MQFF 2012 Highlights Guide

15-25 March 2012

Highlights Guide

Look out for the full Program Guide for 2012, to be launched on 22 February.

To enjoy substantial ticket discounts and early bird priority booking services, become an MQFF member: join online or use the form on p.10 of this Guide.

FEBRUARY

We hope this handful of great films whets your appetite for the 150+ feature films, documentaries and shorts coming your way in March.

MARCH

Welcome to the Highlights Guide for the 22nd Melbourne Queer Film Festival!

JANUARY

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MQFF 2012 Highlights Guide. Published by Melbourne Queer Film Festival Inc. Š 2012. 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 2012, www.beige.com.au 1

2012 2012 Highlights Highlights

August

Becoming Chaz

Dir: Eldar Rappaport, USA, 2011

Dir: Fenton Bailey & Randy Barbato, USA, 2011

Starring Australia’s Murray Bartlett, August is a smouldering love triangle that explores trust, love and lust. Handsome Troy has returned to LA after a stint in Spain, and catches up with his ex, Jonathan, whose heart he broke several years earlier, in the hope of reigniting their relationship. Jonathan thought he’d kicked the habit of his attraction to Troy, but his addiction returns with a vengeance, despite his relationship with sexy and devoted Argentine, Raoul.

Compounding the problem is Raoul’s fake marriage with Jonathan’s co-worker, securing citizenship to keep the two men together. Set during a sweltering summer, when everyone’s on edge and actions are unpredictable, August is an absorbing and sexually charged film about desire and its consequences.

This raw and honest documentary outlines the transition of Chastity Bono from the female daughter of pop legends Sonny and Cher to self assured, confident and male Chaz – a journey of identity and self-discovery that has lasted most of his life.

Growing up, Chastity was a shy person who never felt comfortable in the media spotlight. He also felt uncomfortable as a woman and struggled with living inside a body that he knew wasn’t truly his.

Finally coming to terms with what was missing, Chaz decided there was no choice but to transition in public, and to make this film so others could learn from his experience.

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2012 2012 Highlights Highlights

Circumstance

Cloudburst

Dir: Maryam Keshavarz, France/USA/Iran, 2011 Farsi with English subtitles

Dir: Thom Fitzgerald, Canada, 2011

Atafeh and her brother, Mehran, have grown up in a home filled with music, art and intellectual curiosity. Atafeh dreams of fame and adventure, and she and her best friend, Shireen, explore Tehran’s underground scene with youthful exuberance. After a stint in drug rehab Mehran returns home, and renounces his former decadent life with a vengeance.

Having lost his parents’ trust, Mehran is jealous of Atafeh’s loving relationship with their father as he disapprovingly observes a budding sensual relationship between Atafeh and Shireen. The once close siblings find themselves at dangerous odds with each other. As violence and desire collide, the once safe haven of the family home becomes increasingly claustrophobic and threatening.

In equal measures hilarious, sad and incisively witty, this brilliant new feature

by Canadian filmmaker Thom Fitzgerald (The Hanging Garden, 3 Needles, Beefcake, The Event) features the extraordinary talents of Olympia Dukakis (Steel Magnolias, Moonstruck, The Event) and Brenda Fricker (My Left Foot, A Time To Kill).

As Stella and Dotty respectively, Dukakis and Fricker play a lesbian couple in the twilight of their lives, and struggling to deal with Dotty’s ailing health. When Dotty’s grand-daughter takes matters in to her own hands and places her in an extended care facility, Stella (who calls a spade a fucking shovel) sees red, and drives through the night to break Dotty out with the intention of driving to Nova Scotia to get legally married. With the aid of a handsome male hitchhiker the women go from one hilarious escapade to another in this road movie with a message. Not to be missed!

Warning: you’ll laugh, you’ll cry, but you’ll love Cloudburst.

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2012 2012 Highlights Highlights

Gun Hill Road

Jitters Oroi

Dir: Rashaad Ernesto Green, USA, 2011

Dir: Baldvin Zophoníasson, Iceland, 2010 Icelandic with English subtitles

Returning to his Bronx home after a three year stint in prison, Enrique is met with a cold reception by his family: wife, Angela, who’s had to break off an affair with a man she loves; and teenage son, Michael, who now secretly identifies as Vanessa, and plans for gender reassignment. Enrique, a ball of machismo rage, loves his family, but he cannot accept Michael’s femininity – he wants his son to behave like a ‘man’ – and his grip as head of the family begins to crumble. Michael, as Vanessa, ventures out at night to a drag club and transforms into the person she wishes to be.

There, she meets a guy and a romance blossoms, but will he treat her with the love and respect she craves?

Like most of his group of friends, Gabriel is a confused 16-year-old in search of his identity. When he returns to Iceland from a two-week trip to England, after having spent time with new friend and stylish roommate Marcus who lives up to his reputation as a free thinking, rebellious teenager, all those close to Gabriel seem to think that he has changed. Through a series of unfortunate events, tragedy visits this tight-knit group when Stella, Gabriel’s best girlfriend, takes her own life. Crushed, Gabriel falls into a black hole of despair, which forces him to take a hard look at himself – which ultimately forces him to reveal a harsh, agonising secret about himself.

Don’t miss Australia’s best queer short films, only at MQFF 2012...

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2012 2012 Highlights Highlights

Insects in The Backyard

Leave it On The Floor

Dir: Thanwarin Sukhphisit, Thailand, 2010 Thai with English subtitles

Dir: Sheldon Larry, USA, 2011

Banned in Thailand, Insects in the Backyard features Johnny and Jennifer, two teenagers who are being brought up by their ‘big sister’ Tanya, a transwoman with a healthy obsession with old Hollywood movies, an unhealthy obsession with smoking and Western cooking, and whom the teenagers treat quite badly out of shame and immaturity. Both kids mess up their pursuit of romance, and both look for ways to achieve some independence. For Johnny, this entails trying his hand at male prostitution, while Jennifer makes other mistakes, but both of them wind up deeply dissatisfied. When Johnny catches Tanya trying to seduce one of his friends, things start to go downhill for the odd family unit.

Despite the dysfunctional trio, the film is a fascinating exploration of the complex problems in this peculiar family, and is an excellent example of sexuality as a fluid entity.

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Sheldon Larry’s audacious, raunchy and big-hearted musical (with songs

by Beyoncé music director Kim Burse and choregraphy by Beyoncé dance master Frank Gatson Jr.), takes us into the fabulously funky world of voguing. It’s a Paris is Burning for the Gen Y era with a contemporary downtown LA the setting.

Our hunky, homeless hero Brad, discarded by his homophobic mum, falls in with the young queer members of The House of Eminence, ruled by the stern aging diva Queef Latina, who keeps a careful, loving watch over her makeshift family of runaways and throwaways.

When two of her crew fall for Brad, the Queef is royally unamused.

High flying and low down, Leave It On The Floor is a one of a kind celebration – a gay African-American musical about finding your true family, sprinkled with brilliant music and dance.

2012 2012 Highlights Highlights

Man At Bath Homme Au Bain

Mommy is Coming

Dir: Christophe Honore, France, 2010 French with English subtitles

Dir: Cheryl Dunye, Germany/USA, 2012 German with English subtitles

Notorious gay porn star François Sagat stars as Emmanuel, one half of a cute gay couple who, between the suburbs of Paris and the skyscrapers of New York, go to extraordinary lengths to prove that they’re not in love with one another.

Dylan, a sexy young Berlin femme and her lover Claudia, an American dyke hotel clerk, have the sort of raunchy sex life that every one dreams of. But as sexually charged as their relationship is, like any couple they have their problems.

Dylan wants more from Claudia without committing herself, while Claudia wants romance and love. And to make matters worse, Dylan’s mother Helen, in the midst of her own mid-life crisis, decides to visit.

Mommy is coming, and boy does she come! Mommy is Coming is a raunchy, queer sex-filled romance and a take on screwball romantic comedies directed by queer film icon Cheryl Dunye (The Watermelon Women, The Owls).

A striking meditation on the male form, appearing as much a celebration of Sagat’s sculpted body as it is a tense examination of love and desire, celebrated director Christophe Honoré (Love Songs, Dans Paris, Close to Leo) welcomes you to an exploration of desire and longing; a touching ode to the body, to sex, and to bittersweet goodbyes.

Warning: high level sex scenes

Warning: high level sex scenes

Catch the cream of new international gay men’s short films at MQFF 2012...

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2012 2012 Highlights Highlights

The Advocate For Fagdom

Vito

Dir: Angelique Bosio, France, 2011

Dir: Jeffrey Schwartz, USA, 2011

Bruce LaBruce has challenged audiences for over twenty years with groundbreaking films that have celebrated the most extreme sexuality, perversions and political ideology. This portrait sheds light on the obsessions and drive of the radical who offended so many with such films as No Skin Off My Ass, Hustler White, The Raspberry Reich and L.A. Zombie, which was banned in Australia last year. Scenes from his films and fascinating behind-thescenes footage of the filmmaker at work are woven with interviews with some of the biggest names in queerness including John Waters, Harmony Korine, Gus Van Sant and the man himself.

The story of Vito Russo is the story of gay liberation and activism. New York City’s answer to Harvey Milk, Vito devoted his life after the Stonewall riots of 1969 to fighting for the rights of GLBT people and their positive representation in the media, especially films. His landmark book The Celluloid Closet shone a light on how homosexuals have been portrayed by Hollywood since the earliest films, and is still influential today.

The Advocate for Fagdom gives us an artist at war with cultural norms; a filmmaker who embraces the queerest of identities, however perverse, rather than striving to mirror a more accepted form of heteronormity.

Warning: high level sex scenes

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Vito features beautiful lost footage of gay and lesbian characters from silent-era Hollywood productions, and pieces together an intimate history of the representation of GLBT people in the cinema. During the explosion of AIDS in the 1980s, despite his own failing health, Vito went on to form ACT-UP, uniting activists in anger and committing to direct action to end the AIDS crisis. With startling and expansive archival footage, Vito is a moving tribute to a man whose legacy looms large today and who was a true hero to the gay community.

2012 2012 Highlights Highlights

We Were Here Dir: David Weissman, USA, 2011 Short listed for the 2012 Academy Awards for Best Documentary, We Were Here is the first documentary to take a deep and reflective look back at the arrival and impact of HIV/AIDS in San Francisco. It explores how the city’s inhabitants were affected by, and how they responded to, that calamitous epidemic. Though a San Franciscobased story, We Were Here extends beyond San Francisco and beyond HIV/ AIDS itself. It speaks to our capacity as individuals to rise to the occasion, and to the incredible power of a community coming together with love, compassion, and determination.

Both emotional and inspiring, We Were Here is not to be missed.

With Every Heartbeat Kyss Mig

Dir: Alexandra-Therese Keining, Sweden, 2011 Swedish with English subtitles Love comes along at the most unexpected times, in the most unexpected ways. A kiss, a touch, can change everything.

When Mia meets Frida she is about to announce her engagement to Tim. Unlike Frida, who is an out lesbian, Mia has led a straight and conservative life.

So when Frida captures her attention it comes as quite a shock. To make matters more complicated, through their parents’ engagement, Mia and Frida are about to become step-sisters. But sometimes love is unavoidable. And never easy. In order to be with each other, Mia and Frida are set to struggle through heartbreaking challenges.

Watch the best lesbian short films from around the world at MQFF 2012...

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22ND MELBOURNE QUEER FILM FESTIVAL

MOVIES WITH THE CITY OF YARRA PRESENTS

STARS UNDER UNDER THE THE

Friday January 20

IS IT JUST ME?

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THE SECRET DIARIES OF MISS ANNE LISTER Friday January 27

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Saturday January 28

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