Sydney Film Festival 2026 with special guests Gregg Araki, Mawena Yehouessi and Fallon Manyanja

About this episode

The episode features interviews with three queer filmmakers showcasing their films at the Sydney Film Festival 2026.

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…

People in this episode

Guests: Gregg Araki, Mawena Yehouessi, Fallon Manyanja

Topics covered

• queer cinema
• film festival
• interviews
• LGBTQ+ filmmakers
• New Queer Cinema

Keywords

• Sydney Film Festival
• Gregg Araki
• queer filmmakers
• I Want Your Sex
• Joy Boy
• Julius Eastman

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Sydney Film Festival, Cannes Film Festival

Books & works: I Want Your Sex, Joy Boy: A Tribute To Julius Eastman

More episodes of Out Takes

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• Sydney Film Festival 2026 featuring William D. Caballero for TheyDream and Dean Francis for Body Blow · May 25, 2026 · 50 min
• German Film Festival with special guest Faraz Shariat and reviews of The Mysterious Gaze of the Flamingo and Mother Mary · May 21, 2026 · 52 min
• ‘Going Down’ with special guest Haydn Keenan and ‘A Private Life’ review · May 12, 2026 · 52 min
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