Out Takes

It’s no secret we love a film festival and with the Sydney Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras Festival returning  this February, we took the opportunity for this show to spotlight the fantastic Mardi Gras Film Festival and many of the top tier queer films on offer in this year’s program. Queer Screen’s 33rd Mardi Gras Film Festival runs from 12-26 February 2026, presenting outstanding LGBTQIA+ cinema from around the world. Alongside film premieres, audiences can enjoy panel discussions and networking events celebrating global queer storytelling and connection. We wanted to know more about this incredible line up, so we went straight to the source and heard from Andrew Wilkie, the Queer Screen Programming and Industry Manager, about many of the highlights in this year’s program and more.

We also revisited our interview from August last year with the director of one of the highlights in this year’s MGFF program. ‘We Are Faheem and Karun’ is the latest film from Onir, the gay Indian writer, film and television director, editor, screenwriter and producer who is best known for his film My Brother…Nikhil which at the time was one of the first mainstream Hindi films to deal with AIDS and same-sex relationships. He also won the National Award for his film I Am and with his latest film ‘We Are Faheem and Karun’, he creates the first ever queer Kashmiri love story, set in Kashmir itself, and in the Kashmiri language, with local actors. He’ll be a guest at this year’s Mardi Gras Film Festival for a special Q&A screening and as part of the Industry Panel & Networking event so book your tickets now as this session and screening not to be missed.

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With Melbourne’s premiere queer arts and culture festival a.k.a. Midsumma 2026, kicking off on January 18, we dedicated this program to celebrating two fantastic LGBTQIA+ film related events that are coming your way that will leave you entertained and engaged. First up, we always know that the Melbourne Queer Film Festival brings a great selection of films for Midsumma and 2026 is no exception. One of our favourite returning guests, MQFF’s Program Director Ro Bright, joined us to take us through the great line up of films on offer for their 2026 MQFF Midsumma series. Then we turned our attention to a workshop that will help to nurture and inspire the next generation of local queer filmmakers forward with their own projects. Lead by Melbourne based Kiwi born independent filmmaker Lousie Lever, ‘There’s a story in you: a Queer filmmaking workshop’ is on January 24 – 25 with a goal to empower participants to connect with likeminded creatives and learn more about the process of filmmaking. Show your support for these fantastic events and have a very safe, happy, and queer Midsumma!

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Even though we are at the start of a new year, we wanted to take the time to spotlight a TV series that came out at the end of 2025 that has literally taken over social media (and our lives) plus made us all into big fans of ice hockey. ‘Heated Rivalry’ came out in late November and took the internet by storm with its good-looking cast, romantic storylines, and steamy gay sex scenes. As the first season rolled out over six episodes, the fandom grew and it was easy to see why this Canadian-made show set in the world of professional ice hockey was winning hearts all over the world at a time when representation of LGBTQIA characters in television and film are under threat. With the final episode still playing on repeat in our hearts and minds, we took this opportunity to take a look at the ‘Heated Rivalry’ phenomenon and explore its history starting out as a series of novels through to its development as a television show along with its cultural impact broadly and from a gay perspective. We also took a look at some of the films we’re looking forward to seeing and reviewing in 2026 including ‘Pillion’, ‘Supergirl’, ‘Heartstopper Forever’ and more. Happy New Year!

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With 2025 coming to a close, we thought it would be a good time to revisit some of our favourite interviews from the past 12 months. We’ve been fortunate to speak to so many great filmmakers, actors and industry creatives over the year and quite honestly, we could do another 5 of these interview highlight shows and still have more leftover. For this special, we revisited our interviews with Tracie Laymon, Karan Soni, Roshan Sethi, Andrew Ahn and Kate Woods to discuss their respective projects, careers and more. If you enjoy these interviews and want more then you’re in luck – check out more from the past 10 years of the show on our podcast feed and also find us on social media to see what’s coming up on the show too. Happy New Year, we’re looking forward to bringing you more of the best in queer film and television in 2026!

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We know that ‘Best of’ lists can be problematic but with the end of the year fast approaching we wanted to share with you some of our favourite queer films and television shows for 2025. In no particular order, we offered up three picks each that reflected some of the best shows and movies this year that showcased representation from a LGBTQIA+ perspective on our big and small screens or was just something that brought us some joy and that we loved watching in a very challenging year. Let us know if you liked our selections, think we made a mistake or missed one of your faves by dropping us an email or messaging us on our socials. Happy holidays and here’s to a very queer 2026 for us all!

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