The 33rd Mardi Gras Film Festival, run by Queer Screen, wrapped with a slate of awards and funding announcements that underline its ongoing investment in Australian queer cinema. Over its run the festival celebrated features and shorts, handed out completion grants to local projects, and spotlighted emerging performers and filmmakers — all designed to help queer stories move from festival buzz to wider audiences.
A mix of jury-selected prizes and audience-voted awards reinforced the festival’s dual role: a curator of bold, contemporary work and a practical backer that helps films get finished, seen and sold. Two flagship initiatives were front and centre: the Queer Screen Completion Fund, aimed at closing the gap for projects stuck in post-production, and My Queer Career, Australia’s largest short-film prize for LGBTIQ+ creators. Below is a rundown of winners, funding recipients and the on-demand highlights to catch after the festival.
Queer Screen Completion Fund: two grants of $5,000 each
Since 2016 the Queer Screen Completion Fund has been helping Australian LGBTIQ+ filmmakers take narrative features and documentaries over the finish line. A jury that included Bobby Romia, Kath Shelper and Greg Waters awarded two $5,000 grants this year — targeted at sound, colour, festival delivery materials and other final-stage needs that can determine a film’s festival and distribution prospects.
Cooee — a rural queer sci-fi
Cooee, directed by Toby Morris, is a queer sci-fi coming-of-age set two decades into the future in regional Australia. It follows teenagers in a town squeezed by declining opportunities who chase risky escapes — fast cars, roo hunting, and immersion in virtual worlds. Morris deliberately steers the film away from glossy futurism, instead locating its future in the grainy textures and social realities of rural life. The Completion Fund will go toward finishing the picture’s technical and delivery elements, boosting its readiness for festivals and potential buyers.
How Quickly Clouds Move — intimacy meets confrontation
How Quickly Clouds Move, co-directed by Armin Džafić, Richard Jamze and Natalie Rose, stages a late-night reunion that escalates from tentative catching-up into a raw confrontation about family, culture and sexuality. The film pairs quiet, intimate moments with sharper, high-energy scenes to probe how young people navigate aspiration and despair amid regional economic decline. The directors thanked Queer Screen for supporting independent queer voices and helping their film move closer to a festival-ready master.
My Queer Career: short-film prizes and special awards
My Queer Career remains the biggest short-film prize in Australia for LGBTIQ+ creators. This year’s prize pool topped $16,000 in cash and in-kind support. Eight shortlisted shorts were judged by a panel including Blahboom Wisarut, Tianna Roberts and Vic Zerbst, with awards handed out for Emerging Performer, Emerging Filmmaker, Best Screenplay, Best Film and an Audience Award.
Shorts on the shortlist
The programme showcased a wide range of tones and concerns: Baby Talk (Lizzie Cater); Billie and Jesse (AP Pobjoy); Boyish (Scarlett Scherer); The Dysphoria (Kylie Aoibheann); Howl (Domini Marshall); I’m the Most Racist Person I Know (Leela Varghese); If/When (Courtney Westbrook); and Inheritance (Mohammad Awad). Together they explored friendship, identity, transition, internalised prejudice and fraught family ties — mixing intimate character studies with sharper social critique.
Notable prize winners
– Emerging Performer: Luke Wiltshire for Boyish. Wiltshire’s prize includes a NIDA essentials course and a festival flexipass. Boyish examines a friendship tested by a request for a kiss-as-experiment. – Emerging Filmmaker: Mohammad Awad for Inheritance. Awad’s drama about Ameen returning home after his father’s death comes with a Panavision camera hire package and a flexipass. – Best Screenplay (shared): Ziggy Resnick and AP Pobjoy for Billie and Jesse, a screenplay that navigates relationship upheaval as one partner begins transitioning.
Best Film and Audience Award
Leela Varghese’s I’m the Most Racist Person I Know took home both Best Film and the Audience Award. The short follows Lali after a public romantic gesture backfires, forcing a confrontation with internalised prejudice. The combined prize package includes post-production support, cash, legal advice and automatic entry to the international Iris Prize competition — a boost that can meaningfully raise a film’s international profile.
From festival recognition to distribution
Festival awards do more than decorate a poster: they increase curator interest, attract sales leads and improve the chances of festival-to-platform deals. The Completion Fund and My Queer Career prizes are designed with that pipeline in mind, giving filmmakers the polish and industry access that make wider release possible.
A mix of jury-selected prizes and audience-voted awards reinforced the festival’s dual role: a curator of bold, contemporary work and a practical backer that helps films get finished, seen and sold. Two flagship initiatives were front and centre: the Queer Screen Completion Fund, aimed at closing the gap for projects stuck in post-production, and My Queer Career, Australia’s largest short-film prize for LGBTIQ+ creators. Below is a rundown of winners, funding recipients and the on-demand highlights to catch after the festival.0
A mix of jury-selected prizes and audience-voted awards reinforced the festival’s dual role: a curator of bold, contemporary work and a practical backer that helps films get finished, seen and sold. Two flagship initiatives were front and centre: the Queer Screen Completion Fund, aimed at closing the gap for projects stuck in post-production, and My Queer Career, Australia’s largest short-film prize for LGBTIQ+ creators. Below is a rundown of winners, funding recipients and the on-demand highlights to catch after the festival.1
A mix of jury-selected prizes and audience-voted awards reinforced the festival’s dual role: a curator of bold, contemporary work and a practical backer that helps films get finished, seen and sold. Two flagship initiatives were front and centre: the Queer Screen Completion Fund, aimed at closing the gap for projects stuck in post-production, and My Queer Career, Australia’s largest short-film prize for LGBTIQ+ creators. Below is a rundown of winners, funding recipients and the on-demand highlights to catch after the festival.2