Paul Mescal, Penelope Cruz, LGBTQIA+ Classics: They're All on Melbourne Queer Film Festival's 2023 Lineup

When Melbourne Queer Film Festival returns for 2023, taking over a heap of picture palaces around Melbourne from Thursday, November 9–Monday, November 19, it wants you to make a date with two of the internet's boyfriends. And, it also hopes that you'll spend some time in a darkened room with Penélope Cruz. Helping the first dream to come true is All of Us Strangers, as led by Fleabag's Andrew Scott and Aftersun's Paul Mescal. Ticking the second box is the Parallel Mothers star's latest L'immensità. And, they're just two of the highlights on the just-announced MQFF lineup.

This year's celebration of LGBTQIA+ cinema includes 50 feature films and 17 documentaries — sticking with the numbers, it spans 11 short film packages, three world premieres, 26 Australian premieres and 19 Victorian premieres, too — plus the return of the Victorian Pride Centre Rooftop's outdoor cinema. It's a hefty program, all under new Program Director Cerise Howard.

The other venues that you'll be heading to: The Astor Theatre, The Capitol, The Kino, Village Cinemas Jam Factory and Cinema Nova.

All of Us Strangers is the newest effort directed by Weekend and Lean on Pete's Andrew Haigh. Heading to the fest fresh from premiering at Telluride, it adapts Taichi Yamada's 1987 novel Strangers as it charts both a romance and a ghostly experience with the past. As for L'immensità, it has Cruz playing a mum again. This time, she's in 70s-era Rome and navigating struggles in her marriage, while also supporting her 12-year-old when they begin to identify as a boy — with director Emanuele Crialese drawing upon his own experiences.

Other highlights include the fest's three big special-event slots, aka opening night, the centrepiece presentation and closing night. MQFF 2023 will kick off with rom-com I Love You, Beksman, which hails from The Philippines and spins a coming-out story — and Marinette, about French soccer star Marinette Pichon, is getting the mid-festival spotlight. Then, the event will farewell this year with Solo, which follows a makeup artist in the Montreal drag scene.

Film lovers can also look forward to Hirokazu Kore-eda's Monster, which picked up this year's Queer Palm, and is the prolific helmer's latest on a lengthy resume that also includes Shoplifters and Broker; T-Blockers, which is made by a largely queer, non-binary and trans cast and crew; Passages from Love Is Strange's Ira Sachs; and supervillain parody The People's Joker, which gives the caped-crusader realm a queer coming-of-age spin.

There's also Housekeeping for Beginners from You Won't Be Alone and Of an Age's Goran Stolevski; Smoke Sauna Sisterhood, a documentary about an Estonian log-cabin sauna; Melbourne-set Australian effort Sunflowers and Aussie documentary Isla's Way. Or, there's the Berlin-set Drifter, Indigo Girls doco It's Only Life After All, plus the AIDS in Hollywood-focused Commitment to Life.

Or, heading back into sports, Equal the Contest follows regional women's Australian rules football team Mount Alexander Falcons in an exploration of the barriers still faced for women and gender-diverse people on the field.

And those classics? They include the Al Pacino (Hunters)-starring Cruising from iconic The Exorcist filmmaker William Friedkin; La Cage aux Folles, which was remade in the US as The Birdcage; the Alex Dimitriades (The Tourist)-led Head On, as based on Christos Tsiolkas' debut novel Loaded; Ed Wood's Glen or Glenda; and Offside from Iranian director Jafar Panahi (No Bears).

The 2023 Melbourne Queer Film Festival runs from Thursday, November 9–Monday, November 19 at venues around Melbourne. For more information or to buy tickets, head to the festival website.