven decades ago, when the Melbourne International Film Festival first kicked off — and the event is still going strong. Back in 1991, the Victorian capital made flick-watching history again, this time in the queer cinema space. Now, Melbourne Queer Film Festival is the nation’s oldest such fest, and it too keeps delighting audiences.
A documentary about Jackie Shane, a portrait of a Drag Race star, Elliot Page’s first leading role as a trans man, the Village People: they’re all on the 42-feature, 90-short program when MQFF returns for 2024 from Thursday, November 14–Sunday, November 24 at ACMI, The Capitol, Palace Cinema Como and Cinema Nova. Also a highlight in the event’s 34th year: the festival’s dedicated hangout space making a comeback.
The theme for this year is “formative sound and vision”. If you now have a certain David Bowie song stuck in your head, that’s understandable — and Darryl W Bullock, who wrote David Bowie Made Me Gay: 100 Years of LGBT Music, is the fest’s keynote speaker. He’ll be chatting at the event’s one-day free symposium dedicated to music videos, which will dive into the role that such clips have played in helping members of the LGBTQIA+ community form their identities.
Any Other Way: The Jackie Shane Story is MQFF’s opening-night pick, telling its namesake’s tale from her 50s Nashville success through to disappearing from the public for four decades. In the middle of the fest, the dialogue-free Gondola, which is about female cable-car conductors expressing their emotions in the sky, gets the centrepiece slot. Then, when it all comes to an end for 2024, the festival will close with Duino, a semi-autobiographical effort about an Argentinian filmmaker working on a movie about his first love.
Rex Wheeler, aka Drag Race‘s Lady Camden, pops up in-between via Lady Like. As for the band that ensured no one can say YMCA without singing, they’re featured thanks to a retrospective screening of Can’t Stop the Music — and if you want to dress up to attend the screening, that’s up to you.
With 2024 marking seven years since Page (The Umbrella Academy) last appeared on the big screen Down Under, Close to You brings that absence from local cinemas to an end. The film boasts the actor’s first male movie role, as a trans man heading home to his family for the first time since transitioning.
Attendees can also look forward to Evan Rachel Wood (Weird: The Al Yankovic Story) as a cheerleading coach in Backspot, with Devery Jacobs (Echo) as the squad’s newcomer; Strange Creatures, which heads on a road trip to Narrabri with fighting siblings; Baby, about the connection between a São Paolo sex worker and an 18-year-old man just out of juvenile detention; and Hong Kong’s All Shall Be Well, the recipient of this year’s Berlinale Teddy Award and Frameline Audience Award for Narrative.
Or, there’s also The Visitor from Bruce La Bruce (Saint-Narcisse), which pays tribute to Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Teorema — and docu-musical Reas, where former prisoners play both themselves and their jailers. Glue’s former lead singer gets the spotlight in The Life of Sean DeLear, while Linda Perry does the same in Let It Die Here (complete with Brandi Carlile, Christina Aguilera, Dolly Parton and Sara Gilbert as interviewees). And courtesy of Life Is Not a Competition, But I’m Winning, get ready for a cine-essay about gender and bodies in sport.
“We’re taking over Melbourne with a dazzling lineup of films for the 2024 MQFF program. We’ve gathered the most-extraordinary new and historical LGBTQIA+ stories from around the globe that shape, form, pay homage to and celebrate queer music culture,” said MQFF CEO David Martin Harris, announcing the lineup.
“Plus, by popular demand, we’re delighted to bring back the MQFF Festival Lounge at ACMI for the entire season. This will be a vibrant space for LGBTQIA+ community connection, featuring fascinating public programs, DJs, karaoke and delicious food in a mirror ball-lit setting. In other words, pure queer joy!”
The 2024 Melbourne Queer Film Festival runs from Thursday, November 14–Sunday, November 24 at venues around Melbourne. For more information or to buy tickets, head to the festival website.
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