MQFF’sPride program opens with a compilation of revelatory shorts, all recently restored, documenting 1970s queer activism and the birth of Pride parades in Australia and the US.

The headliner is Digby Duncan’s iconic Witches and Faggots, Dykes and Poofters (1980), which documents the inaugural Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras on 24 June 1978 and features interviews with original 78ers, attesting to the grassroots activism behind this event, and the police brutality which blighted it. 

Also included: Lilli Vincenz’s Gay and Proud (1970), covering the first Christopher Street Liberation Day Parade, held in New York City in June 1970 to commemorate the first anniversary of the Stonewall Riots; Gay Power (1971) from legendary artist-activists Sharon Hayes, Kate Millett and the Women’s Liberation Cinema; Ronald Chase’s Parade (1972), on San Francisco’s first official gay pride parade post-Stonewall, and Freedom Day Parade (1974) by legendary Boys in the Sand director, Wakefield Poole, which was shot at the San Francisco Gay Freedom Day.