Melbourne To Host Inaugural Trans & Gender-Diverse Film Fest

Melbourne's cinematic landscape is about to get a whole lot more inclusive with the announcement of the program for this month's inaugural tilde Trans and Gender Diverse Film Festival.

Held at Trades Hall's Bella Union Bar from November 21-23, audiences at tilde will have the chance to enjoy five feature-length films and a collection of shorts, centred on themes such as community, struggle, love, solidarity and the reclamation of space, and exploring issues and scenarios such as intergenerational exchanges, the heightened oppression levelled against trans people of colour, navigating relationships, the fight for healthcare and recognition, and the toll taken after years of physical and emotional abuse.

Tilde promises a poignant, evocative roster of films sourced from all around the world, offering a broad range of cultural perspectives to our own national understanding and acceptance of gender-diverse people. The program launches with the US-made Boy Meets Girl (2013), directed by Eric Schaeffer, which screens on opening night and is accompanied by a post-screening welcome party with sets from DJ Narcissique and a live performance from Simona Kapitolina.

Following launch night, punters will have the chance to check out the tilde Shorts series, which promises a range of powerful short films from around the world tackling prickly topics, while remaining sessions will see screenings for further features including part-musical, part-documentary My Prairie Home (Canada, 2013, directed by Chelsea McMullan), the complicated love affair and transitional journey of Germany's Romeos (2011, directed by Sabine Bernadi), the resilient love story of Sweden's She Male Snails (2012, directed by Ester Martin Bergsmark), and closing-night documentary Kumu Hina (Hawaii, 2014, directed by Dean Hamer), which will be accompanied by another doco, short Aussie film Brotherboys Yarnin' Up, starring tilde guest and Wuli Wuli/Waka Waka brotherboy Kai, and Wiradjuri brotherboy Dean in a candid discussion about what exactly it means to be a brotherboy.

Tilde's mission is a simple one - to enable more positive and authentic representations of gender diversity, as well as encouraging dialogue between and cross local and global communities. The festival is running in partnership with the Sydney Transgender International Film Festival, held this December.

Tickets for the first tilde Melbourne Trans and Gender Diverse Film Festival are available now via Bella Union. For more information about the festival itself, head over to the event's website.