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Queer Screen Film Fest
Wednesday, 27 August 2025 until Sunday, 31 August 2025
There have been lesbian and gay film festivals in Sydney since 1978. Initially these were run by the Australian Film Institute. In 1986, the AFI partnered with what was then theSydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras, to present an annual ‘Sydney Gay Film Week’during the Mardi Gras festival. The film festival was taken over by commercial concerns in 1991, but still screened as a highlight of the Mardi Gras season.
In 1993, a group of queer Sydney filmmakers, students and others approached Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras with a view to establishing an independent organisation whose primary focus was queer film and screen culture. This organisation, Queer Screen, had the central aim of reclaiming Sydney’s GLBTIQ film festival as owned and operated by the community. From that time, Mardi Gras was the principal funding body of Queer Screen, initially with a five-year funding agreement, followed by a three-year agreement in 1998. This agreement came to an end with the 2001 Mardi Gras Film Festival.
The Mardi Gras Film Festival has grown considerably since 1993. It is now one of Australia’s largest film festivals of any kind, and one of the top five queer film festivals in the world. It is highly regarded by filmmakers all over the world, and is the most important avenue for promoting gay and lesbian titles to distributors and exhibitors in this territory.
For 10 years, Queer Screen’s documentary festival, queerDOC, was the first and only GLBTIQ documentary festival in the world, and the annual My Queer Career competition pioneered queer short film competitions exclusively for locally produced work. Both events are now part of the Mardi Gras Film Festival.
In recent years, new initiatives have grown to include special events and curated programs right across Australia, making Queer Screen one of only a handful of GLBTIQ film organisations world-over to operate a national slate of events throughout the year.
Since 2013, a new film festival, the Queer Screen Film Fest, has become a major event that delivers the latest GLBTIQ movies to the Sydney’s screens in the month of September.
2025 films...
This tender, slow-burn romance between a Mumbai call-centre worker and a rural goat herder won Sundance’s World Cinema Dramatic Jury Prize.
A married multiracial bisexual couple from Western Sydney are beset from all sides, as they navigate work, sex and raising their teenage kids.
10th anniversary screening of the much-loved Australian classic, to mark ACON’s 40th anniversary and the original memoir’s 30th anniversary.
As wife Nadia carries their baby, Céline must gather testimonies from friends and family to affirm her readiness to adopt and become a mother.
When Seonwoo and Heeseo buy an apartment, Seonwoo becomes fixated on trying to find the source of a foul odour emanating from downstairs.
A middle-aged lesbian moves back to her prejudiced hometown and clashes with her mayor ex-husband, but becomes a beacon of hope for his trans teen son.
All the films in this shorts program feature stories about people coming together to support each other, from across the LGBTIQ+ spectrum.
Anyway, I Piss Sitting Down
Sasha dreams of swimming shirtless at his childhood beach for the first time since top surgery, as three friends embark on a roadtrip to their Quebec hometown.
A Bird Hit My Window and Now I’m a Lesbian
When Fionn shows up on Gray’s doorstep holding a pigeon that crashed into her window, an impromptu bird funeral changes the way Gray views herself and her identity.
Dandelion
After a rebellious foster teen is thrown out of another group home for being disruptive, a social worker (Vic Michaelis, Very Important People) has one night to find her a new home.
One Story at a Time: Celeste Lecesne
Celeste Lecesne discusses how sharing his truth in an off-Broadway solo show became an Oscar-winning short film, and inspired LGBTIQ+ youth suicide prevention hotline The Trevor Project.
Where We Stay
Longtime friends Carry and Daniel have never acknowledged their underlying feelings for each other. Now that Carry is sick, will they dare to follow their hearts even though time is running out?
Zari
Amidst preparations for her sister’s wedding in India, young American Neelu forges an unexpected connection with Zeyb, a quiet sari store clerk who moonlights as an internet drag queen.
Tender, joyful and quietly revolutionary, this coming-of-age documentary celebrates freedom of expression through the eyes of a trans child.
Asia Kate Dillon and Lea DeLaria star in this poignant drama that explores the quiet ache of adulthood through the lens of childhood memory.
Russell Tovey and Tom Blyth star in this tense romantic thriller about a closeted undercover cop torn between duty and living his truth.
When transmasculine musical theatre performer Z loses vocal control after starting testosterone, can he discover his voice to follow his dreams?
This steamy romantic drama offers an intimate insight into a relationship between two men from very different worlds in contemporary Denmark.
Dylan O’Brien stars in this stirring, whip-smart, wholly original dark comedy which won the Audience Award for U.S. Dramatic Film at Sundance.