My Queer Career Retrospective Gala

Celebrating 25 Years of Australian LGBTIQ Storytelling

This year Queer Screen celebrates the 25^th anniversary of My Queer Career. This prestigious competition was established in 1994 to showcase the best in Australian queer short films. Judges choose a winner from a series of shorts programmed by Queer Screen. The competition is a fantastic opportunity for emerging and established filmmakers to get their work noticed. With the support of Create NSW the 2018 retrospective is a 'greatest hits compilation' from My Queer Career's colourful history.

Over the years My Queer Career has produced many successful filmmakers. 2013 winner The Wilding by Grant Scicluna also won the world's richest LGBTIQ short film competition the Iris Prize, and he later went on to write and direct the feature Downriver (2015). This year's retrospective features Scicluna's Neon Skin, winner of the NFSA Orlando Award for Best Queer Australian Short Film 2011.

Also playing is My Last Ten Hours With You (2007) by Sophie Hyde, who directed the critically acclaimed feature 52 Tuesdays, which saw Hyde winning the best director award in the world cinema section of the Sundance film festival.

Craig Boreham's films are the most featured in the history of My Queer Career. Boreham won best film in the competition in 2010 and 2011, the latter for the tense teenage coming of age drama Drowning. This short later became the 2016 feature film Teenage Kicks. Reflecting on the crucial role My Queer Career has played in the development of his career, Craig says: "My Queer Career has been important to me in so many ways. As a storyteller it gave me a space to reach the audience I wanted to reach but as a filmmaker it provided a community and a really valuable network of other LGBTQI+ filmmaking peers. Queer Screen has nurtured a whole generation of Australian queer filmmakers and stories and have really helped us take our work out into the world."

In addition Queer Screen is proud to present Genderfuck by Svetlana Gilerman, aka iconic queer Sydney DJ Sveta. Genderfuck was the first short screened in the inaugural 1994 competition, featuring topical gender politics that have since moved to the forefront of the dialogue in the LGBTIQ community. This evolution highlights how groundbreaking ideas presented in My Queer Career selections can be avant garde predictors of future queer life.

The My Queer Career Retrospective Gala includes 12 short films with a 20 minute interval on Thursday Feb 22 at 6:30pm at Event Cinemas George Street and will be followed by a gala after party in Gold Class, with many of the filmmakers present.

My Queer Career Retrospective Gala Program

Genderfuck (MQC 1999)

Directed by Svetlana Gilerman

In a retrospective screening of the very first film ever screened in My Queer Career, we ask the age old question... Does gender fuck or do we fuck gender?

Two Girls and a Baby (MQC 1999)

Directed by Kelli Simpson

Catherine and Liz want to have a baby. Catherine on the phone to the sperm bank but Liz is still not so sure.

Ex (MQC 2006)

Directed by Julie Kalceff and Andrew Soo

Kath has just moved in and Rachel wants their first weekend to be perfect. Everything is going to plan until Kath's ex calls, destroying any ideas Rachel may have had.

Two Nights (MQC 2006)

Directed by Rolmar Baldonado

Over two nights a young Chinese immigrant has two sexual encounters and is forced to choose between the one he wants and the one who wants him.

My Last Ten Hours With You (MQC 2008)

Directed by Sophie Hyde

The final night of Mark and Jeremy's relationship, they wait it out, trying to find the way to say goodbye.

Disarm (MQC 2010)

Directed by Nathan Keane

Two men meet online for a hook-up, but after an initial confrontation, they fall into conversation and have something they did not expect: a connection.

Neon Skin (MQC 2011)

Directed by Grant Sciciuna

Two young men - one sighted, one blind - see the world and their bodies in different ways. Unexpectedly, they find a connection beyond the visual in the collision of taste, touch and sound. The connection is sensual, and within it they each find something new.

Drowning (MQC 2011)

Directed by Craig Boreham

Things are changing for Mik. His world has been turned upside down by the sudden death of his older brother forcing him to redefine his place in his family. The one solid thing in Mik's life is his best friend Dan. But Dan has a new girlfriend...

Summer Suit (MQC 2013)

Directed by Rebecca Peniston-Bird

Robbie's discovery of an old suit gives her a new identity. But can she and her suit survive the trials of summer?

Clan (MQC 2015)

Directed by Lara Lavarch

As a child and young man James Saunders struggled to find his identity. He won an indigenous scholorship to a private school but found he didn't fit in there or back with his own family. He found his place in the world with the Gay Rugby Union Club.

MyMy (MQC 2015)

Directed by Anna Helme

A young man longs to connect with the world. Frustrated, he uses a cyberfeminist CD-Rom to create a cyborg twin.

Like Breathing (MQC 2015)

Directed by Liz Cooper

Max works for her father as a mechanic and she feels like she will never be able to find the courage to voice what she really wants - but then she meets Bel.

Tickets for the My Queer Career Retrospective Gala are on sale now. Please visit queerscreen.org.au or the Mardi Gras Film Festival app, or call (02) 9280 1533 to book. Become a Queer Screen member for discounted tickets and priority entry.