Trans Stories Take Center Stage at the 33rd Mardi Gras Film Festival
Trans and gender diverse stories are front and centre at this year’s Mardi Gras Film Festival, with organisers saying audiences are showing up in bigger numbers - and with genuine curiosity.
Now in its 33rd year, the festival runs from February 12 to 26 and brings 139 LGBTQIA+ films from 38 countries to Sydney as part of Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras.
While buzzy titles like Pillion - starring Alexander Skarsgård and Harry Melling - and Kristen Stewart’s directorial debut The Chronology of Water are selling fast, festival organisers say the strongest response has been to films created by and focused on trans and gender diverse people.
Queer Screen CEO Benson Wu says that enthusiasm hasn’t been limited to one audience.
There’s been real interest in the trans program across the board,” Wu said. “People are turning up wanting to engage, not just watch and leave.
Stories about transition, identity, and change
The festival closes with She’s the He, a coming-of-age comedy that starts with a misunderstanding and turns into something more meaningful, where two teenage best friends pretend to be trans to avoid being labelled a gay couple, but the joke collapses when one of them realises that living as a woman feels more truthful than going back. T
Long-form documentary A Deeper Love: The Story of Miss Peppermint tracks the life of Peppermint over a decade, from financial instability to global recognition, and tather than focusing on spectacle, the film stays close to her day-to-day reality as a Black trans woman navigating fame.
At the other end of the spectrum is Castration Movie Anthology II: The Best of Both Worlds, a five-hour experimental feature filmed on a camcorder during the Trump presidency - equal parts confrontational and intimate, it mixes horror imagery with real-world footage.
Rarely screened due to its length, the festival offers one of the few chances to experience it in a cinema.
Short films also play a major role in the program. Highlights include a former ice hockey player revisiting his life before transition, Norway’s first pregnant trans man preparing for parenthood, and a range of fictional and experimental shorts that explore gender from unexpected angles.
A shared space, not just a screen
For Wu, the value of the festival goes beyond programming.
People want to be in a room together, Watching these films as part of a community still matters.
One strand he’s especially proud of is Queer Asia, which showcases work rarely given space in Australian cinemas.
These are stories people don’t often get the chance to see, And that’s important.
He also points to I Was Born This Way, a documentary about the song that later inspired Lady Gaga’s anthem, and A Deeper Love as films that have left a lasting impression on audiences.
More standouts from the program
Outside the trans-focused selections, the festival lineup is packed with notable films.
Skiff follows a teenage rowing champion whose feelings for her boyfriend’s girlfriend complicate everything she thought she knew about herself.
Love Me Tender explores the fallout of an amicable breakup when one partner begins dating women and a custody battle turns personal.
Second Nature, narrated and executive produced by Elliot Page, looks at the diversity of sex and gender across the animal kingdom - something rarely addressed in mainstream education.
In Nova & Alice, two musicians on tour begin as rivals before discovering a deeper connection.
Bouchra centres on a queer Moroccan filmmaker in New York struggling with creative block, represented on screen as both a human and an animated coyote.
And Summer’s Camera follows a young woman who inherits her late father’s camera and uncovers a secret hidden in the film he never developed.
The 33rd Mardi Gras Film Festival runs from February 12 to 26 in Sydney.
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