In Queer Time

Overview

It's not every day that you get to revisit some of the absolute best queer movies of the past few decades on the big screen, and for free — but that's exactly what's on the bill at the Gallery of Modern Art this month. Between Friday, August 12–Wednesday, August 24, the venue's Australian Cinematheque is diving into the recent history of LGBTQIA+ cinema, all thanks to a program called In Queer Time, which is packed with highlights.

The yearning romance of Andrew Haigh's Weekend, which sees casual hookups as more than just a one-night stint of physical attraction, is one such must-see — or must-see-again — flick that's on the program. So too is the iPhone-shot Tangerine, which follows best friends, sex workers and trans women Sin-Dee Rella (Kitana Kiki Rodriguez) and Alexandra (Mya Taylor), and takes place on Christmas Eve.

Or, you can check out Xavier Dolan's debut coming-of-age drama I Killed My Mother, aka the film that catapulted the Laurence Anyways and Mommy filmmaker to fame — or jump back a little further to 1990, and to another debut, thanks to Todd Haynes' (Carol, Far From Heaven) Poison.

Other standouts include Gregg Araki's The Living End, about two HIV+ positive gay men on a road trip across the US; Lynne Ramsay's haunting page-to-screen adaptation of We Need to Talk About Kevin; documentary The Salt Mines, which follows three Latinx trans women; and sci-fi/fantasy Born in Flames from Lizzie Borden.

Films screen on Wednesday and Friday nights, and during the day on Saturdays and Sundays — and, while no one needs a reason to show a lineup of queer greats like this, GOMA is pondering the notion of queer time in each and every film.