Warning: this page contains names, images or voices of deceased Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
It’s more than a matter of ‘I Will Survive’: the films, documentaries, newsreels and series in the NFSA collection remind us how the LGBTQIA+ community have challenged and changed Australian attitudes with dignity and an undefeatable dose of queer joy.
Read The pride in looking back
Image: Terence Stamp, Guy Pearce and Hugo Weaving on the set of The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, 1993. Photo: Elise Lockwood. NFSA title: 1489234
The first Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras was a bold demonstration that ended in police attacks and arrests. The winter 1978 protest campaign that followed helped change NSW legislation, laying the groundwork for the month-long, inclusive celebration that Mardi Gras is today.
The documentary Witches and Faggots, Dykes and Poofters (One in Seven Collective, produced by Digby Duncan, 1980) offers an account of the events surrounding the first Mardi Gras march in 1978 by 'the 78ers' (the original protesters), including their subsequent arrests. Restored by the NFSA in 2018, the documentary explores the transformation of derogatory terms into symbols of pride, providing crucial context through contemporary interviews with the 78ers and others fighting for equality.
Watch edited file footage from Ten Network's Eyewitness News of a demonstration on 15 July 1978 – the largest gay rights march in Australia at the time.
Diane Minnis, a co-chair of First Mardi Gras Inc., recalls the 1978 protest campaign as 'full-on, frenetic, with amazing camaraderie among a broad and committed group of people'.
Read Diane Minnis' account of the unprecedented 1978 lesbian and gay rights protests
Gaywaves
Gaywaves debuted in 1979 as Sydney’s first gay and lesbian radio program. Susan Hawkewood and Greg Reading recount the program's beginnings in this clip.
At a time when mainstream media rarely covered LGBTQIA+ issues positively, and homosexual acts between men were illegal in NSW, Gaywaves provided a crucial point of connection and information for the community.
Listen to more clips from Gaywaves in this curated collection, read an interview with Prue Borthwick, and learn about preserving Gaywaves and LGBTQIA+ radio at the NFSA. Finally, hear about the broadcasting of trans and queer voices in episode 5 of Who Listens to the Radio?, an NFSA podcast.
The folk-influenced women's group the Lavender Blues released the first Australian openly gay or lesbian album, Wake Up Sister, in 1978. Listen to the song 'Lavender Blues'
The album Lemons Alive (1983) by lesbian-feminist band Stray Dags reached No. 1 on the independent music chart. Listen to the single 'Self Attack'
The 1990s saw a surge in local LGBTQIA+ stories on the big screen, with international successes offering a nuanced portrayal of contemporary Australia.
Directed by Stephan Elliott, this film stars Hugo Weaving, Guy Pearce and Terence Stamp as two drag queens and a trans woman journeying across the Australian outback.
The film's unashamedly queer sensibility captivated a global audience and won an Oscar for its iconic costumes.
Explore our digital exhibition devoted to The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert
Directed by Ana Kokkinos, this film tells the story of Ari, a 19-year-old Greek Australian grappling with his sexual identity and heritage.
Paul Byrnes writes, 'Ari is caught between everything – Greek and Australian, gay and straight, belief in the future and hopelessness about the present.'
Emma-Kate Croghan's low-budget directorial debut explores the daily life and love dilemmas of Melbourne University students. The film treats the characters' on-again-off-again relationships matter-of-factly, refreshing for the time.
On the eve of his Hollywood breakthrough, Russell Crowe played a gay character on screen when it was still seen as potentially risky for an actor's career. See a clip of Russell Crowe in The Sum of Us (1994)
Before she made Head On (1998), Ana Kokkinos' first feature was about the complexities of teenage friendship and sexuality. See a clip from Only the Brave (1994)
Queer filmmakers and performers have thrived with short-form storytelling, reaching diverse audiences globally.
Joyce Maynge: Dancing On My Own
Sydney drag queen Joyce Maynge delivers a 'Stay Home, Stay Safe' musical message from her apartment roof during the first COVID-19 lockdown in 2020.
One YouTube commentator describes Joyce as 'a beautiful tropical fish that fell out of the tank'.
Joyce Maynge appropriately performs Robyn's 2010 sad banger, 'Dancing On My Own'.
Guest contributor Julie Kalceff reflects on creating the award-winning online series with a skeleton crew on a shoestring budget, focusing on lesbian protagonists who aren’t traumatised by their sexuality.
This short film features Tina Fielding as Sparkles, a woman with Down syndrome, who befriends an outback drag queen, Diamond.
Fielding also wrote the script, which was directed by Jacqueline Pelczar.
A web series combining queer sexual health education with a rom-com storyline.
When Saffie discovers she has herpes, she reaches out to Bek, the one-night stand who ghosted her and the only person she’s ever slept with.
See a clip from the six-part dramedy web series created by Madeleine Dyer and Daniel Mulvihill and set in an under-resourced, regional sexual health clinic.
Sydney filmmaker Stephen Cummins' haunting short films depict gay men in the 1980s and early 1990s. The NFSA digitised and restored nine of his shorts for Sydney WorldPride in 2023.
Resonance (1991) was made after Cummins experienced a homophobic attack, using dance and performance to show healing. It won Best Short Film at the Sydney Film Festival and screened at over 100 international festivals, including the Sundance, New York and Toronto Film Festivals. Resonance received a theatrical release in more than 10 countries and was one of the most successful Australian short films of the 1990s.
Simon Hunt was a creative collaborator on Stephen Cummins' films – made between 1984 and 1995 – and worked with the NFSA on remastering them.
According to Hunt, Cummins' films 'map the changing politics of representation of the human body during that decade'.
See clips from Cummins' films and read Simon Hunt's article about their impact on queer cinema
Explore documentary excerpts highlighting the lives of remarkable individuals, including transgender teen Georgie Stone, photographer William Yang, Aussie cowboy Adam Sutton and former Catholic nun Monica Hingston.
The Dreamlife of Georgie Stone
From award-winning director Maya Newell (In My Blood It Runs) and acclaimed producer Sophie Hyde (52 Tuesdays) comes a documentary short 19 years in the making.
Transgender teen Georgie Stone tackles legislative change and public opinion while affirming her gender and finding her voice.
The Dreamlife of Georgie Stone not only generated a Federal Parliament screening and panel event, but has also streamed in over 90 languages in 190 countries via Netflix.
Chrissy is the world’s first documentary to centre on the story of an HIV+ lesbian, breaking records as the most-watched SBS Independent documentary to date.
Filmmaker Jacqui North recalls making the film about her best friend, which also became a portrait of the last year of Chrissy’s life.
Read about the making of Chrissy and see clips from the film
In this powerful clip, acclaimed photographer William Yang recounts the life of his friend Allan and how AIDS eventually took his life.
The documentary Sadness is based on a theatrical performance developed by Yang and adapted into a film by Tony Ayres, with Yang as the central character.
This clip shows Monica Hingston, a former Catholic nun, describing her mother’s reaction to her coming out as a lesbian.
Hingston wrote a letter to her second cousin, Cardinal George Pell, when he was Catholic Archbishop of Sydney, protesting the church's discrimination against LGBTQIA+ people.
Adam Sutton, horse wrangler and rodeo rider, publicly came out to help counter negative gay stereotypes in rural communities. See an excerpt from Australian Story: Since Adam Was a Boy (1997)
Gay social life in 1960s Sydney
Ken Garrahy's Super8 films are the most substantial known collection of Australian gay home movies to have survived from the 1960s and 1970s. In this clip from the series Homemade History (2008), broadcast on SBS, Garrahy offers commentary on excerpts from his films and discusses the underground gay social clubs of the era.
Writer, actor and creator Steven Oliver, a descendant of the Kuku-Yalanji, Waanyi, Gangalidda, Woppaburra, Bundjalung and Biripi peoples, recorded an online interview with the NFSA in 2020, reflecting on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. In this clip, he talks about treating life as a song that we enjoy rather than trying to rush to the end.
Casey Donovan
Casey Donovan, a Gumbaynggir and Dungari actor, singer and presenter, was the youngest and first female winner of Australian Idol. Her stage credits include Women of Soul, The Sapphires, Flowerchildren, RENT, We Will Rock You, Chicago and 9 to 5.
Mama Alto – the jazz singer, cabaret artiste and gender transcendent diva – sings the Roberta Flack classic 'The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face' on ABC Radio Hobart. Listen to a clip
Thanks to groundbreaking adult soaps like Number 96 and Prisoner – Australia led the way in representing queer characters on TV in the 1970s.
Prisoner
The addictive soap opera Prisoner debuted in 1979 and ran for nearly 700 episodes. Among the lesbian characters on the show was the notorious prison officer Joan 'The Freak' Ferguson (Maggie Kirkpatrick), who unofficially ruled Wentworth Detention Centre with an iron (leather-gloved) fist.
Number 96
Number 96 broke new ground in the 1970s by representing a gay couple and featuring a trans character played by a trans performer, a first on Australian TV. Lebanese-Australian actor Joe Hasham played arguably the world’s first regular, sympathetic gay TV character.
The Box
Paul Karo won the Best Actor Logie in 1976 for playing gay producer Lee Whiteman on the popular adult TV soap The Box (1974–77). Set in a fictional Melbourne TV station, the show also featured Australian TV's first lesbian kiss.
Sweat
Nearly a decade before Brokeback Mountain (2005), Heath Ledger played a gay cyclist grappling with homophobia and coming out in Sweat (1996). Also starring Martin Henderson, Sweat was a drama series for young adults set in an Australian school for athletically-gifted teens.
The Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras has evolved since the 1978 winter gay rights protests, continuing as a celebration of love, protest, diversity, activism, creativity and pride for LGBTQIA+ communities.
This 2018 broadcast by Australia’s first and only LGBTQIA+ community radio station, JOY FM sets the tone for Mardi Gras and gives a shout out to community listening parties around the country in which those unable to attend the parade gather and listen in.
A brief Seven news clip about the 2019 Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras shows Kylie Minogue walking along Oxford Street, surrounded by drag queens and parade-goers. In an interview snippet, Kylie says she’s excited to be back at Mardi Gras and to see how attitudes towards the event have changed. Watch a clip where Kylie talks to Molly Meldrum in 2006 about becoming a gay icon.
The National Film and Sound Archive of Australia acknowledges Australia’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the Traditional Custodians of the land on which we work and live and gives respect to their Elders both past and present.