MQFF announces 2012 line-up

MQFF announces 2012 line-up

Trans films are set to feature prominently at this year’s Melbourne Queer Film Festival (MQFF) as organisers reveal a sneak peek of the 2012 line-up.

Destined to be a sell-out session, feature-length documentary Becoming Chaz, directed by Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato, tells the story of former US Dancing with the Stars contestant Chaz Bono’s transition from a woman to a man.

MQFF director Lisa Daniel told the Star Observer the festival was spoilt for choice this year.

“There seems to be so much better stuff in the last few years,” Daniel said. “I’ve seen it go from the sort of festival you’re scratching around to get really good stuff and having a bit of filler, to having less filler, to absolutely no filler,” Daniel said.

“Now we’re in the position where we’re saying ‘no’ to films that would normally have got in five years ago in a heartbeat.”

Daniel said partly fuelling this is the emergence of queer filmmakers in parts of the world which previously haven’t produced much in the way of queer cinema.

“Probably the most exciting stuff is coming out of South America over the last few years,” Daniel said.

“They make really good films, they don’t just try and mimic American Hollywood-style films, they do something a little bit different.” Some hot picks on the program this year include Gun Hill Road from first-time US filmmaker Rashaad Ernesto.

The film left Sundance audiences gushing and follows the story of Enrique who returns home to the Bronx after a three-year stint in jail to find his teenage son has transitioned to a female.

“I think Gun Hill Road is a good indicator trans films are emerging from the sort of self-focused documentaries about transition … and more stories about living as a transgender person and the challenges, but the joys as well,” she said.

Cloudburst from Canadian filmmaker Thom Fitzgerald and starring Olympia Dukakis (Steel Magnolias, Moonstruck) and Brenda Fricker (My Left Foot, A Time To Kill) as a lesbian couple in the twilight of their lives is also set to do well.

On the documentary front, the Academy Award-nominated We Were Here by David Weissman looks at the arrival and impact of HIV/AIDS in San Francisco. The Advocate for Fagdom, by French filmmaker Angelique Bosio, takes audiences behind the scenes with interviews with iconic queer filmmakers John Waters, Harmony Korine, Gus Van Sant and Bruce LaBruce.

Daniel’s pick? Madeleine Olnek’s Co-Dependent Lesbian Space Alien Seeks Same.

“I think is going to sell out pretty much straight way,” she said. “It’s going to be a cracker, it’s a fun film … a more contemporary Go Fish, but with aliens.”

INFO: MQFF runs March 15 – 25. The full program will be announced on February 22. More at www.mqff.com.au

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One response to “MQFF announces 2012 line-up”

  1. Eagerly awaiting “We Are Here” from San Francisco! Sure to be sad but uplifting. It surely pays tribute to some of our community’s heroes who were tragically lost.