Festival Guests at MGFF25

We’re thrilled to be joined by an amazing selection of festival guests from Australia and across the globe, participating in panels, discussions, filmmaker masterclasses and Q&As throughout Queer Screen’s 32nd Mardi Gras Film Festival.

Panel: Queering the Writer’s Room

Gen Fricker

Moderator

Gen Fricker (Ngāpuhi/Australia) is a comedian, writer and broadcaster. She’s taken her solo shows to esteemed festivals worldwide, including Just for Laughs, Sydney and Melbourne Comedy Festivals. On the airwaves, Gen is a familiar voice, starting out on triple j radio Lunch and Drive, as well as co-hosting Netflix’s Big Film Buffet podcast. Gen is currently developing a historical comedy based on Joan of Arc’s life, is a staff writer on ABC’s Gruen, and has worked on The Weekly. Other credits include a Paramount+ comedy Pilot and working as a script consultant for Ubisoft. In front of the camera, she’s a sought-after guest on programs like Have You Been Paying Attention?, Question Everything, The Cheap Seats and The Cook Up. Her print work has appeared in The Sydney Morning Herald, The Guardian and Yahoo News.

Anchuli Felicia King

Panellist

Anchuli Felicia King is a playwright, screenwriter and multidisciplinary artist of Thai-Australian descent. Her plays have been produced by the Royal Court Theatre (London), Off-Broadway at Manhattan Theatre Club in 2022 and at theatres around Australia. King has worked as a screenwriter on HBO’s The Baby, HBO’s The Sympathizer, the TV adaptation of Viet Thanh Nguyen’s Pulitzer winning novel starring Robert Downey Jr and Sandra Oh, and AMC’s Mary and George starring Julianne Moore. She also has writing credits on Australian shows including The Twelve, Deadloch and Class of 07.

Enoch Mailangi

Panellist

Enoch Mailangi is a recent MFA graduate from the National Institute of Dramatic Arts and a current Urban Theatre Project Resident Artist, who created and wrote the AACTA-winning ABC iview comedy series All My Friends are Racist, which premiered internationally at Series Mania in France. They have written across multiple acclaimed series, focusing on teen and children’s audiences, including Stan Original’s Year Of, SBS’s While The Men Are Away, ABC Kids’ Crazy Fun Park, and the upcoming Stan Original series Invisible Boys. A consultant on Heartbreak High Season 2 and a recipient of Screen Australia’s Talent: New York program, Enoch’s extensive work also includes screenwriting for artists, such as Joel Sherwood Spring’s SETTLED, showcased at ACCA in Melbourne.

Greg Waters

Panellist

Greg Waters is a writer, script producer and script editor. He has been queering characters in TV series for twenty years. He has worked on Ladies In Black, The Twelve, Riot, New Gold Mountain, Secret City, Dance Academy, Wellmania, Surviving Summer, Janet King, Rake, Paper Giants and Soul Mates, among others. His first ever short film screened at Queer Screen’s Mardi Gras Film Festival.

Panel: Queering the Writer’s Room will take place on Saturday 15 February at the State Library of NSW Auditorium. Moderated by Gen Fricker, she’ll be joined by Anchuli Felicia King, Enoch Mailangi and Greg Waters.

Panel: It Should’ve Been Queer

Michael Sun

Moderator

Michael Sun is a critic and essayist whose work revolves around queerness, memory, and internet ephemera. He currently works in culture and lifestyle at The Guardian, where he recently hosted the online culture podcast Saved for Later. His writing on film and music has also been published in The Saturday Paper, The Monthly, ABC Arts, Esquire, Sydney Review of Books, Australian Book Review, Vice, The Age and many more. In his spare time, he designs posters for events, lovers, friends and enemies. He writes a monthly column for Shameless where he cosplays as an agony aunt.

Jordan Bastian

Panellist

Jordan Bastian is the Screen Festival Manager at SXSW Sydney, bringing 18 years of experience in the film industry. She has held roles such as State, General and Operations Manager; Programmer; Projectionist; and Consultant with a range of independent industry leaders, including Moving Story Entertainment, Palace Cinemas, and Arcadia.  When she’s not obsessively watching films, she’s obsessively watching television.

Juan Pablo Di Pace

Panellist

Juan Pablo is an Argentine/Italian director, musician and actor, best known for his role as Jesus Christ in A.D. The Bible Continues (NBC), Petros in Mamma Mia! (Universal), Fernando in Fuller House (Netflix), and Oscar in The Mattachine Family (MGFF24). As a director he has created the series Minutiae, short films La Belleza and Admission (LA Shorts 2019) and is developing two upcoming films. Duino is his debut feature. Before moving to the USA, Juan Pablo worked in Europe across theatre – Maurice Bejart’s Boléro (London), Chicago (London) and Saturday Night Fever (Spanish Broadway) – and film – Aftersun (BBC UK) and Tutti intorno a Linda (Italy).

Rebecca Shaw

Panellist

Bec Shaw (aka @brocklesnitch) is a comedy writer and dyke about town. Her credits include Tonightly with Tom Ballard, Hard Quiz and Get Krack!n. She’s written for The Guardian, Pedestrian, Junkee and most other places. Her parody twitter account @NoToFeminism was developed into an illustrated book with Affirm Press, and a song she co-wrote won the 2018 best comedy release ARIA.

Dyan Tai

Panellist

Self-described Gaysian Empress of Sydney, Dyan Tai (they/them) makes electronic hyperpop music fused with Beijing opera and Southeast Asian soundscapes. Named as “one of the outstanding acts to watch” at BigSound (NME) and praised by Flume for their “sound design” (Triple J), Dyan makes “sophisticated palette pop” (Rolling Stone) with a “personality that shines up the room” (SXSW Sydney, AuReview). From humble beginnings in Malaysia to finding a niche on Sydney cabaret stages and now evolving into an electronic artist, the trilingual Chinese-Australian artist’s captivating live shows have been described as “a queer, euphoric dream that you don’t want to wake up from” (5 star review, The Age). Dyan is the subject of documentary film Empress, having its World Premiere as part of QueerDOC Shorts.

Panel: It Should’ve Been Queer will take place on Saturday 15 February at the State Library of NSW Auditorium. Moderated by Michael Sun, he’ll be joined by Jordan Bastian, Juan Pablo Di Pace, Rebecca Shaw and Dyan Tai.

Sally! + Q&A

Jörg Fockele

Producer, Co-director

Jörg Fockele is an award-winning filmmaker with a career spanning over 25 years. He has written and directed over 10 short films, four feature documentaries and numerous music videos and PSAs. Of the awards and distinctions Jörg has received, the most important ones are retrospectives at the Goethe Institutes New York City, San Francisco, Chicago and Mexico City, two Emmys and a special prize from the International Film Festival in Berlin. In addition, Jörg is a critically acclaimed television producer of award-winning shows such as Bravo’s Queer Eye, ABC’s Wife Swap, the Sundance Channel’s Big Ideas for a Small Planet and AMC’s Small Town Security. He has also directed and produced shows for MTV, CBS, Oxygen, Discovery Network, PBS, Fine Living Network and the SciFi Channel.

Ondine Rarey

Producer, Co-director, Editor

Ondine is a filmmaker, editor and writer. Her documentary Fools and Heroes was a Grimme-Preis nominee (the German equivalent of an Emmy), airing on ARTE in France as well as Stateside on PBS. She has edited well over a dozen documentary features and shorts, including Now en Español (for PBS), A Great Ride, Who Will Write Our History and Rebel Hearts, an official selection at Sundance 2021. She has edited on multiple TV series, including Keeping up with the Kardashians and Alien Encounters. Ondine received a BA from UC Berkeley in History and a BFA in Documentary and Journalism from the Munich University for Television and Film in Germany. She currently resides in Southern California, where she teaches Documentary Editing at Chapman University.

Sally! will screen on Saturday 15 February at Event Cinemas George Street, and be available On Demand Friday 28 February–Monday 10 February, Australia-wide. Jörg Fockele and Ondine Rarey will participate in a Q&A after the film on Saturday 15 February.

Duino + Q&A

Juan Pablo Di Pace

Actor, Writer, Director, Producer

Juan Pablo is an Argentine/Italian director, musician and actor, best known for his role as Jesus Christ in A.D. The Bible Continues (NBC), Petros in Mamma Mia! (Universal), Fernando in Fuller House (Netflix), and Oscar in The Mattachine Family (MGFF24). As a director he has created the series Minutiae, short films La Belleza and Admission (LA Shorts 2019) and is developing two upcoming films. Duino is his debut feature. Before moving to the USA, Juan Pablo worked in Europe across theatre – Maurice Bejart’s Boléro (London), Chicago (London) and Saturday Night Fever (Spanish Broadway) – and film – Aftersun (BBC UK) and Tutti intorno a Linda (Italy).

Duino will screen on Sunday 16 February and Saturday 22 February at Event Cinemas George Street. Juan Pablo Di Pace will participate in a Q&A after the film on Sunday 16 February.

We Forgot To Break Up + Q&A

Karen Knox

Director

Karen Knox is a filmmaker based in Toronto. She has served as showrunner for two seasons of Slo Pitch (IFC/AMC+) and director/showrunner for Homeschooled (CBC Gem) and two seasons of Barbelle (Shaftesbury). Her directorial debut feature film Adult Adoption premiered at the Glasgow Film Festival in 2022. Knox has directed/written several award winning shorts with her company Boss & Co including Borderline (Dances With Films), Case of the Massey Bodice Ripping (winner of best short film at Venice Short Film Festival and Budapest Independent Film Festival), Damage Control (best short at Toronto Pendance Festival), The Fates (TIFF) as well as Cons & Pros which debuted on VICE.com selected for the Telefilm Not Short on Talent Cannes 2020 edition. Knox’s writing work includes the six part series For the Record (CBC + Universal Music) which premiered at SXSW 2020, Falconette (Shaftesbury), as well as published work in the Globe and Mail and Toronto Quarterly. As an actor Knox is best known for her work playing the villain on the reboot of Wynonna Earp (TUBI), in SYFY’s Letters to Satan, and playing opposite Gabourey Sidibe in Paramount’s All I Didn’t Want, as well as appearances in her own work.

Lane Webber

Actor

Lane Webber is a Toronto-based musician and actor. He’s best known for his role as “Lee” in two seasons of the acclaimed digital series Slo Pitch and has recently made his feature film debut in Motel Pictures’ We Forgot to Break Up (2024), directed by Knox. Lane’s most recent work has been composing and recording his original score for upcoming short film Pink Light by Harrison Browne.

We Forgot to Break Up will screen on Tuesday 18 February at Event Cinemas George Street. Karen Knox and Lane Webber will participate in a Q&A after the film.

Lakeview + Q&A

Nicole Steeves

Actor, Producer

Nicole Steeves (she/her) is an award-winning writer, director, and producer in Halifax. She has written and directed six short films and two feature films. Her first feature Head Space, which she also produced, was made possible through the 1K WAVE Atlantic program. Her most recent feature, Aliens with Knives (co-directed with Struan Sutherland), had an award-winning festival run. Nicole was one of five winners of the 2017 national screenwriting competition From Our Dark Side. Gnaw, a short film created for Cinecoup, was picked by Telefilm’s Not Short On Talent Program and screened at Clermont Ferrand short film market. Nicole also has a career in film as a costume designer, assistant director and production manager. She’s worked on feature films and television series of varying sizes and budgets.

Tara Thorne

Writer, Director

Tara (she/her) is a recovering journalist in Halifax. She spent 19 years on staff at the alt-weekly The Coast, 15 on air at CBC Radio in three Maritime cities, and from 2020-22 hosted Nova Scotia’s award-winning premiere arts and culture podcast, The Tideline. Her first film, Compulsus, screened at Inside Out, Fantasia, Sunny Bunny (Kiev), Mardi Gras (Australia) and Popcorn Frights (Miami) before a Canadian theatrical run with Vortex Media in October 2024. Lakeview is her second feature with Nicole Steeves producing.

Lakeview will screen on Saturday 22 February at Event Cinemas George Street, and be available On Demand Friday 28 February–Monday 10 February, Australia-wide. Nicole Steeves and Tara Thorne will participate in a Q&A after the film on Saturday 22 February.

Carnage for Christmas + Q&A

Alice Maio Mackay

Writer, Director, Actor

Alice Maio Mackay is a 20 year-old transgender award-winning filmmaker originally from Adelaide. Having made her first short film at 14 years of age, her debut feature film So Vam premiered at Salem Horror Fest 2021 when she was just 17, winning awards and critical praise. She’s since made a further four feature films, all of which have been picked up by horror streamer Shudder. Her most recent feature Carnage for Christmas premiered at the Salem Horror Fest in 2024, before screening at Frameline San Francisco International LGBTQ+ Film Festival.  Alice was a guest writer for season 3 of the American radio series It Listens from the Radio, and she was on set for the Emmy-nominated series First Day. She received the Emergency Talent award from Outfest in 2023.

Carnage for Christmas will screen on Saturday 22 February at Dendy Cinemas Newtown. Alice Maio Mackay will participate in a Q&A after the film.

Filmmaker Masterclass: Ask Ana Kokkinos Anything

Ana Kokkinos

Writer, Director

Acclaimed writer/director Ana Kokkinos’ career spans film and TV. Her feature film Blessed was selected for Main Competition at San Sebastian, where it won the Jury prize for Best Screenplay. Ana’s first full-length feature Head On was selected for Directors’ Fortnight at Cannes and won best film at the San Francisco Lesbian and Gay Film Festival in 1999. Her other films include The Book of Revelation and Only the Brave, which won 3 AFI’s, including Best Film. Ana has directed numerous episodes of TV including The Secret Life of Us, Seven Types of Ambiguity for the ABC, The Hunting for SBS and more recently, Ten Pound Poms for the BBC/Stan.

Filmmaker Masterclass: Ask Ana Kokkinos Anything will take place in the Main Theatre at Haymarket Creative on Sunday 23 February. Facilitated by Ana Kokkinos.

Filmmaker Masterclass: From Script(ment) to Screen

Mikko Mäkelä

Writer, Director

Mikko Mäkelä is a Finnish-British writer/director based in London, named by IndieWire as one of 25 LGBTQ Filmmakers on the Rise in 2019. His feature directorial debut A Moment in the Reeds (2017) screened at over 80 festivals worldwide, including BFI London Film Festival, Göteborg Film Festival, Seattle International Film Festival and Frameline. The film was nominated for The Discovery Award at the British Independent Film Awards as well as two Finnish Jussi Awards (Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor). Mikko is an alumnus of Berlinale Talents (2019) as well as the inaugural BIFA Springboard Programme (2020). His second feature, Sebastian (2024), premiered at the Sundance Film Festival.

James Watson

Producer

James Watson is a British-Panjabi producer based in London working through Bêtes Sauvages, founded together with Mikko Mäkelä. They are a Screen International Star of Tomorrow 2024 and also a BFI Vision Award recipient. Their award-winning debut feature A Moment in the Reeds (2017) earned them both a BIFA nomination, was nominated at the Finnish Jussis and played festivals around the world. They continue to bring their indie-filmmaking ethics to their work and have an expansive slate of projects in development, both scripted and documentary, with a focus on stories from queer filmmakers.

Filmmaker Masterclass: From Script(ment) to Screen will take place in the Main Theatre at Haymarket Creative on Sunday 23 February. Facilitated by Mikko Mäkelä and James Watson.

Behind the Festival Curtain: A Conversation with Lisa Rose & Frances Wallace

Frances Wallace

Speaker

Frances Wallace is a globally recognised nonprofit film and cultural leader with 25+ years of experience engaged in large scale festivals and event producing. She is renowned for being an optimistic builder, visionary and creative strategist. Frances has held the esteemed post of CEO at Sydney Film Festival for the past two years and prior to that she was Executive Director of Frameline, the world’s largest film nonprofit solely dedicated to expanding social justice and cultural strategy through LGBTQ+ media across the US. In the pandemic, Frances trained as a leadership coach and has guided leaders in nonprofit film, working towards creating more equitable models of growth and sustainability, in these challenging times.

Behind the Festival Curtain: A Conversation with Lisa Rose & Frances Wallace will take place in the Main Theatre at Haymarket Creative on Sunday 23 February. Outgoing Festival Director Lisa Rose will be joined by Frances Wallace.

The Rebrand + Q&A

Kaye Adelaide

Writer, Director

Kaye Adelaide is a Montreal based trans lesbian filmmaker. She is an alumni of GEMS Genre Film Lab, as well as a recipient of The Diversity of Voices Initiative at the BANFF World Media Festival and the SODEC Jeunes Createurs Development Program. Kaye has directed several award winning short films, including Don’t Text Back (2020), and MonsterDyke (2022). She just completed her first feature, The Rebrand (2024), a dark comedy about toxic lesbian influencers. Kaye’s work broadens representation for gender minorities, and challenges societal biases through a playful combination of genres including horror, speculative fiction, comedy and camp.

The Rebrand will screen on Sunday 23 February at Dendy Cinemas Newtown, and be available On Demand Friday 28 February–Monday 10 February, Australia-wide. Kaye Adelaide will participate in a Q&A after the film on Sunday 23 February.

Panel: Intersectional Genre Filmmaking on a Microbudget

Rosie Lourde

Moderator

Rosie Lourde is a filmmaker with experience across various roles, formats, and genres, who has a passion for advocacy. She is known for her feature directorial debut Romance on the Menu, which trended on Netflix and earned a Director’s Guild award nomination. Rosie also made her mark in horror with the CanneSeries-screened Dashcam, as well as the viral digital series Starting from Now with over 250M views. Rosie EP’d heartfelt and hilarious comedy White Fever for ABC, Facebook comedy Pleasant Avenue, and is currently EP’ing YA sports docu-series, Young Bloods following 8 teens through the Sydney Swans Academy. As an actor, Rosie features in season 3 of ABC’s Total Control, and appears in Paramount+ series One Night as well as ABC’s House of Gods. Rosie is currently the Chair of Screen Australia’s Gender Matters Taskforce, was previously an Investment Manager at Screen Australia’s Online Production fund, and was also co-VP of WIFT NSW.

Kaye Adelaide

Panellist

Kaye Adelaide is a Montreal based trans lesbian filmmaker. She is an alumni of GEMS Genre Film Lab, as well as a recipient of The Diversity of Voices Initiative at the BANFF World Media Festival and the SODEC Jeunes Createurs Development Program. Kaye has directed several award winning short films, including Don’t Text Back (2020), and MonsterDyke (2022). She just completed her first feature, The Rebrand (2024), a dark comedy about toxic lesbian influencers. Kaye’s work broadens representation for gender minorities, and challenges societal biases through a playful combination of genres including horror, speculative fiction, comedy and camp.

Alice Maio Mackay

Panellist

Alice Maio Mackay is a 20 year-old transgender award-winning filmmaker originally from Adelaide. Having made her first short film at 14 years of age, her debut feature film So Vam premiered at Salem Horror Fest 2021 when she was just 17, winning awards and critical praise. She’s since made a further four feature films, all of which have been picked up by horror streamer Shudder. Her most recent feature Carnage for Christmas premiered at the Salem Horror Fest in 2024, before screening at Frameline San Francisco International LGBTQ+ Film Festival.  Alice was a guest writer for season 3 of the American radio series It Listens from the Radio, and she was on set for the Emmy-nominated series First Day. She received the Emergency Talent award from Outfest in 2023.

Lauren Neal

Panellist

Lauren Neal is a multi-hyphenate graduate of Brown University, the University of Virginia School of Data Science and Warner Bros. Discovery’s inaugural VFX Coordinator training program. She won the Hyundai Emerging Director Award at Outfest Fusion 2020 and is a two-time Commercial Directors Diversity Program semifinalist. Lauren was the founding data scientist at Castability – a start-up devoted to providing actors with quantitative analysis of their work – while her own acting credits include Westworld and Dexter: Original Sin.

Panel: Intersectional Genre Filmmaking on a Microbudget will take place in Set Bar at Event Cinemas George Street on Tuesday 25 February, followed by Industry Networking. Moderated by Rosie Lourde, she’ll be joined by Kaye Adelaide, Alice Maio Mackay and Lauren Neal.

Sebastian + Q&A

Mikko Mäkelä

Writer, Director

Mikko Mäkelä is a Finnish-British writer/director based in London, named by IndieWire as one of 25 LGBTQ Filmmakers on the Rise in 2019. His feature directorial debut A Moment in the Reeds (2017) screened at over 80 festivals worldwide, including BFI London Film Festival, Göteborg Film Festival, Seattle International Film Festival and Frameline. The film was nominated for The Discovery Award at the British Independent Film Awards as well as two Finnish Jussi Awards (Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor). Mikko is an alumnus of Berlinale Talents (2019) as well as the inaugural BIFA Springboard Programme (2020). His second feature, Sebastian (2024), premiered at the Sundance Film Festival.

James Watson

Producer

James Watson is a British-Panjabi producer based in London working through Bêtes Sauvages, founded together with Mikko Mäkelä. They are a Screen International Star of Tomorrow 2024 and also a BFI Vision Award recipient. Their award-winning debut feature A Moment in the Reeds (2017) earned them both a BIFA nomination, was nominated at the Finnish Jussis and played festivals around the world. They continue to bring their indie-filmmaking ethics to their work and have an expansive slate of projects in development, both scripted and documentary, with a focus on stories from queer filmmakers.

Sebastian will screen on Tuesday 25 February at Event Cinemas George Street. Mikko Mäkelä and James Watson will participate in a Q&A after the film.

Under the Influencer + Q&A

Jill Bennett

Producer, Production Designer

Jill Bennett is a Los Angeles-based producer, writer and actor who first gained recognition with the viral hit We’re Getting Nowhere, hailed as “the video blog that started it all” for LGBTQ new media. Her diverse producing credits include award-winning micro-budget projects Second Shot and We Have to Stop Now, which premiered at international festivals and achieved worldwide distribution. She is currently developing Fair Play Films, a low-budget production initiative focused on building a sustainable business model to support underrepresented filmmakers.

Lauren Neal

Actor, Technical Director, Editor

Lauren Neal is a multi-hyphenate graduate of Brown University, the University of Virginia School of Data Science and Warner Bros. Discovery’s inaugural VFX Coordinator training program. She won the Hyundai Emerging Director Award at Outfest Fusion 2020 and is a two-time Commercial Directors Diversity Program semifinalist. Lauren was the founding data scientist at Castability – a start-up devoted to providing actors with quantitative analysis of their work – while her own acting credits include Westworld and Dexter: Original Sin.

Under The Influencer will screen on Wednesday 26 February at Event Cinemas George Street. Lauren Neal and Jill Bennett will participate in a Q&A after the film.