The Mardi Gras Film Festival, formerly known as the Gay and Lesbian Film Festival, is an Australian LGBTQ+ film festival held in Sydney, New South Wales annually each February as part of the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras celebrations. It is organised by Queer Screen Limited, which also organises the Queer Screen Film Fest (QSFF), held each September in Sydney.
History Australia had the world's first gay film festival, entitled A Festival of Gay Films at the Sydney Filmmakers Co-op in June 1976, part of a larger commemoration of the Stonewall Riots in New York City of 1969.
Inaugurated in 1978 as the Gay and Lesbian Film Festival by the Australian Film Institute, the film festival joined the Mardi Gras in 1986 to present an annual "Sydney Gay Film Week" in conjunction with the parade. Queer Screen took control of the festival in 1993, and held the first festival in 1994.
For ten years, Queer Screen ran a separate documentary festival, queerDOC, which became was the first and only LGBTQI documentary film festival in the world. It also ran a short film competition for locally produced work, called My Queer Career. Both of these were merged into the Mardi Gras Film Festival.
In 2013 Queer Screen founded a new film festival, the Queer Screen Film Fest, which is now a major annual event taking place on screens in Sydney each September. In 2014, St George's Bank committed to funding Queer Screen for two years.
In 2023 Queer Screen became the first LGBTIQ+ film festival in the world to participate in the "Goes to Cannes" program at the Marché du Film at the Cannes Film Festival.
Description In addition to the Mardi Gras Film Festival, Queer Screen organises the Queer Screen Film Fest, awards funding to Australian filmmakers through its Queer Screen Completion Fund, and since 2018 has funded the Queer Screen Pitch Off, a short film pitching competition.
Benson Wu is CEO of Queer Screen, while Jessica Liley and Mike Whalley are co-chairs of the board. Queer Screen Limited is a non-profit organisation, and one of the world's largest platforms for queer cinema.
Mardi Gras Film Festival
Queer Screen Film Festival In 2026, the 13th edition of Queer Screen Film Festival (QSFF26) is taking place from 2 to 8 September, in which 28 films are screened. Afterwards, a curated on-demand season is held. The festival also includes the Queer Screen Pitch Off Competition and Emerging Narrative Feature Competition, as well as the inaugural Queer Screen Studio, comprising masterclasses and panels.
Featured films
Below is a list of some of the films featured in each festival edition.
1994: And the Band Played On, The East Is Red, Naked Killer 1995: Strawberry and Chocolate, Libera, Coming Out Under Fire 1996: Jeffrey, The Incredibly True Adventure of Two Girls in Love, Catwalk 1997: An Actor's Revenge, BloodSisters, Bound 1998: It's in the Water, Leather Jacket Love Story, Bent 1999: Relax...It's Just Sex, Billy's Hollywood Screen Kiss, Blind Faith 2000: Trick, But I'm a Cheerleader, Edge of Seventeen 2001: If These Walls Could Talk 2, Chutney Popcorn, The Boys in the Band 2002: The Fluffer, By Hook or by Crook, Urbania 2003: The Trip, Swimming Upstream, Under One Roof 2004: Camp, Goldfish Memory, Mango Kiss 2005: The Raspberry Reich, The Aggressives, Butterfly 2006: Transamerica, Loggerheads, Kinky Boots 2007: Coming Out, Loving Annabelle, The Gymnast 2008: The World Unseen, The 2 Sides of the Bed, Bam Bam and Celeste 2009: Were the World Mine, Drifting Flowers, I Can't Think Straight 2010: An Englishman in New York, And Then Came Lola, Prayers for Bobby 2011: Kaboom, I Love You Phillip Morris, Elena Undone 2012: Dirty Girl, Romeos, Weekend 2013: A Liar's Autobiography: The Untrue Story of Monty Python's Graham Chapman, Call Me Kuchu, Head On 2014: Reaching for the Moon, Any Day Now, C.O.G. 2015: Brokeback Mountain, The Way He Looks, Stories of Our Lives 2016: Starting From ... Now!, Out to Win, How to Win at Checkers (Every Time) 2017: Handsome Devil, A Date for Mad Mary, Angry Indian Goddesses 2018: Ideal Home, Love, Simon, BPM (Beats per Minute) 2019: Giant Little Ones, Rafiki, Un Rubio 2020: Ellie & Abbie (& Ellie's Dead Aunt), An Almost Ordinary Summer, And Then We Danced 2021: Dating Amber, Rūrangi, Supernova 2022: Wildhood, B-Boy Blues, Firebird 2023: Of an Age, Tár, Lonesome 2024: Femme, All of Us Strangers, Housekeeping for Beginners 2025: Young Hearts, Carnage for Christmas, Duino
See also
Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras
References
External links Queer Screen's official website