| Mardi Gras Film Festival | |
|---|---|
| Status | Active |
| Genre | LGBTQ+ film festival |
| Dates | February / March |
| Frequency | Annually |
| Location(s) | Sydney, New South Wales |
| Country | Australia |
| Inaugurated | February 1978 |
| Founder | Queer Screen |
| Organised by | Queer Screen Limited |
| Website | queerscreen |
| [1] [2] | |
The Mardi Gras Film Festival is an Australian LGBTQ+ film festival held in Sydney, New South Wales annually as part of the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras celebrations. It is organised by Queer Screen Limited, a non-profit organization, and is one of the world's largest platforms for queer cinema.
Australia had the world's first gay film festival, entitled A Festival of Gay Films at the Sydney Filmmakers Co-op in June 1976, part of a larger commemoration of the Stonewall Riots in New York City of 1969. [3] [4]
Inaugurated in 1978 as the Gay and Lesbian film festival by the Australian Film Institute, the film festival joined the Mardi Gras in 1986 to present an annual Sydney Gay Film Week in conjunction with the parade. Queer Screen took control of the festival in 1993. [5] In addition to the Mardi Gras Film Festival, Queer Screen organises the Queer Screen Film Fest, My Queer Career and queerDOC as part of its aim to celebrate and promote Australian and international queer screen culture in all its diversity and richness. [6] It 2021 it moved to hybrid online and in person festival, to adapt to a Covid landscape.
The Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras or Sydney Mardi Gras is an event in Sydney, New South Wales attended by hundreds of thousands of people from around Australia and overseas. One of the largest LGBT festivals in the world, Mardi Gras is the largest Pride event in Oceania. It includes a variety of events such as the Sydney Mardi Gras Parade and Party, Bondi Beach Drag Races, Harbour Party, the academic discussion panel Queer Thinking, Mardi Gras Film Festival, as well as Fair Day, which attracts 70,000 people to Victoria Park, Sydney.
The Star Observer is a free monthly magazine and online newspaper that caters to the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex communities in Australia.
Seattle Queer Film Festival is an annual film festival in Seattle. The 28th Annual Seattle Queer Film Festival will take place October 12-22, 2023. It is the largest LGBTQIA+ film festival in the Pacific Northwest, and its award-winning films receive national praise. At the festival each film is able to receive an award which is decided on by a jury. Kathleen Mullen is the artistic director of Three Dollar Bill Cinema, the organization that produces the Seattle Queer Film Festival. Kathleen Mullen is the Artistic Director of the Seattle Queer Film Festival in charge of all festival programming and operations. Billy Ray Brewton is the Managing Director (2021-2023)
The Frameline Film Festival began as a storefront event in 1976. The first film festival, named the Gay Film Festival of Super-8 Films, was held in 1977. The festival is organized by Frameline, a nonprofit media arts organization whose mission statement is "to change the world through the power of queer cinema". It is the oldest LGBTQ+ film festival in the world.
The Iris Prize, established in 2007 by Berwyn Rowlands of The Festivals Company, is an international LGBTQ film prize and festival which is open to any film which is by, for, about or of interest to gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender or intersex audiences and which must have been completed within two years of the prize deadline.
The Australian Queer Archives (AQuA) is a community-based non-profit organisation committed to the collection, preservation and celebration of material reflecting the lives and experiences of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex LGBTI Australians. It is located in Melbourne. The Archives was established as an initiative of the 4th National Homosexual Conference, Sydney, August 1978, drawing on the previous work of founding President Graham Carbery. Since its establishment the collection has grown to over 200,000 items, constituting the largest and most significant collection of material relating to LGBT Australians and the largest collection of LGBT material in Australia, and the most prominent research centre for gay, lesbian, bisexual, trans and intersex history in Australia.
Australia is one of the most LGBTQ-friendly countries in the world. In a 2013 Pew Research poll, 79% of Australians agreed that homosexuality should be accepted by society, making it the fifth most supportive country in the survey behind Spain (88%), Germany (87%), and Canada and the Czech Republic. With a long history of LGBTQ rights activism and an annual three-week-long Mardi Gras festival, Sydney is considered one of the most gay-friendly cities in the world.
The Sydney Pride Centre was established in 1989 by PRIDE Sydney Lesbian and Gay Community Centre Limited, with a mission to 'establish a permanent community centre for the diversity of lesbians and gay men in Sydney and to build a vital, visible and positive community.' Initially focused on fundraising and establishing the right organisational framework, early fundraising parties were produced by PRIDE and in conjunction with Bacchanalia, Sweatbox, ACON and Prasit. The Founding board included Gary Cox, Adrian Gough, Gigi Legenhausen, Gillian Minnervini, Paul Nicholson, Philippa Playford, Malcolm Thorne, David Wilkins and Rob Williams.
David McDiarmid (1952–1995) was an artist, designer and political activist, recognised for his prominent and sustained artistic engagement in issues relating to gay male identity and HIV/AIDS. He is also known for his involvement in the gay liberation movement of the early 1970s, when he was the first person arrested at a gay rights protest in Australia, as well as his artistic direction of the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras. From its inception, McDiarmid's art career encompassed, as both subject and inspiration, gay male sexuality, politics and urban subcultures. His creative techniques included: collage, painting, drawing, calligraphy, mosaic, installation, various forms of print-making, sculpture and artist's books. He was a graphic designer, designer and fabric painter for women's and men's fashion, and an artist and creative director for the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras street parades.
Dayenu is an LGBTQ+ organisation based in Sydney, Australia. The word Dayenu means "enough" in Hebrew, and the group uses it to mean that they have had "enough" of homophobia.
C. Moore Hardy , is an Australian photographer, nurse and community worker, known for her extensive photographic documentation of the Sydney queer community since the late 1970s. Hardy's work has encompassed both freelance and commercial photography, featuring candid portraiture of community events, most notably the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras, and in particular minority groups within the LGBTI community. She successfully ran Starfish Studio Photography Studio/Gallery in Clovelly, NSW for 15 years. Hardy held a major exhibition of over three decades of her documentation of Sydney's LGBTQ+ scene at the National Art School in Sydney.
The Melbourne Queer Film Festival (MQFF) is an annual LGBT film festival held in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia in November. Founded in 1991, it is the largest queer film event in the Southern Hemisphere, in 2015 attracting around 23,000 attendees at key locations around Melbourne.
The Paris Theatre was a cinema and theatre located on the corner of Wentworth Avenue and Liverpool Street in Sydney that showed films and vaudeville, cabaret and plays. The theatre changed names several times, trading as Australia Picture Palace (1915-1935), Tatler Theatre (1935-1950), Park Theatre (1952-1954) and Paris Theatre (1954-1981) before being demolished in 1981. In May 1978 the theatre hosted a film festival that inspired the first Sydney Gay Mardi Gras. The theatre was also the home of Paris Theatre Company, a Sydney based theatre company.
Ron Austin was an Australian LGBT rights activist, who was known for being one of the founders of the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras in 1978.
Lance Gowland (1935–2008) was an Australian LGBT rights activist, unionist, peace activist and Communist Party member. He was a member of the Campaign Against Moral Persecution (CAMP) and as one of the organisers drove the truck in the first Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras.
Ellie & Abbie is a 2020 AACTA award winning LGBT romance comedy film written and directed by Monica Zanetti, in her feature directorial debut. It is based on her own 2016 stage play. The film stars Sophie Hawkshaw, Zoe Terakes, Marta Dusseldorp, Rachel House, Julia Billington and Bridie Connell. The movie had its world premiere at the Mardi Gras Film Festival on 13 February 2020, becoming the first Australian film to do so in the festival's 27-year history. It also won the Audience Award for Best Narrative Film at the festival. The film went on to screenings at several other film festivals, and had a limited theatrical release on 19 November 2020.
The LGBT community of Sydney, in New South Wales, is the largest in Australia and has a firm place as one of the iconic gay cities of the contemporary world. In a 2013 Pew Research poll, 79% of Australians agreed that homosexuality should be accepted by society, making it the fifth most supportive country in the survey behind Spain (88%), Germany (87%), Canada and the Czech Republic. With a long history of LGBT rights activism and the annual three-week-long Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras festival, Sydney is one of the most gay-friendly cities in Australia and in the world.
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