Out Takes

For this Out Takes, we featured two interviews and a review that highlighted local and international queer content and excellence on on our big and small screens. Our first interview was with the very talented and engaging Jesse Lewis IV, a US based gay black actor who has been working in film and television for over 20 years and is back on our small screens in ‘Route 187’ where he plays Ms Stu, a formidable neighbourhood matriarch who shelters the broken and the hunted. As a male actor portraying a transgender woman, Lewis said he approached the role with an awareness of the responsibility involved and that his goal was to move beyond imitation and build a complete human being whose femininity is only one dimension of her identity. In this two part interview, we discussed his career, his experiences in the industry and more. Our second interview was with a local podcast duo that review local and international LGBTQIA+ cinema and TV shows. Brett and Lee are not only the hosts of Rainbow Popcorn but they are also siblings who are queer which brings a fun and fresh take on the regular film and TV review format. Over the next few months, they are hosting ‘Origins Series’ which are monthly events at Eclipse Cinema with local filmmakers that feature a screening of a local queer short film on the big screen, a live interview and audience Q&A with the filmmaker and a screening of the cult, classic or queer film that inspired their work. They describe it as an an opportunity for audiences to discover exciting local talent while gaining a unique insight into the creative process. And with Celebrate Bisexuality+ Day on September 23, our review for this program was ‘The Bisexual’, a six part series from director, writer and actor Desiree Ahkavan that follows New Yorker Leila who lives in London in a seemingly perfect decade-long lesbian relationship with her girlfriend and business partner Sadie. However, cracks start to appear in their lives and when her personal relationship with Sadie is put on hold, Leila starts to explore the fact that she is actually bisexual and begins to explore her orientation. As she struggles to come out to her friends, Leila makes some major life decisions that lead to quite a few unexpected consequences. This show is ambitious, funny and a much needed piece of Bi-representation on our television screens.





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For this Out Takes, we dived back into the witchy world of Practical Magic (the original and the recently released sequel) to see if this beloved sisterly tale of curses, loss, love and family stood up after all of these years and whether the sequel was as magic as we hoped. With the reunion of Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman back on our big screens together after 28 years and the introduction of openly gay actor Lee Pace as a mysterious magical figure and potential love interest, our hopes were high so take a listen to see if it cast a spell on us. We also checked out ‘Dang!’, a new adult animated series that  follows two messy, aimless siblings in New York City whose chaotic lives are turned upside down when their high-achieving older sister crashes their routine after her own life blows up. Created by Andrew Law, the series stars Law alongside Stephanie Hsu and Poppy Liu and is very funny, very silly and super queer. We finished up this show by revisiting our interview with Josh Sharp and Aaron Jackson, the delightfully quirky gay duo behind ‘Dicks” The Musical’ which is streaming now and shares a lot of DNA with ‘Dang!’ including the fact that both of them voiced characters in the series.

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For this Out Takes we went to Italy and then back to Victoria with a pit stop in Adelaide and Barcelona to speak to two of our guests about a brilliant book they’ve collaborated on with a group of academics to explore LGBTQ+ diversity and social change in Aussie film and television. First up we celebrated the return of the St Ali Italian Film Festival across Australia this September by reviewing ‘Armani and the Birth of Italian Fashion‘, a new documentary that traces the rise of Italy’s style empires through the story of the legendary families that have been ruling it for decades and have defined an era: Armani, Versace, Gucci, Valentino, Missoni, Zegna, Ferragamo, Prada and more. Set against Milan’s lavish and exclusive fashion sanctuaries, the film explores creative rivalries, personal stories and the enduring love affair between Hollywood and Italian designers. Next we headed to regional Victoria to look at ‘Constructing Change’, a wonderful short documentary from Alex Riches who joined us to discuss the film, its upcoming screenings this September plus the importance of women and gender-diverse representation in the construction and film industries. We finished up this program featuring a two part interview with media scholars Rob Cover and Stuart Romeo-Richards who are two of the authors behind ‘Australian Queer Screens’, the first book-length study of Australia’s rich history of LGBTQ+ film and television, covering histories, production, screen representation and audience identities.

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For this program, we decided to follow the KISS principle (keep it simple, stupid!) and feature a selection of reviews and recommendations for TV shows and films that we have recently enjoyed and wanted to make you all aware of too. Up first, ‘On the Road’ is an intense drug, violence and sex-fuelled Mexican thriller directed by David Pablos that introduces us to Veneno, a young hustler who makes ends meet by sleeping with drivers at truck stops in exchange for cash or drugs. He seemingly has no family nor long-term plans; so, when one of his clients stiffs him, he decides to hitch a ride to the other side of the country. Enter Muñeco, a hardened forty-something trucker estranged from his wife and kids, who offers Veneno a seat in his 18-wheeler. As the men drive across northern Mexico, walls come down and feelings develop – but can the pair outrun the demons from Veneno’s past? The film won the Queer Lion at Venice as well as the festival’s Orizzonti Award for Best Film and is a great addition to the line-up of excellent queer films we’ve had hit out big and small screens in 2026. Then we moved on to ‘The Invite’; directed by Olivia Wilde from a screenplay by Will McCormack and Rashida Jones, this very funny, intense, and heartbreaking feature is an English-language remake of the 2020 Spanish film ‘The People Upstairs’ and stars Seth Rogen, Olivia Wilde, Penélope Cruz, and Edward Norton. Our next pick was ‘Ride or Die’, a new TV series that was created by Tessa Coates and stars Octavia Spencer and Hannah Waddingham, who also serve as executive producers. The story follows two long-time friends who have to go on the run from a mysterious enemy, and it turns out that one of the friends is secretly a highly trained assassin. We finished up by revisiting our interview from March with AP Pobjoy, the writer and creator of ‘Homebodies’, a brilliant local series that came out in March of this year via SBS, that celebrates trans visibility and Australian queer storytelling. ‘Homebodies’ stars Claudia Karvan, Luke Wiltshire, and Jazi Hall, and follows Darcy, a trans man who reluctantly returns to his regional hometown to care for his estranged mother, Nora. But home isn’t as he left it. Nora has been living with a secret housemate: Dee, the teenage ghost of Darcy’s pre-transition self. As old wounds resurface, Darcy must confront the parts of himself he tried to leave behind or risk losing himself entirely. It’s must-see Aussie TV for many reasons including Claudia Karvan’s Silver Logie award winning performance for Best Supporting Actress in a Drama series.

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For this Out Takes, we looked at two very different queer films adapted from much loved books, got the scoop on the program of one of our favourite Sydney queer film festivals and revisited our interview with Gregg Araki, whose latest film is in cinemas this week. First up was our review of ‘Here the Whole Time’ from Brazilian writer and translator Vitor Martins whose debut novel won the Best Translated Young Adult Book award from the Global Literature in Libraries Initiative and is published in 9 countries. The story follows a 15 day period during their school break where two young guys are thrown together and come to realise that all of the things on the surface that make them so different is also the ingredients that bring them together. The book was described as the ultimate feel-good YA romance which celebrates body positivity, self-acceptance and standing up to bullying and homophobia and it is now a gorgeous and uplifting feature film available to watch now on Netflix. Next up we took a look at ‘The Chronology of Water’, the directorial debut from Kristen Stewart that is adapted from Lidia Yuknavitch’s autobiographical bestseller. Brought up in an environment torn apart by violence, abuse, alcohol and extreme trauma, the story follows Lidia’s journey to find her own voice in an exploration of how trauma can be transformed into art through re-possessing our own bloody histories, particularly those uniquely experienced by the bodies of women and girls. We then moved on to the 13th Queer Screen Film Festival which is back on in Sydney from September 2 – 8 and on demand from the 9 – 16. This year’s program features 28 films plus the return of the Queer Screen Pitch Off Competition and Emerging Narrative Feature Competition, and, for the first time, Queer Screen Studio — a high-octane day of masterclasses, practical panels, and elite networking, from mastering the perfect investor pitch to navigating global festival circuits and post-production secrets. We caught up with Queer Screen’s CEO Benson Wu and it’s Programming Assistant Celeste Diep to get all of the details on this year’s festival including the special guests and events on offer alongside a great line-up of feature and short films. We finished up by revisiting our interview from June with Gregg Araki, the legendary queer filmmaker noted for his involvement with the New Queer Cinema movement whose latest film ‘I Want Your Sex’ is in select Australian cinemas from August 27. His filmography includes the Teenage Apocalypse film trilogy from the 90’s and his 2010 film ‘Kaboom’ was also the inaugural winner of the Queer Palm at the Cannes Film Festival. His latest film stars Olivia Wilde, Cooper Hoffman and Charli XCX in what has been described as an enjoyably outrageous, risqué sex-comedy, set in the Los Angeles contemporary art scene. We jumped at the chance to speak with him earlier this year and in this interview, we discussed his motivation for telling this story, his influence on the lead characters and how he feels now about being labelled one of the pioneers of New Queer Cinema.

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