Film strikes chord with festival win

Todd Neighbour stars as Marcus. 174376 Picture: STILL FROM MARCUS

By Bonny Burrows

A short film, produced and filmed in the Cardinia Shire about the experience of coming out as a transgender, has won an international award.
Marcus, written and produced by a group of Cardinia Shire’s LGBTIQA+ youth group Be Yourself members, is about the way family and friends react when Marcus comes out as transgender.
The 13-minute film is making its way around the international film festival circuit, and recently won an award at the Real to Reel Global Youth Film Festival in Los Angeles, America.
Todd Neighbour, who plays the title character, said the movie, while fictional, was based on the isolation the LGBTIQA+ community can experience when coming out.
“We wanted to make a queer movie because we’re queer. We found there’s lots of same-sex couples who are portrayed in movies, but there’s also a lot of trans people as well, who aren’t as represented,” Todd said.
Humorous but at the same time touching, the film pulls no punches when it comes to the discrimination LGBTIQA+ people face.
“These things; are they even human?” Marcus’s neighbour, Cathy Andrews asks in a scene.
Percy Jones, who also starred in the film as Marcus’s supportive friend, said it was important to the group that there was a happy ending.
“All of the trans films are really depressing and we didn’t want that,” Percy said.
Well-known comedians Cal Wilson, Lori Bell, Broden Kelly, Demi Lardner, also feature in the film, which was shot on location at Cardinia Shire Council’s Pakenham My Place youth facility.
The film was funding through a $50,000 VicHealth Bright Futures Funding grant, with the total cost coming in at about a quarter of the funding’s amount.
While the script was written in “dribs and drabs”, it took the young people just four months to get the project from funding to production.
Nym McGowan, who plays Marcus’s at-first unsupportive sibling, was surprised with the overwhelmingly international positive reactions to the film.
“I didn’t think people would like it, we weren’t expecting it,” Nym said.
“None of us have expected what has happened.”
Cardinia Shire Council youth services officer Miranda Luck, agreed, saying that while it was a goal to submit the short-film into film festivals, never in their wildest dreams did they think they would win.
Along with its Real to Reel Youth Film Festival award, Marcus has also been shortlisted for the Sydney and Roma Film Festivals.
It has also had screening at the 2017 Tilde Melbourne Trans and Gender Diverse Film Festival.