11 Must-See Films To See At The 2022 Mardi Gras Film Festival
From St. Vincent's meta-mockumentary to steamy Newtown dramas and odes to '80s London's leather lesbians.
Queer Screen’s Mardi Gras Film Festival is back for its 29th year with 119 films from 37 countries, screening from 17 February to 3 March — both across Sydney cinemas and on-demand, meaning you can join in wherever you are across Australia.
This year, Queer Screen is theming the festival around ‘The Queer Frontier’, celebrating boundary-pushing storytelling from emerging and well-loved names across the globe. That means astonishing first-time features, steamy dramas about 30somethings Newtown housemates, the first-ever LGBTIQ+ film from Namibia, a hilarious meta-mockumentary about St. Vincent, and much, much more.
It can be a little intimidating to dive in (though you can find the full line-up here), so as a proud media partner, Junkee has round up 11 highlights from the festival. Here are our top picks, in alphabetical order.
Boy Meets Boy
It’s tempting to sell Boy Meets Boy as “Before Sunrise, but make it Gay” or “Weekend, but make it Berlin”, but Daniel Sánchez López’s first feature-length isn’t just a Linklater rip-off. The premise is familiar — a whirlwind day between two passing strangers who only have a single day together, where they roam a city’s streets discussing love and life with a frankness offered by the fleeting connection — but the chemistry of its leads gives it an edge, as does the distinct hedonism of its city’s club nights against the gentle, quiet streets.
Câmp de Maci (Poppy Field)
Based on a true-life violent protest of a 2013 screening of The Kids Are All Right in Bucharest, Câmp de Maci follows a closeted policeman whose double life comes to a head when he’s called to the protest, and brutally beats an ex-lover in order to hide his secret. A debut feature by Eugen Jebeleanu and among one of few queer Romanian films, Câmp de Maci explores how the country’s national identity and culture create its own distinct toxic masculinity.
Glück (Bliss)
A critic’s darling at the 2021 Berlinale, Glück has been praised as an impressively naturalistic love story centred around two sex workers, Maria and Sascha, who work at the same Berlin brothel. Director Henrika Kull and cinematographer Carolina Steinbrecher worked extensively with sex workers at the brothel they filmed in, as to capture the quotidian experience of the job, with many of the workers (and clients) appearing as extras.
Kapana
Billed as Namibia’s first gay film, Kapana enters a world where the love it depicts is illegal, via their sodomy laws. Against the constant threat of violence from community and state, protagonists George and Simeon find each other.
No Straight Lines: The Rise Of Queer Comics
From celebrated documentarian Vivian Kleiman comes a celebration of queer comic readers and creators, including Alison Bechdel (Fun Home, now a Broadway musical). Tracing a lineage of comics sneaking in LGBTIQ+ themes and ideas into work in the 1950s to the proliferation of the form in the 2020s, this doco is a love letter to underground and mainstream comics and the queers who have found a home within their worlds.
See also: Keith Haring: Street Art Boy.
The Nowhere Inn
Directed by and starring Carrie Brownstein (Portlandia/rock group Sleater-Kinney), The Nowhere Inn is a hilarious psycho-sexual meta-mockumentary about St. Vincent’s US tour of her album MASSeduction.
The film starts out simple enough: St. Vincent invites Brownstein, a long-time friend and collaborator, to film a tour doco. But when Brownstein finds the footage a little boring, St. Vincent begins to embrace her sapphic S&M on-stage persona, and the two grapple for control of the film we’re watching. A wild ride, featuring an amazing Dakota Johnson cameo.
Rebel Dykes
Building upon a short doco by the same name, Rebel Dykes is a deep dive into the world of ’80s and ’90s lesbian leather post-punks — a sub-culture with huge and underappreciated impact on sex-positive feminism. Mixing together animation, interviews and previously unseen archive footage, the film reignites another world of S&M and fetish nights, of lesbian-led activism in wake of AIDS and in opposition to the UK’s anti-gay Section 28 legislation.
The Retreat
When a lesbian couple plan an idyllic weekend away, they land on a gay-run B&B in the Canadian countryside: when they get there, it becomes clear it’s a trap. Pat Mills’ horror film is a gory fight for survival, a cross between Get Out, Cabin in the Woods and The Hunt.
Romp
The recipient of Queer Screen’s Completion Fund in 2019, this episodic film follows three 30something housemates in Newtown who navigate dating and hook-ups the best they can. Directed by Tonnette Stanford, Romp is a sequel of sorts to 2005 Foxtel hit Love Bytes, and features cameos from Gretel Killeen and Matthew Mitcham.
See also: Manscaping, a documentary about queering the traditionally masculine barbershops across Sydney and Australia.
See You Then
A decade after breaking up with Naomi, Kris invites her to catch up: the two talk about their lives, loves and Kris’ transition. The first feature by trans director Mari Walker, See You Then is a tight, intimate character study, where these two womens’ lives, pains and joys unfold over the course of the film.
Wildhood
As the festival’s opening film, Wildhood is a Canadian coming-of-age film following Link, a two-spirit Mi’kwmaw teen who escapes his father’s abuse and goes on a journey with his younger brother to find his mother. On their trip, the two meet two-spirit Mi’kmw teen Pasmay, who instantly develops a crush on Link.
See also: Pure Grit, Finlandia, and Querencia, which alongside Wildhood feature as part of the festival’s ‘Focus on First Nations’.
Junkee is a proud media partner of Queer Screen’s 29th Mardi Gras Film Festival, which runs from Thursday 17 February to Thursday 3 March, before heading to the Blue Mountains and Canberra in the subsequent weeks. Tickets for theatre and on-demand screenings are available now.
Jared Richards is Junkee‘s Drag Race recapper, and a freelancer who writes for NME, The Big Issue, The Guardian and more. He’s across the internet as @jrdjms