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In
her milestone tenth year as director of the Melbourne Queer Film Festival (MQFF), Lisa
Daniel talks all things cinematic with Andrea
Gilbey.
When
you first took the job did you have any idea it would go for this long?
No way. I was teaching film and had never
run a festival before. I had to learn on the job. I thought I’d be lucky if it
ran for one or two years.
How
has the festival changed in the last 10 years?
 The quality and quantity of the films, ticket
sales and definitely the professionalism of the board.
How
does Melbourne
compete and compare on the international queer film stage?
We’re definitely in the top 5 festivals! We
now get 25,000 people.
Outside
of Melbourne,
which is your favourite film festival?
I’d love to do Sundance, but unfortunately
it clashes with our own. I always enjoy attending Frameline in San Francisco.
You
scoured the globe to bring us this year’s selection, where did it take you?
Because of budget restraints I only visited
the US,
but I now have a well-established global network of contacts that send me
films. This year we had films in from Iran,
Argentina and Taiwan.
Which
film(s) made you laugh and which made you cry?
There’s not an awful lot of humour in this
year’s program, but if it’s laughs you’re after I would say go see Long Ago and for a bit of slapstick, The New World. I cry at a lot of films,
but particularly the doco, She’s A Boy I
Know
This
year’s program has a human rights flavour. How did that come about?
Not by design. When I plan a festival theme
it never comes off. It just happened we had a lot of films in this year with a
strong human rights angle, which will be excellent for the panel discussions. It’s
important that as a festival we offer an educational element to the community
and develop partnerships with other groups, such as the Law Institute.
If
you were given a budget to create the perfect queer film, who would direct and
star in it?
Well, Robert Altman’s my all-time favourite
director. Then I guess it would have to star Angelina, Maggie Gyllenhaal and
Janeane Garofalo in a love triangle, possibly with a very camp Johnny Depp as a
vampire…
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