For this Out Takes, we put the spotlight on three queer filmmakers whose films are featured in this year’s Sydney Film Festival which is on now until June 14. First up, we spoke with Gregg Araki, the legendary gay filmmaker whose latest film ‘I Want Your Sex’ is a queer highlight in this year’s Sydney Film Festival program. Noted for his involvement with the New Queer Cinema movement, 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 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. Next up, we took a look at ‘Joy Boy: A Tribute To Julius Eastman’ which is described as a prismatic, polyphonic tribute by six artists to the prolific visionary queer African American composer and noted as one of the unsung pioneers of 20th century minimalism. Created by a collective of Belgian-Congolese artists, this spell-binding film channels the radical energy of Julius Eastman, a Black, gay iconoclast who challenged the conventions of minimalism, fusing avant-garde techniques with pop and free jazz in 1970s and ’80s New York. Structured in four chapters, the film honours Eastman’s key works through incredible visuals, archival recordings and exuberant choreography. Two of the people involved in the project are curator, researcher, and artist Mawena Yehouessi who positions herself as a “collisionist,” stating she explores the frictions and assemblages between disciplines, formats, and narratives; and composer, artist, and performer Fallon Manyanja who in her work mobilizes different relationships with our environment and social, inter-relational, and self-reflexive ideas. W caught up with the real-life couple online from their Paris apartment to discuss the project in the lead up to it screening at this year’s Sydney Film Festival and we discussed how they first came to know about Julius Eastman and his work, their process in bringing these stories together to explore his prolific career and more.
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