Melbourne Queer Film Festival’s 36th program opens on a running track and closes in a New Zealand summer.
America’s fastest 1500m runner sets the pace for the 36th Melbourne Queer Film Festival, on from 13 to 22 November.
Julia Schwalb’s documentary Kick opens the Melbourne Queer Film Festival on 13 November with its Australian premiere. It follows Nikki Hiltz as they close in on history at the top level of their sport, while working out how to be openly trans and nonbinary in an arena that rewards fitting in. When the credits roll, the opening party takes over with grazing tables, Stomping Ground beer, Squealing Pig wine, The Melbourne Gin Company and Matéo Soda. DJs and performers are still to be announced.
Centrepiece honours go to Time Warp, Allison Berg’s documentary set in Rock Springs, Wyoming, a mining town in one of America’s most conservative states. There, 25-year-old Kenny Starling opened the town’s first drag and queer theatre company and chose a shadow cast of The Rocky Horror Picture Show as its debut production. The film had its world premiere in competition at Tribeca, with Billy Porter and John Cameron Mitchell among its executive producers. It screens as part of a Tim Curry tribute alongside the 1975 original, directed by Australian Jim Sharman.
Melbourne Queer Film Festival 2026
- When: 13 to 22 November
- Opening night: Kick and opening party, 13 November
- Centrepiece: Time Warp
- Closing night: Big Girls Don’t Cry and closing party, 22 November
- Where: venues across central Melbourne
Stay up to date with what’s happening in and around Melbourne here.
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Closing night on 22 November belongs to Big Girls Don’t Cry, the debut feature from New Zealand writer-director Paloma Schneideman. Set across one summer in 2006, it follows 14-year-old Sid Bookman as she starts copying whoever gets the approval she’s after, with Noah Taylor as her distracted dad. Jane Campion executive produced, and the film premiered in competition at Sundance in January before a special presentation slot at London’s BFI Flare. The Melbourne Queer Film Festival closing party follows, with the same drinks partners pouring.
Elsewhere, Jeffrey Schwarz’s Mineshaft: The Cruising Murders digs into the protests that dogged William Friedkin’s 1980 thriller Cruising and the real murders that inspired it. The festival is screening Cruising too, so you can watch both and argue about it at the bar. Lukas Dhont, the Belgian director behind Close, brings Coward, a first world war romance between a young soldier and a flamboyant tailor. Sandra Hüller’s Silver Bear-winning performance as a woman passing as a male soldier in 17th-century Germany anchors Rose. Closer to home, Lee Galea’s Tender Boy has its world premiere, following a bartender and a footballer who wants to come out before the AFL draft.
Brokeback Mountain and a 10th anniversary screening of Moonlight are back on the big screen. First Nations Films, a package curated by Erub and Larrakia woman Aaliyah Bradbury, gathers work from Australia and Timor-Leste. Last year’s festival ran over 11 days; this one is a day shorter. Tickets and passes are on sale now, and every one bought through the festival website earns entries into a United Airlines draw for two return economy flights to the USA – one entry for a single ticket, up to 20 for an All Pass.
For more information, head here.
