Mardi Gras Film Festival 2022 Special Events

You’re Invited to a Festival Preview!

Thursday, 10th February at 7:30-8:15 via YouTube or Facebook

Festival Director Lisa Rose will present a preview of Queer Screen’s 29th Mardi Gras Film Festival Program.

Get some hot tips on what not to miss, check out some trailers, get some insight into the festival and programming and ask some questions in the chat.

This is a free, live event!

Hetero Screening + Hangout

Saturday, 26th February at 11:00-1:30pm at Event Cinemas

Calling all youths! Join us for a special youth screening of Hetero for only $10…  Trust us, despite its title, Hetero is the coolest queer content of 2021! After the movie and panel there’ll be a laidback Q&A session with guests including creatives from all across the filmmaking space.

You’re welcome to hang with us and enjoy the chill vibes and even nab some cool giveaways. This event celebrates a film made about queer teenagers by queer teenagers, with youth panelists and organised by a young Queer Screen intern (lmao is 21 still young!?).

Tickets are only $10! Hope to see you there.

Networking for Queer Filmmakers

Wednesday, 2nd March at 7:00pm at Set Bar at Event Cinemas George St

“Director seeks an editor for long nights in a post-production office.”
“Cinematographer seeks gaffer to light up their scene.”
“Producer seeks actor for a romantic comedy”

Queer Screen’s filmmaker networking is a chance for you to find that missing collaborator for your next project. We encourage artists from every discipline, at whatever level they are at in their career to attend, so we can work together to advance queer film.

The event is completely free and open to filmmakers from every level.
Space is limited, so book below.

Sign up to the Filmmakers eNews to keep abreast of all the filmmaker opportunities available.

My Queer Career

Monday, 28th February at 7:00-9:30pm at Event Cinemas

My Queer Career is Australia’s richest queer short film prize with over $16,000 worth of cash and support to be won.

The shorts in the running include queer surf romance Beautiful They; the World Premiere of Nelson as he dares to be intimate with a stranger online and the documentary A Big Life, the secret history of trans and queer Australia. Are You Still Watching uses animation to illustrate how lockdown and binge-watching can lead to very queer fantasies; Dwarf Planet, about a teen’s birthday encounter with a male sex worker; Illustrating Sam Newtown, about long distance connections; Sunburn about a healing roadtrip and friendship being tested; and We’re Doing Well an all-too-relatable comedy about friendship and housesharing!

My Queer Career will screen with full open captions, and the introduction and awards ceremony will be Auslan interpreted.

My Queer Career 2022 Jury

Ruth Caudeli

Ruth was born in Valencia, Spain. She has a Masters in film directing from the renowned ESCAC film school and another in fiction for television from the Pompeu Fabra university. She studied audiovisual communication at the Universidad Politécnica de Valencia, where she won the award for excellence. She is a professor of film and television  and theatre director as well. She has written and directed several feature films including Eva+Candela (2017) and Leading Ladies (2021). You can also see an interview here with our Festival Director, Lisa Rose.

Mitchell Stanley

Mitchell recently produced Warwick Thornton’s documentary television series, The Beach. His first feature, We Are Still Here, a multi protagonist anthology feature film is set to be released in 2022. Recently produced Jon Bell’s  psychological horror short film, The Moogai, now in development on the feature version with co producers Causeway Films (The Babadook) where the short won several festival awards including best horror at SXSW and best short at Melbourne International Film Festival.

Matthew Dabner

Matthew is an AFI-award nominated screenwriter (The Square), winner of the Sydney Film Festival audience award (as producer of Cedar Boys) and renowned script editor (Riot, The Family Law) and development executive. Matthew is currently a Media Arts and Production lecturer at the University of Technology Sydney.

Queer First Nations Stories On Screen

Monday, 21st February at 7:30pm – Live Streamed on Queer Screen’s Facebook & YouTube

We have invited some key industry folk to discuss the importance of queer, Indigenous representation in films and to look at what we want to see in the future of the Australian and global LGBTIQ+ screen industry.

Tune in on Facebook here and/or on YouTube here.

Hosted and moderated by Matty Mills, a proud Indigenous presenter and actor who first appeared in 2014 by covering The Star Observer Magazine, with a bold statement; Gay, Black and Proud, before cementing his place in the Entertainment industry working for NITV, SBS and Channel 9. Most recently, Matty has joined the lineup of presenters of Australia’s longest running travel show Getaway.

Panelists

Bee Cruse

Bee Cruse is a proud Walbunja Yuin, Biripi and Wiradjuri Storyteller born and raised in Western Sydney and works between Sydney, Canberra and her Grandfathers Country on the Far South Coast of NSW. She works as a Producer, Writer, Actor and Director working across film, television and theatre on Productions such as Total Control, Kids, and Nightwalkers. Bee also lives out her vintage dapper daddy fantasies as her Drag King person Bee Dazzled Shanks – The Prince of Redfern.

Mitchell Stanley

Mitchell recently produced Warwick Thornton’s documentary television series, The Beach. His first feature, We Are Still Here, a multi protagonist anthology feature film is set to be released in 2022. Recently produced Jon Bell’s  psychological horror short film, The Moogai, now in development on the feature version with co producers Causeway Films (The Babadook) where the short won several festival awards including best horror at SXSW and best short at Melbourne International Film Festival.

Laurrie Brannigan-Onato

Laurrie Brannigan-Onato is a proud Aboriginal-Pinoy-Irish, Bi+ and gender queer screen developer & producer, who was born and raised in Sydney’s West. Laurrie has produced and developed their own content, including several independent short films which screened both locally and internationally. Laurrie’s claim to fame is having won the North Sydney Art Prize in the adults category at age four in 1996. Laurrie worries they may have peaked too soon…

Davey Thompson

Davey Thompson is a Bidjara, Wakka Wakka and Gubbi Gubbi producer, writer and actor currently working at Film Victoria as the First Peoples’ Production Executive.

He’s previously worked various production roles with Guesswork Television, Princess Pictures, Screen Australia and the ABC. He’s also worked for Ilbijerri Theatre Company, Circus Oz and the Queensland Performing Arts Centre. Oh! He also plays Casey in All My Friends Are Racist. Not bad for a boy from Barcaldine, hey?

Interview with Marion Hill | Mardi Gras Film Festival 2022

Join Festival Director, Lisa Rose as she chats with Marion Hill, director of Ma Belle, My Beauty showing at Mardi Gras Film Festival 2022.

Interview with Peeter Rebane & Tom Prior | Mardi Gras Film Festival 2022

Join Festival Director, Lisa Rose as she interviews Peeter Rebane, (writer, director and producer) and Tom Prior (writer, producer and lead actor) from Firebird, showing at Mardi Gras Film Festival 2022.

Interview with director, Ruth Caudeli | Mardi Gras Film Festival 2022

Join Festival Director, Lisa Rose as she chats with filmmaker Ruth Caudeli, writer, director and producer of Leading Ladies, showing at Mardi Gras Film Festival 2022.

Interview with Derek Magyar | Mardi Gras Film Festival 2022

Join Festival Director, Lisa Rose as she interviews Derek Magyar, lead actor in Boy Culture, showing at Mardi Gras Film Festival 2022.

$10 Community Screenings

Various
Better than half price tickets to select films at MGFF22.

Queer Screen is thrilled to provide five $10 community screenings for the Mardi Gras Film Festival 2022.

The First Girl I Loved

Friendship grows into romance in this dreamy, tender story of the close bond formed between two high school girls in Hong Kong.

Kapana

Can love conquer all? In Namibia, where homosexual relationships are still outlawed, two young men who appear to have nothing in common meet in a bar and fall in love.

Seyran Ateş: Sex, Revolution and Islam

Through a series of interviews with sex workers, queer Uyghurs and the survivors of an extremist attack, we learn why one woman is leading a sexual revolution within Islam.

Hetero

Five queer teens become the ‘gay best friends’ of straight students in order to diversify their high school Gay-Straight Alliance and save the group from impending disbandment.

Hating Peter Tatchell

In this Elton John-produced doco, discover the incredible ongoing legacy of Peter Tatchell, from humble beginnings in Melbourne to the global media stage with protests around the world.

MGFF22 Q&As

What’s a film festival without festival guests? We are super excited to announce all Australian films in the program will feature a post-film Q&A live in-cinema after the screening.

And although our physical borders may be closed the world of online has brought us even closer together in creating an interactive festival environment. We will be uploading a variety of pre-recorded interviews with filmmakers and hosting live Q&As on YouTube and Facebook.

Keep up-to-date by signing up to the festival enews via our website and keep an eye on our socials. You never know when an interview with your favourite filmmaker or actor will pop up in your feed!