The truth is queerer than fiction

MEDIA RELEASE COURTESY OF: Queer Doc

QueerDoc, the world's first and largest LGBT documentary festival hits Sydney screens September 9. This year's festival promises a line up of incredible true adventures by some extraordinary queers all around the world, earning the theme THE TRUTH IS QUEERER THAN FICTION.

"This year's QueerDoc is all about tall tales and amazing journeys undertaken by our fellow queers,” says Festival Director, Lex Lindsay. "We wanted the line-up to really capture ideas and images about the impossible things our community are doing, creating and experiencing; and I feel like we've really successfully captured that through a wide cross section of personal experiences."

As per usual, almost all of the QueerDoc documentaries are Australian Premieres. Of particular note is the Centrepiece film RUFUS WAINWRIGHT: PRIMA DONNA, which follows the openly gay pop star as he composes and produces his first mainstage Opera, and the reticence and reluctance he meets from the Classical Music community. "Prima Donna cast Wainwright in a whole new light in my eyes," says Lindsay, "we still see the charismatic star on stage and in interview, but what is most compelling is watching him, the underdog, the writer in the rehearsal room, trying to maintain a familiar sense of creative control. He becomes quite a vulnerable figure in the film and you find yourself right there championing him."

A musical theme continues with LE TIGRE: ON TOUR, Australia's first peek at the live concert-cum-backstage-pass chronicle of infamous, seminal queer band, Le Tigre's final tour. The documentary deftly moves between full stage spectacular to intimate reminiscence between band members JD Samson, Kathleen Hanna and Johanna Fateman.

Festival Opener I SHOT MY LOVE comes direct from taking out the top gong at this year's HotDocs Festival. I SHOT MY LOVE charts the unfolding relationship between two unlikely lovers, the Grandson of Jews who escaped Germany in WWII and the Grandson on Nazis. Seventy years on, their intense and quirky courtship challenges both of their families to face their past and embrace forgiveness and togetherness.

The festival closes with the most extraordinary journey of the crop, FAN, by Dutch director Nienke Eijsink. As a young girl, Eijsink was obsessed with the Australian soap opera The Flying Doctors, discovering her Lesbian desires through her love of leading lady Dr. Chris Randall. Now in her twenties, Eijsink travels to Australia, camera in hand, to track down actress Liz Burch and tell her how she changed her life.

The incredible true adventures begin September 9. Complete program, session info and bookings can be found here.