Queer Filmmaking Practice: Strategies for Resistance

This paper will examine my role as a queer filmmaker in critiquing apolitical homonormativity - the most prevalent form of LGBTQ+ representation in contemporary mainstream Western cinema - through a practice-based research PhD film project titled 'Expulsion'. The 30-minute experimental film imagines an anti-capitalist Queer State whose ideals fail to fully materialise in how it operates, with queer politics and ideals confronting homonormative aspirations to be accepted by society and capitalism. The utopic Queer State devolves from a promised oppositional force into a dystopian bureaucracy as it protects its borders and rejects applicants from entering the state. The casting process will be analysed as it was vital for the integrity of the film’s concept that the cast reflected the racial and gender diversity within the LGBTQI+ community.

Using a critical reflective methodology, this paper will outline strategies that allow representations of LGBTQI+ history and stories to exist outside of and resist assimilation into prevalent homonormative cinematic conventions. These strategies focus on the re-telling of queer lived experience, the re-framing of queer history, and aligning queer politics with environmental concerns in opposition to homonormative politics which value consumption and capitalism.