BRISBANE POWERHOUSE AND VOLKSWAGEN PRESENT // 10th ANNUAL BRISBANE QUEER FILM FESTIVAL FRI 3 – THU 9 APRIL 2009 BRISBANE POWERHOUSE page2 WELCOME You’re invited to celebrate Brisbane Queer Film Festival’s tenth birthday. That’s right the festival is turning ten and we’ve got an exceptional festival planned for you with a week-long celebration of award winning fi lms from across the globe. The festival kicks off with our Volkswagen Opening Night Gala featuring the award-winning musical Were The World Mine, then we’ll dance the night away in three dimensions at the unique Volkswagen Opening Night 3D Party. This will be followed by a week of shorts, features and documentaries packed with fun, drama and diversity. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll be inspired, moved and thoroughly entertained by the range of fi lms on offer. So get excited, get your tickets and get ready to experience some of the best fi lms on the international festival circuit. SARAH NEAL Festival Director BRISBANE QUEER FILM FESTIVAL page3 page4 page5 VOLKWAGEN OPENING NIGHT GALA WERE THE WORLD MINE Technicolor musical numbers, singing schoolboys and a love story spun from the pages of Shakespeare – it’s no wonder this fi lm has swept both juried and audience awards at fi lm festivals across the globe. Openly gay Timothy lives with his single A huge success wherever it screens, mother, and attends an all-boys school Were the World Mine is the perfect way where he’s prone to musical daydreams to kick off this year’s festival! to escape the drudgery of class and the homophobic taunts from his fellow students. The opening gala will be hosted by Fenella Kernebone – presenter on ABC TV Sunday The object of his desire is Jonathon, the Arts and Triple J’s The Sound Lab. handsome star of the rugby team, and Winner Grand Jury Award for Outstanding Timothy regularly dreams this very straight US Dramatic Feature Outfest, Los Angeles Gay boy will fall in love with him. When both and Lesbian Film Festival 2008 Timothy and Jonathon are cast in the school Offi cial Selection Seattle Lesbian and Gay production of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Film Festival 2008 Night’s Dream, it seems fate is on his side. Director Tom Gustafson Soon Timothy discovers a magical love USA, 2008, 96mins potion hidden in the play’s text. Will Timothy tempt fate and use the recipe on Jonathon? DATE Fri 3 April VENUE Powerhouse Theatre TIME 7pm TICKETS All tickets $30 (Includes opening night party) page6 3D DISCO VOLKSWAGEN OPENING NIGHT PARTY The biggest party for 2009 is here and the dress code calls for a pair of three dimensional glasses! Combining eye-popping high defi nition people equipped with colour-fi ltered video with the latest house, future-retro glasses witnessed Calvin Harris and and disco music this party will add a new the 3D Disco in a massive show at dimension to the Turbine Platform. London’s Trafalgar Square. The 3D Disco was created by the Novak Now appearing at countless festivals, Collective in 2006 and premiered at clubs and universities across Europe Newcastle’s AV Festival. This unique and the UK this will be Australia’s fi rst audio visual experience went on to be a time to experience the 3D Disco. hit and partnered with Calvin Harris for the Beck’s Fusion tour in 2007. Up to 9,000 So get your ticket fast and don’t worry we will supply the specs! DATE Fri 3 April VENUE Turbine Platform TIME 9pm TICKETS All tickets $20 pagepage7 NO END In this sensitive drama, a young lesbian couple, Giulia and Chiara decide to have a child. But their path to motherhood is not as clear as they might hope. According to Italian law, only married In his poignant and tender feature fi lm heterosexual couples are allowed to debut, Italian director Roberto Cuzzillo procreate through artifi cial insemination. brings a uniquely subtle sensibility to So Giulia and Chiara must travel to the small moments that matter most. Holland for the procedure. But as they Honourable Mention New Fest, New York prepare, things begin to fall apart. LGBT Film Festival 2008 When Giulia’s mother fi nds out the news, Offi cial Selection Seattle Lesbian and Gay she is devastated by the thought of her Film Festival 2008 grandchild being raised without a father. Director Roberto Cuzzillo Meanwhile Chiara discovers a lump in Italy, 2008, 75mins her breast and is now suddenly forced to confront sickness and death rather Italian with subtitles than new life and birth. DATE Sat 4 April VENUE Powerhouse Theatre TIME 12noon TICKETS Full $16, Concession $14 page8 DOS MIRADAS (TWO LOOKS) When two friends awake to fi nd themselves naked and entangled, a volatile drama unfolds as they struggle towards the moment of truth in their relationship. The fi rst girl to leave the bed is bewildered. Fully improvised and laced with stunning Along with her, we begin to put together cinematography of the San Pedro de the pieces of their night as she trips on Atacama desert in Chile, Two Looks is empty wine bottles and endures a deep an engrossing fi lm that is intellectual in struggle in the shower, trying to scrub the the sexiest way. night off of her skin. Offi cial Selection Frameline 32, San Francisco Acting sweetly about the turn in their International LGBT Film Festival 2008 relationship, her partner wakes alone and Offi cial Selection 26th Los Angeles Gay and quickly makes breakfast. There they sit in Lesbian Film Festival a strangely visceral silence, one speaking Director Sergio Candel gently with patience and soft eye contact, Spain, 2007, 70mins the other lashing out at fl ies and hurling insults. All the while director Sergio Spanish with subtitles Candel holds his camera in wait, and lets the distance between the two women fi ll up with all the things they do not say. DATE Sat 4 April VENUE Visy Theatre TIME 1pm TICKETS Full $16, Concession $14 pagepage9 ANTARCTICA Miki likes Ronen, Ronen likes Omer, Omer likes Danny, Danny likes Boaz, Michal likes Shirley and Boaz likes everyone! Tel Aviv’s gay life is working overtime in search of love. In two days, Omer will hit a milestone: his the siblings’ “Jewish mother from hell” 30th birthday. Shy and studious, he’s still (drag artist Yoam Huberman) brings looking for that elusive spark with another matters to a head. man. Omar meets Danny, an enthusiastic 20-year-old aspiring dancer. Danny lives With a collar-grabbing montage of with his ex-boyfriend Ronen, a handsome male nudity and a subplot about alien journalist who also befriends Omer. abductions, Antarctica pushes the Ronen is also dating Omer’s best friend bounds of Israeli cinema. Miki, who thinks he might be ‘the one’. Offi cial Selection Seattle Lesbian and Might Danny or Ronen be able to ignite Gay Film Festival 2008 the fl ame that will melt Omer’s heart? Offi cial Selection Outfest, Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Film Festival 2008 Omer’s little sister Shirley wonders if her lesbian relationship with her boss Michal Director Yair Hochner means settling down and giving up her Israel, 2008, 108mins long-held dream of travelling to Antarctica. Hebrew with subtitles A momentous birthday meal given by DATE Sat 4 April VENUE Powerhouse Theatre TIME 2pm TICKETS Full $16, Concession $14 Also available in the Boys’ Choice Package (see page 45) page10 BI THE WAY Travel through the changing sexual landscape of America, with fi ve members of today’s bi-generation, the latest scientifi c reports and social opinions on bisexuality. Throughout big cities and the bible belt of this generation? Could the latest fi ndings alike, being bi is cool. Photos of emo boys shed light on the possibility of someone kissing are posted by their girlfriends online, having physical yearnings for one gender massively popular TV shows like “The OC” but romantic feelings for another? are depicting more youthful bi relationships and studies show that same-gender Directors Brittany Blockman and Josephine sexual experimentation is becoming more Decker lead the way in rethinking and common across the board. redrawing the map of sexuality altogether. Offi cial Selection Austin Gay and Lesbian Featuring interviews with Michael Musto, International Film Festival 2008 Dan Savage, and Jonathan Caouette, Offi cial Selection Seattle Lesbian and Gay this documentary battles the stereotypes Film Festival 2008 against those who don’t fi t in the typical sexual orientation binary (gay or straight). Director Josephine Decker and Brittany Blockman Is it simply the desire to try new things USA, 2008, 93mins that drives the so-called sexual revolution DATE Sat 4 April VENUE Visy Theatre TIME 3pm TICKETS Full $16, Concession $14 Also available in the Documentary Package (see page 44) pagepage11 CHUECATOWN (BOYSTOWN) Gay men have a reputation world-over for moving into run- down areas and transforming them into real estate paradise. Madrid’s Chueca district is their latest target. The only problem is it’s populated by little old ladies who refuse to sell. Mysterious and sexy real estate agent It’s up to an eccentric police detective Victor takes matters into his own hands, and her sexually confused son to solve systematically killing off the grannies and the case of the murdered grannies instating queer couples in their place. before Antonia is the next victim. When adorable bear couple Rey and Leo Winner Best International Feature Outfest, inherit their neighbour’s fl at, Rey promptly Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Film Festival 2008 moves his overbearing mother, Antonia, Offi cial Selection Sydney Mardi Gras into the apartment.