Open the wine, get the popcorn ready and settle in on the couch for MQFF’s first ever online festival running from Friday 17 to Sunday 19 July 2020. With five screenings from this year’s #MQFF30 program, including the popular Australian Shorts package, MQFF online will be available through their website for you to enjoy in the comfort of your own home.
AUSTRALIAN SHORTS
Join MQFF in celebrating some of the brightest queer voices and filmmaking talent Australia has. This collection of adventurous, thought provoking and unmissable shorts will transport you to the birth of the Australian gay liberation movement, a clandestine and dangerous rendezvous at a secluded beach in the Mediterranean and to the back beaches of NSW where a black market abalone farmer experiences a sexual awakening. This year MQFF is thrilled to also include the winning film of last years Pitch, Pleez! competition, Hook Up.
BRIEF STORY FROM THE GREEN PLANET
Yes there’s an alien, but it’s definitely not E.T. In this playful and genre-defying Argentinian drama, trans woman Tania, along with two of her old school friends, returns to her hometown following the death of her grandmother. But when she gets there, Tania discovers something very surprising – grandma has been living with an extraterrestrial and her dying wish was for it to be returned to the woods where it was discovered. So, map in hand, the trio of loveable misfits head out on a mystifying journey full of wonder and the joy of being an outsider.
OLIVIA
There’s a hint of Peter Weir’s Picnic at Hanging Rock in this beautifully restored French classic that explores the ‘it’s complicated’ intertwining personal lives of a group of excitable boarding schoolgirls. Adapted from the controversy-sparking 1949 novel by an initially pseudonymous Dorothy Bussy, director Jacqueline Audry and her sister, writer Colette, intimately grasp the complexities of female attraction and teenage abandon. Never condescending, and surprisingly forthright for its time, you’ll not want to miss this retrospective queer gem.
WALKING WITH SHADOWS
Based on Jude Dibia’s groundbreaking 2005 novel, Walking with Shadows, is a powerful drama about a married Nigerian man grappling with his homosexuality and the seismic ramifications it causes amongst his family and community. The story kicks off when Adrian’s wife Ada receives a mysterious phone call from a man who alleges that her husband has cheated on her with multiple men. Confronted by her, it pushes Adrian and Ada on a journey of self-discovery.
XY CHELSEA
From the moment she uploaded classified USA military documents to Wikileaks in January 2010, Chelsea Manning became a polarising figure – hated by many for her perceived treason, and hailed as a hero by others for exposing the USA’s alleged war crimes. At the age of 23, Manning was imprisoned for 35 years, and whilst incarcerated, transitioned. When President Obama commuted her sentence in 2017, Manning was released into an even more hostile and divided world. With extraordinary access to one of the most (in)famous persons of the 21st Century, XY Chelsea’s raw and personal footage is breathtaking, as it follows Manning from the minute she leaves prison and climbs aboard the public persona rollercoaster ride as she readjusts to life as a ‘free’ person.
MQFF Online streams from Friday 17 to Sunday 19 July 2020 and is only for Australia – content is geo blocked to Victoria. Single and Collection tickets available. For more information, visit: www.mqff.com.au for details.
Image: Brief Story from The Green Planet (supplied)