HIGHLIGHTS GUIDE 20TH MELBOURNE QUEER FILM FESTIVAL Driven by Volkswagen
17–28 March 2010 www.mqff.com.au
CONTENTS Calendar of Events . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Our Sponsors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 60 Prizes In 60 Days Competition . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 2010 Highlights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3–8 Movies Under The Stars . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
PRESENTING PARTNER
MQFF Membership Form . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
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MARCH
FEBRUARY
JANUARY
2010
Midsumma Carnival, ‘60 Prizes In 60 Days’ competition begins
CULTURAL PARTNER
Movies Under The Stars
TRAVEL PARTNERS
Program Launch Ticket sales open
MAJOR PARTNERS
Opening Night Party 2010 Festival MAJOR MEDIA PARTNERS
Closing Night Party
MQFF 2010 Highlights Guide. Published by Melbourne Queer Film Festival Inc. ©2010. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, in whole or part, without the permission of the MQFF. Design by Beige, Official Festival Graphic Design Partner 2010, www.beige.com.au 1
PRINCIPAL PARTNER
SPONSORS
60 PRIZES in 60 DAYS Volkswagen is celebrating the Melbourne Queer Film Festival’s 20th Anniversary by giving you the chance to win one of 60 double movie passes. Every day, between Midsumma Carnival on 17th January and MQFF Opening Night on 17th March, Volkswagen will be giving away a double pass to any session at the 2010 Festival.8 Only MQFF Members are eligible - so make sure you join or renew for your chance to win! Use the form at the back of this Highlights Guide, or join online at www.mqff.com.au. To go in the draw, simply grab your MQFF membership number and head to the ‘60 Prizes in 60 Days’ page on our website, www.mqff.com.au. You only need to enter once. Your name will be automatically entered in the daily draw every day– until you win a prize. All entries, including daily winners, will ll draw the go into the draw for the Major Prize. On Opening Night we’ r $2,000! ove rth wo e, Priz Major TERMS & CONDITIONS Night film ♥♥ MQFF 2010 Closing 1. The competition is open from 17 January to noon on 17 March 2010. 4 people – for ets tick 2. Only financial members of MQFF are eligible to enter and to win. ty and par 3. Members need only enter once. All entries continue in the daily draw until reserved seating. VIP h wit they win a prize, and are thenceforth exempt. kswagen to 4. Daily prize winners are still eligible for the major prize. ♥♥ Chauffeur driven Vol 5. Members renewing after their annual expiry date will need to wait for Night. sing Clo from and processing of dues. 6. Processing of new memberships can take up to 7 working days. Melbourne’s ♥♥ A weekend for two at 7. The only entry method is by completion of the online form. Ticket selling The Cullen. el, hot ry luxu est new outlets cannot enter members in the competition. 8. Each daily prize consists of a unique Prize Redemption Code, valid for the s Gate 24/7 ♥♥ Secure Parking Flinder purchase of one double pass to any session in the 2010 Festival excluding Festival. the ing dur s pas g Opening Night and Closing Night. parkin 9. The Prize Redemption Code is not valid for the purchase of two single ere you can ♥♥ Dinner at Hoo Haa wh tickets to separate sessions, as part-payment of tickets to other sessions, ce. dan and or for stand-by tickets. eat, drink 10. Prizes can only be redeemed using the online ticket facility. Trak Winery. 11. Tickets are not transferable. ♥♥ Wine pack from Train
MAJOR PRIZE
12. It is the prize winner’s responsibility to redeem the prize, using the Prize Redemption Code as payment when booking tickets online. 13. All tickets subject to availability. 14. Normal ticketing rules apply. 15. Tickets can only be collected at the ACMI booking office, from 40 minutes before the first session on Thursday 18 March. Tickets will not be mailed out. 16. All people attending MQFF screenings must be 18 years of age or older, except for Queeries sessions (15 years old and over). 17. Prizes cannot be exchanged for cash or part payment of any item. 18. Prizes not redeemed by the end of the Festival will be forfeited.
website for details. Conditions apply to all prizes. See member of the MQFF. Winner must be a current financial
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2010 HIGHLIGHTS
LITTLE ASHES Dir: Paul Morrison, UK, 2009
Starring Twilight’s Robert Pattinson, Little Ashes is a controversial and highly charged insight into the relationship between Salvador Dalí and poet Federico García Lorca. It’s 1922, and Madrid is at a crossroads. Gripped by a conservative morality with the church and army dominating all aspects of life, a burgeoning, artistic student body is emerging, set to challenge the bourgeois lifestyle into which they were born. 18-year-old Dalí arrives at university and catches the attention of two of the university’s social elite, Federico García Lorca and Luis Buñuel, and is quickly absorbed into their decadent group. Dalí and Lorca are instantly attracted to each other, but their desire for consummation is constantly thwarted. Depicting an extraordinary period in time of artistic expression, Little Ashes is the tragic love story of two men unable to reconcile the personal, social and political forces that threatens to tear both themselves and their country apart. 3
AN ENGLISHMAN IN NEW YORK Dir: Richard Laxton, UK, 2008
Spearheaded by John Hurt’s commanding performance as Quentin Crisp, An Englishman In New York charts the later years of the pioneering author and performer. Crisp’s The Naked Civil Servant was a hit book in 1972 and a hit movie three years later. In 1981, at the age of 72, he was asked to perform in New York. His one-man show, How to Be A Happy Person, was an underground success, and he quickly became the toast of the NYC social scene. Crisp’s steadfast personal policy of ‘never to lie, never to defend’ was almost his undoing with his infamous line that ‘AIDS is a fad’. His eyes were opened to the reality of the epidemic when a young fan, painter Patrick Angus, succumbed to the disease. However, his fame was not over. In the late 90s avant-garde artist Penny Lane (played by Sex and the City’s Cynthia Nixon) joined Crisp on stage for a series of shows that brilliantly displayed this remarkable icon’s formidable talents.
2010 HIGHLIGHTS
HOLLYWOOD, JE T’AIME
THE FISH CHILD
Dir: Jason Bushman, USA, 2009
EL NIÑO PEZ
Freshly dumped, Jerome swaps Paris for California in the hope of finding some sun, an acting job and men – anything to keep his mind off his cheating ex. When he arrives, it’s not the paradise he imagined, but he soon meets prostitute Kaleesha, who takes a real shine to our puppy-dog-eyed loner, and who introduces him to drag queen, Norma Desire, and with nowhere to stay Jerome crashes at Norma’s place. Things seem to be working out for our leading man when he meets gay pot dealer, Ross (Chad Allen, Save Me, MQFF 2009), who introduces him to an agent friend and he soon scores an acting gig... on a microwave pizza commercial. One of the most popular films on the queer film festival circuit, Hollywood, Je T’aime is plenty of fun.
Dir: Lucia Puenzo, France/Spain, 2009 Spanish with English subtitles
Award winning writer-director Lucía Puenzo received critical acclaim all over the world for XXY (MQFF Closing Night 2008), and now the Argentine filmmaker returns with a lesbian romance that’s also a Chabrol-esque mystery thriller and a scathing examination of class differences in the South American nation. Lala, the privileged daughter of a powerful judge, wants to run off with her Paraguayan lover, La Guayi. As the two prepare for their escape from Buenos Aires to Paraguay to live in a dream house Lala has in mind, Lala’s cruel father is murdered, and circumstantial evidence points toward La Guayi. With the help of the questionable Pulido, will Lala make the ultimate sacrifice for true love?
Australia’s best queer short films, only at MQFF 2010... 4
2010 HIGHLIGHTS
FIG TREES
ANTIQUE
Dir: John Greyson, Canada, 2009
Dir: Min Kyu-dong, South Korea, 2008 Korean with English subtitles
Fig Trees is the latest tour de force documentary-opera by celebrated Canadian queer cinema visionary John Greyson. It tells the story of AIDS activists Tim McCaskell in Toronto, and Zackie Achmat in Capetown, as they helped build the Treatment Action Campaign into a national movement. As narrated by an albino squirrel, an amputee busker and St Teresa of Avila, Fig Trees performs musical and political inversion on the music and words of Gertrude Stein’s 1934 avant-garde classic Four Saints in Three Acts. Using compositional techniques of chance, inversion, and polyphany, Fig Trees finds points of political harmony and musical convergence in operatic and documentary sequences that profile the overlapping stories of various activists. Both inspiring and hilarious in equal measure, Fig Trees is a must-see session of the Festival!
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As heir to a vast family fortune, Jin-hyuk has money, looks and charm – everything except the love of his life. So he sets up a cake shop, Antique, where he thinks women are sure to frequent! He hires Sun-woo, a talented patissier who had a crush on him back in high school. Along with an ex-boxing champion and a clueless bodyguard, the young men stir up their quiet neighborhood and the shop becomes a huge success. Although seemingly carefree and happy, each of the four men have mysterious pasts that they are afraid to face, and their secrets slowly begin to unravel. But the real drama unfurls when Sun-woo’s ex shows up from Paris, and attempts to lure him back to the City of Love. Unpredictable, wildly inventive and utterly sumptuous in its production design, cinematography and cast – the four lead men were chosen for their beautiful looks, but are also wonderful actors – Antique is absolutely delicious.
2010 HIGHLIGHTS
EYES WIDE OPEN
WE ARE THE MODS
EINAYM PKUHOT
Dir: E E Cassidy, USA, 2009
Dir: Haim Tabakman, Israel, 2009 Hebrew with English subtitles
Sadie’s art is her photography. Nico’s art is her life. Together they explore Britain’s 60s mod culture of music, fashion, drugs and vintage scooters in contemporary Los Angeles. Sadie observes the world through the lens of her 35mm camera, but everything changes when she meets Nico, the new ‘mod’ girl who was born with Milroy’s disease that causes her to have abnormal swelling in her foot. Nico doesn’t hide her disability, in fact she loves the spotlight. Sadie is drawn into Nico’s thrilling world of aesthetics where Sadie learns about herself and who she really is. A crowd pleaser with great fashion and an award winning soundtrack, We Are The Mods will be a Festival highlight.
Aaron, a respectable butcher in Jerusalem’s ultra-Orthodox Jewish community, is married to Rivka and is a dedicated father of four. Ezri, a handsome 22-yearold student, recently separated from his boyfriend, catches Aaron’s eye and comes to work in the shop and stay until he can find accommodation. The two men work in close quarters and their mutual attraction is palpable; before long they begin an affair. But it’s soon clear that things can’t go on, and when the local morality police start to get involved, painful decisions needs to be made. Eyes Wide Open is a powerful and emotionally charged film, with incredibly performances.
Watch the best lesbian short films from around the world at MQFF 2010...
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2010 HIGHLIGHTS
OY VEY! MY SON IS GAY!
MIAO MIAO
Dir: Evgeny Afineevsky, USA, 2009
Dir: Cheng Hsiao-Tse, Hong Kong/Taiwan, 2008 Mandarin and Japanese with English subtitles
Every Friday, the Hirsch’s invite another ‘perfect’ girl for Shabbat dinner in hopes that their son, Nelson, will marry a nice Jewish girl. When they once again set him up on a date, Nelson reveals that he is already seeing someone. Shirley and Martin are thrilled and can’t wait to meet the lucky lady, but in a nutty chain of events Shirley ends up thinking Nelson’s best female friend Sybil (Carmen Electra) is his girlfriend, while his live in boyfriend goes unnoticed. Naturally, as required by all slapstick films, a family wedding becomes the riotous scene of disclosure, and the Hirsch’s must somehow comprehend their son’s news and come to terms with his partner. Visits to gay bars, psychiatrists, meeting the in-laws and the coming out of another close family member give this slickly made film a brilliant comedy drama heart. Oy Vey! My Son Is Gay! is a romantic comedy about how far we come and yet how far we still have to go. 7
Teenaged Miao Miao is a shy exchange student from Japan struggling with her new life in Taipei. In need of a friend, she’s relieved when she hooks up with the extroverted and charismatic Ai. Growing in confidence Miao Miao finds herself with a teen sized crush on sullen CD shop owner Chen Fei, who appears to have deep-seated problems of his own, and keeps Miao Miao at arm’s length. The situation becomes complicated when it becomes clear that while she has been helping Miao Miao get close to Chen Fei, Ai has fallen in love with Miao Miao. Inevitably the tension between the trio builds, and Chen Fei begins to open up about his traumatic past, and his own romantic feelings. Aided by excellent performances from its leads, Miao Miao is a breath of fresh air in its depiction of youthful first love, friendship and the grappling with burgeoning sexual identity. Australian premiere
2010 HIGHLIGHTS
DROOL
AND THEN CAME LOLA
Dir: Nancy Kissam, USA, 2009
Dir: Ellen Seidler & Megan Siler, USA, 2009
Part Thelma And Louise and part Little Miss Sunshine, this wacky black comedy follows the evolution of Anora, an unhappy housewife trapped in the suburbs with her deadbeat husband and abominable children. Life begins to look up when exciting new neighbour Imogene, a purveyor of Kathy K Cosmetics, who provides a glimmer of hope, and the possibility of love. When Anora’s plan to leave her husband goes horribly wrong and she accidentally kills him, she loads the corpse into her car, and the women hit the road with Anora’s sardonic artist daughter, and quite possibly gay son, in an hilarious effort to dispose of the body.
In this time-bending, sexy lesbian romp, which makes an irreverent nod to the popular art-house classic Run Lola Run, talented but distracted photographer Lola, on the verge of success in both love and work, could lose it all if she doesn’t make it to a crucial meeting on time. But, as usual, Lola is late. With her job and girlfriend Casey on the line, she has three chances to make it right. In a desperate race through the streets and backrooms of San Francisco, time grows short – will Lola make it? Will she come at all? And Then Came Lola is a worldwide queer film festival favourite.
Catch the cream of new international gay men’s short films at MQFF 2010...
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