All posts tagged festival

Submissions: Aust Shorts for Bangalore Queer Film Festival

Posted: January 6, 2012 · Comments: 0

Randy Freaked-Out Psychedelic Homosexy Koalas

There’s been an explosion of queer film in recent years, with festivals and web shows popping up all over the place. Gaymazing!
But as queer films have expanded the niche, have they lost their radical edge? I don’t think so, help me prove it.

I’m currently putting together another program of Australian queer short film, documentary and video art for the Bangalore Queer Film Festival 2012, like this one from 2009. Like last time, I’m open to anything about any aspect of queer life, sex or gender, that exists beyond the edges of mainstream gay culture – funny, wacky, serious, challenging, thought-provoking, moving or just plain weird.

I’ll be including some amazing films from a program I put together a few months ago entitled “Randy Freaked Out Psychedelic Homosexy Koalas” – from slutty musicals, to arty fantasies about hot babes in the lockup referencing the 90s explosion in gay indy filmmaking, to a gentle comedy about cute girls having an awkward per-zine style literary romance, to digital stories by sex workers.

Get in contact asap and let me know if you’ll be submitting your film, submissions close 20th January 2012.

Contact me here.

Please send a link to a digital version if possible, or you can post a DVD to:

Anna Helme, 191a Smith St, Fitzroy, VIC, 3065

“Sex Wars: The Musical” workshop at Camp Betty

Posted: June 12, 2007 · Comments: 0
Sex Wars the Musical Workshop at Camp Betty

Sex Wars the Musical Workshop at Camp Betty

Sex Wars: The Musical or… Which Side Story (work-in-progress performance/ rehearsal/ audition/ history lesson) In the 1980s and 90s, lesbian communities grappled with a whole heap of arguments around sex and power. What is feminist sex? Does pornography cause rape? And what about consensual violence, where did that fit in? As sex-positive lesbians faced off against radical feminists and anti-pornography activists things got vicious and new lines were drawn: which side are you on? The Lesbian Sex Mafia! Dastardly alliances with Christians! Daggy leather vests! Now what better material could you have for a musical? Drawing on writings from those involved in the sex wars in the US, England and Australia the writers want to bring to life those heady days and investigate the legacies of the time – in song!

At the “Sex Wars – The Musical” workshop at Cloud City in Melbourne for Camp Betty (a weekend of radical sex and politics) Tanya and Esther introduced key debates of the time and the major players. We were given an exclusive sneak preview of the musical – this is a clip of Sammy singing “Nancy” her composition and impromptu performance.

Vagina Dentata

Posted: June 12, 2007 · Comments: 0

Poster for Camp Betty

Poster for Camp Betty

Sister Mary Clancy Of The Overflow Does Vagina Dentata (6mins 37sec, 2007) is a performance by Gaylourdes, evoking the film-theory spectre of the Vagina Dentata, at the Camp Betty Cinema in Melbourne, 2007. This clip formed the first footage for a new collaborative film project exploring the themes of the double, the film within the film, the contamination of reality by dreams and the voyage in time…

Queer film is not just about re-interpreting straight storylines to accommodate ‘gay’ characters – it’s an excuse to play with more than gender and sexuality… super 8, chroma key, sci-fi storylines about aliens and androgynous bisexual nymphomaniac fashion models and remaking Soviet propaganda into a transgender revolution were all examples in the Camp Betty Cinema film programme of how queer film can play with you, and cinema too.

Camp Betty (a weekend of radical sex and politics in June 2007) crowds came along for queer shorts, a performance by Gaylourdes invoking the film theory spectre of vagina dentata in song and dance, 2 minutes of infamy for queer film makers and a screening of the cult 80s sci-fi movie Liquid Sky.

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