The inaugural Queer Screen Film Festival (QSFF) is screening over 4 fantastic days with our favourite inner west venue partners, the Dendy Newtown and the Newtown Hotel.

Our retrospective journey at the Newtown Hotel will start with But I’m a Cheerleader starring Natasha Lyonne and Clea DuVall as lovestruck teenagers at an ex-gay conversion camp, the emphasis seriously on camp.

Followed by Shortbus, by John Cameron Mitchell (Hedwig and the Angry Inch) which is a mid 2000’s look at a sexually diverse ensemble trying desperately to connect in New York. Then Mala Noche, Gus Van Sant’s first feature, this 1986 black and white film-reviews, shot mostly on 16mm, is an American queer classic.

We return to Dendy Newtown, with this year’s Berlin film Festival Teddy winner, In The Name Of, a Polish film that follows a gay priest taking over a small town parish.

A special sneak preview of the new Australian film Around the Block set in inner Sydney, Christina Ricci plays a teacher who is forced to face her own sexuality whilst helping her students to live their truth. This screening will be introduced by Ruby Rose, who has a cameo role in the film

Our festival ends at the Newtown Hotel with Lawrence Anyways, the French Canadian drama which won the Cannes 2012 Queer Palm and Un Certain Regard Award for Best Actress (Suzanne Clément). The film follows thedoomed love of Fred and Lawrence over the course of a decade, as Lawrence transitions from male to female.

This is the third film from Xavier Dolan (I Killed My Mother, Heartbeats), the multi award-winning, 24-year-old French-Canadian director.

Queer Screen film Fest

19 to 22 September 2013:

Dendy Newtown and the Newtown Hotel