The Mardi Gras Film Festival is an Australian

LGBTQ+ LGBTQ people are individuals who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, or questioning. Many variants of the initialism are used; LGBTQIA+ people incorporates intersex, asexual, aromantic, agender, and other individuals. The group i ...

film festival A film festival is an organized, extended presentation of films in one or more movie theater, cinemas or screening venues, usually annually and in a single city or region. Some film festivals show films outdoors or online. Films may be of recent ...

held in

Sydney Sydney is the capital city of the States and territories of Australia, state of New South Wales and the List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city in Australia. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Syd ...

New South Wales New South Wales (commonly abbreviated as NSW) is a States and territories of Australia, state on the Eastern states of Australia, east coast of :Australia. It borders Queensland to the north, Victoria (state), Victoria to the south, and South ...

annually as part of the

Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras The Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras or Sydney Mardi Gras is an event in Sydney, New South Wales attended by hundreds of thousands of people from around Australia and overseas. One of the largest LGBT festivals in the world, Mardi Gras is the ...

celebrations. It is organised by Queer Screen Limited, a non-profit organization, and is one of the world's largest platforms for

queer ''Queer'' is an umbrella term for people who are non-heterosexual or non- cisgender. Originally meaning or , ''queer'' came to be used pejoratively against LGBTQ people in the late 19th century. From the late 1980s, queer activists began to ...

cinema.

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 The Stonewall riots (also known as the Stonewall uprising, Stonewall rebellion, Stonewall revolution, or simply Stonewall) were a series of spontaneous riots and demonstrations against a police raid that took place in the early morning hours of ...

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

of 1969. Inaugurated in 1978 as the ''Gay and Lesbian film festival'' by the

Australian Film Institute The Australian Film Institute (AFI) was founded in 1958 as a non-profit organisation devoted to developing an active film culture in Australia and fostering engagement between the general public and the Cinema of Australia, Australian film indu ...

, 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. In addition to the ''Mardi Gras Film Festival'', Queer Screen organises the ''Queer Screen Film Fest'', ''My Queer Career'' and ''queerDOC'' as part of its aim to celebrate and promote Australian and international queer screen culture in all its diversity and richness. It 2021 it moved to hybrid online and in person festival, to adapt to a Covid landscape.

References

External links

Queer Screen's official website
Film festivals in Sydney LGBTQ culture in Sydney LGBTQ film festivals in Australia {{Australia-culture-stub

History

See also

References

External links