Get a Hit of Queer Cinema at the Mini Queer Film Festival

For over 30 years, the Melbourne Queer Film Festival has delighted audiences with the best of queer cinema from Australia and around the world. If you can’t bear waiting for the full-sized festival later this year, the mini festival may be enough to satisfy your queer cinema cravings. The very compact festival runs from Friday 29 Apr to Sunday 1 May at Cinema Nova in Carlton and features 12 films, with plenty to appeal to queer men.

The lineup features two documentaries about queer men including the opening night film, Tramps! which chronicles the rise of the New Romantics scene that emerged out of the UK in the 1970s. The movement produced such queer icons as Duran Duran and Boy George as well as Leigh Bowery who was born in Melbourne and went on to have a huge cultural impact in London. Several of Bowery’s garments are currently on display in the Queer exhibition at the NGV.

No Ordinary Man is a documentary that reframes the story of American jazz musician Billy Tipton from a woman disguised as a man to make it in the male-dominated jazz scene, to the story of a trailblazing trans man living in a time when the concept of a trans man didn’t exist.

Canadian coming-of-age drama Wildhood tells the story of an indigenous teen who runs away from his abusive father with his half-brother in a quest to find their mother. Along the way they connect with a two-spirit friend and pow wow dancer who brings an element of queer romance to the film.

British film Benediction tells the story of gay First World War poet, Siegfried Sassoon as he searches for peace and self-acceptance.

If you’re looking for something lighter with a bit more flesh, Boy Culture is the sequel to the 2006 film of the same name and is sure to titillate as well as entertain. It follows the protagonist who goes by ‘X’ to maintain his anonymity as he returns to escorting after several years out of the industry.

Foreign-language films include The Perfect David, an Argentinian coming-of-age story of a shy teenager pursuing the perfect vision of masculinity through body-building while denying his own sexuality, and Shall I Compare You to a Summer’s Day?, an Egyptian queer experimental musical.

The Melbourne Mini Queer Film Fesival runs from 29 March to 1 May mqff.com.au/melbourne-queer-mini-film-festival