#Be kind rewind clothing free

Gender non-conformity From a glorious opening night romcom interrogating gender norms (I Love You, Beksman) to 10 films by non-binary and trans film-makers (including two from Australian prodigy Alice Maio Mackay), this is the most genderqueer MQFF yet! See also Sunflower, In the Meantime, Shape and Single, Out as well as shorts galore. Made by Melburnians Don’t miss the Victorian premiere of Goran “Of an Age” Stolevski’s third feature, Housekeeping for Beginners (or his masterclass!). Be sure to catch Marinette, Equal the Contest and Offside and a score-settling Queers in Sport panel discussion. Queers and balls Matildas-mania was an epic win, proving queers and sport needn’t be strange bedfellows. The nine landmark historical queer films from every which where and when are must-sees at MQFF33, including daring ‘90s Chinese drama East Palace, West Palace the original French-Italian Birdcage, La Cage aux Folles and Melbourne’s very own Head On (now 25!). Rewind to fast forward To know who we’re becoming, it pays to know who we’ve been. “I think through film people can come out to themselves in ways that can be both lifelong and enriching.” Five themes at this year’s festival, as suggested by Cerise Howard Howard wants audiences to look beyond their own identity and outside their comfort zone. While emphasising that the festival is very much a team effort, Howard says one of her primary motivations is “doing right” by a diverse queer community being intersectional without being tokenistic. ”A film can be queer without … about people who are gay or lesbian or bi – sometimes queerness can just be in the fabric of a film itself.” “It shows that just because someone may not be same-sex attracted they can still be profoundly queer,” she says. ‘Sometimes queerness can just be in the fabric of a film itself,’ Howard says. Howard points to the opening night film I love you Beksman, a film ostensibly about someone “coming out as being straight”. So the stories shouldn’t aim to be universal but particular – because in that particularity I think people can see themselves and engage more.” “We’d be doing audiences a disservice if we tried to paint a utopian vision of our lives – because no one could relate to that anyway. “We are complex, nuanced human beings capable of good and bad. “We need to see our community in all its diversity, but we don’t need to see us all painted as saints – because we’re not,” she Howard. Provocative films in this year’s program include Femme, in which the central character seeks violent revenge for being beat up on the streets of London and a trashy, camp animated feature from Berlin, Captain Faggotron, featuring a giant anus floating through the sky. She has also performed with a number of punk acts since the late 1990s, and currently plays bass in “a queer punk rock’n’roll spectacular”, The Legend of Queen Kong.Īs the biggest, and oldest, queer film festival in Australia, MQFF has never been afraid to push boundaries, and this year is no different. ‘We need to see our community in all its diversity, but we don’t need to see us all painted as saints – because we’re not’ … Cerise Howard. Howard is well known in both Melbourne’s film and broader arts scene as co-curator of the Melbourne Cinematheque, cofounder of the Czech and Slovak film festival of Australia and cofounding member of Tilde: Melbourne Trans and Gender Diverse film festival. “But it’s important we are able to collectively not just enjoy, but be educated by films of yesteryear.” The language in some of the festival’s historic films “may be considered problematic today”, Howard says, pointing to terms like “sex change operation” rather than gender affirmation surgery in 1953 drama Glen or Glenda.

#Be kind rewind clothing free

Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup “And one that features a woman experimenting with drag – it speaks volumes to the fact that we’ve always been here and people have been playing with gender for a long time.”

“It mattered a lot to have this launch in Melbourne town hall – as grand a civic space as possible,” says Howard, noting disruptions to other queer events wreaked by the far right in Victoria earlier this year. Photograph: Nadir Kinani/The GuardianĪt the program launch, audiences were treated to a screening of the 1918 Ernst Lubitsch German silent drag comedy I don’t want to be a man, accompanied by a live bespoke soundtrack played by Melbourne musician Evelyn Ida Morris, AKA Pikelet, on the grand 1929 pipe organ. ‘It’s important we are able to collectively not just enjoy, but be educated by films of yesteryear’ … Cerise Howard.