The 2025 Mardi Gras Film Festival Program Has Dropped

Queer Screen’s Mardi Gras Film Festival is back for another year, with a stunning line up of the world’s best LGBTQI+ films ready for your enjoyment.

Running from 13 to 27 February, the festival’s program boasts more than 150 films, ranging from sweet rom coms and stories of chosen families, to documentaries and edgy alternative cinema.

Films will be presented across 72 sessions at Event Cinemas (George Street and Hurstville), Dendy Cinemas Newtown, and Ritz Cinemas Randwick, with additional screenings at The Rocks Laneway Cinema and Newtown’s Bank Hotel.

MGFF will host a series of special events, including Australia’s richest queer short-film competition, My Queer Career, which will see eight entries battle it out to win over $16,000 worth of cash and in-kind support.

There’ll also be panel discussions and masterclasses with industry professionals, and a networking event for local queer filmmakers.

There’s something for everyone

This year’s festival opens with the Sydney premiere of Young Hearts, an adorable, crowd-pleasing, coming of age tale set in rural Belgium, where 14-year-old Elias is navigating his burgeoning feelings for new neighbour, Alexander, with the support of his loving family.

Also headlining the agenda is the World Premiere of In Ashes, a raw debut from Denmark-based filmmaker Ludvig C. Poulsen, about an awkward twenty-something who is struggling to get over his ex, and getting hooked on hook-ups in the process.

There’s 20 feature films having their Australian premieres during the festival, including Drive Back Home, a darkly funny film in which two estranged brothers (Alan Cumming and Charlie Creed-Miles, The Fifth Element) are trapped on a road trip in 1970s Canada with a taxidermied pug.

Winner of the Queer Palm at Cannes, Three Kilometres To The End Of The World, will also be making is Australian debut, which follows a young man’s fight for justice after a homophobic attack in his rural Romanian hometown. The film is already being hailed as a masterpiece, and is an absolute must see.

You’ll have a chance to revisit iconic queer films, Mike Nichols’ The Birdcage, starring Nathan Lane and Robin Williams, as well as the 20th anniversary of Imagine Me And You, which will both be showing for free. The Sisters and Brothers of the Order of Perpetual Indulgence will be presenting a showing of Whoopi Goldberg’s Sister Act – singing and costumes highly encouraged!

Mardi Gras Film Festival is also celebrating their longest-serving festival director, Lisa Rose, who will be leaving her position at Queer Screen after eight years.

“The film industry has changed dramatically throughout my time with Queer Screen. The volume of LGBTQIA+ content we see, as well as how and where we see it, continues to evolve,” Lisa said. “Yet the sense of belonging that comes when the lights dim and a room full of queer people experience a queer story together remains a constant. Even when a film has the audience divided, the feeling of community that envelops us is unifying.”

“Come for the love of cinema, the love of queer films, and the love of community.”

The Mardi Gras Film Festival is running from 13 to 27 February in Sydney.

Highlights from the program will also be available to stream on demand across Australia from 28 February to 10 March.

Tickets on sale now at queersecreen.org.au