Sydney Film Festival is back this 2021 in both cinema and online thanks to a highly vaccinated population of cinema-hungry Sydney audience, with the festival running from November 3 to 21, 2021.
Diversity and choice have always been the key drivers of the success of the Sydney Film Festival. As part of this culture, these queer films are some of its many rich highlights. Watch them when you can.
GREAT FREEDOM
This bleak portrait of gay incarceration and the developed romantic friendship between a gay and straight prisoner is quite detached and dispiriting in approach. This Austrian prison drama spans more than two decades as it moves in a nonlinear fashion with a seemingly ageless protagonist. There is good creative use of Super 8 footage at the start and during intermissions. Music is sparse and comes intermittently as chapter closer stings to the tragedies of unfolding gay suppression in a locked-up environment. It definitely has a Cannes touch to it with its detachment and, ironically, its emotional buildup from the various gay relationships and encounters in prison. The film’s climax, in the end, embodies the essence of the title as the great freedom of gay sexual revolution is too overwhelming for someone who has gotten used to the desensitising dark confines of a prison still accustomed to the gay repressions of the past.
SWAN SONG
Queer icon Udo Kier brings life to this role of a retired gay hairdresser who escapes the nursing home to do a departed friend’s funeral hair and makeup. He revisits his forgotten past along the way as he does his final style work. This bittersweet dramedy is a camp reflection of life and mortality as it travails the limitations and inconveniences brought about by ageing. The cast includes a retro tribute with Jennifer Coolidge and DYNASTY’s Linda Evans as the dead friend.
MY BEST PART
Nicolas Maury of Netflix CALL MY AGENT! writes, directs and stars in this painfully funny depiction of desperation and pathos as a down and out ex-ingénue queer actor, a master of self-deprecation and self-loathing, rediscovering himself in this really dark dramedy. There are genuinely hilarious scenes of embarrassment for the lead protagonist Jeremie as he deals with his extreme jealous feelings for his boyfriend. There are tender moments as well as he meets another potential love interest. Great casting of Nathalie Baye as Jeremie’s mother. I felt that funny as those personally disparaging moments were, this film had too many subplots and extended moments that could benefit with another round of edit. Overall though, it is a worthy Cannes achievement for Maury for delivering what seems to be a personal piece.
WHY NOT YOU
Seasoned editor Evi Romen wrote and directed this young gay man lost survival story amidst a traumatic terrorist attack in an Italian gay bar. Quite bold themes of loss, trauma and displacement were explored by this first-time filmmaker. At specific points, the diverse topical issues of Muslim terrorism and religious support group seem to derail the film’s emotional throughline of the suffering gay protagonist journey. The film was at its best when it touched on the lead’s queer identity issues after surviving a violent ordeal.
The Jewish International Film Festival (JIFF) is heading to its Closing Night on 17 March 2021 at the Ritz Cinema in Randwick. Film screenings have also started at Roseville Cinema in Roseville from 6-24 March. The best news is that there will be encore screenings at the Ritz Cinema from 18-31 March.
Check out these three documentaries competing for the Documentary Australia Foundation Award as part of the Sydney Film Festival 2020 On-Demand program.
