Life's a Drag

Overview

Due to COVID-19 shutdowns and restrictions throughout the year, the big screens at the Gallery of Modern Art's Australian Cinematheque haven't been shining as brightly as usual in 2020. That's changing with the venue's next retrospective program, with Life's a Drag spending a month celebrating drag in cinema.

Screening for free between Friday, October 23–Sunday, November 22 — with sessions on Friday and Wednesday evenings, and Saturday and Sunday during the day — this curated movie lineup flits between stone-cold classics, movies you should be keen to discover (or rediscover) and a selection of more recent flicks. Drag Kids, a Canadian documentary from 2019, firmly falls into the latter category. Following four kids with a love of performing in drag (yes, as the title suggests), it opens the program.

Other highlights include John Waters' Pink Flamingos and Multiple Maniacs, each starring the inimitable Divine; the Berlin-set, Liza Minnelli-starring Cabaret; seminal 1990 ball culture doco Paris is Burning; and rock musical Hedwig and the Angry Inch. And, if you're wondering about the obvious, The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert is on the bill because of course it is.