Marriage Equality Campaigners Are Screening The Gorgeous Sundance Film ‘First Girl I Loved’

The Equality Campaign is using the power of film to draw attention to the long-overdue campaign for marriage equality in Australia. Joining forces with film company Arcadia, The Equality Campaign will run special Q&A screenings of the beautiful, heart-rending teen lesbian drama The First Girl I Loved in Melbourne, Perth, Brisbane and Sydney over the next fortnight.

The screenings will give Aussie filmgoers an opportunity to celebrate formative queer love, and to listen to some strong voices in the campaign for marriage equality, as each screening will be accompanied by talks from passionate Marriage Equality campaigners in each state.

I can’t think of a better way to celebrate LGBT+ love than with the gorgeous The First Girl I Loved, which won the NEXT Audience Award at Sundance Film Festival in 2016, and earned rave reviews when it premiered last year in the US. The film centres on Anne (Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt‘s Dylan Gelula), who has her first brush with queer romance when she falls for school athletic star Sasha (Brianna Hildebrand, looking markedly different from her breakout role in Deadpool).

Sweet, powerful and featuring two standout performances from Gelula (who Indiewire called “revelatory” and “absolutely sensational”) and Hildebrand, as well as Louis and Better Things star Pamela Adlon, First Girl I Loved captures all the urgency, confusion and passion of our formative first loves. It joins films like Blue Is The Warmest Colour, Geography Club and Moonlight, as another tender exploration of how sexuality is often explored and expanded in high school.

If you miss the special celebratory screenings, you can still catch the film, which is currently in limited release around Australia.

However, if you’re keen to use the film as a chance to celebrate Australia’s continued passion for marriage equality (even in the face of absurd resistance from the Federal Government), details for the The Equality Campaign screenings are below.

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First Girl I Loved x The Equality Campaign screenings

Melbourne: July 19, 8.40pm at Cinema Nova with human rights lawyer and AME spokesperson Lee Carnie.

Perth: July 19, 9pm at Cinema Paradiso with Jordan Bruno (My Kitchen Rules)

Brisbane: July 24, 6.30pm at New Farm Cinema with AME co-convener Peter Black.

Sydney: July 25, 6.30pm at Dendy Newtown with CEO of Australians for Equality and Political Director of the successful Irish “Yes” campaign Tiernan Brady.

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Show your support for the campaign for marriage equality here.

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Matilda Dixon-Smith is Junkee’s Staff Writer. She tweets at @mdixonsmith.