Out Takes

25 Feb 2025

Unusually Normal, Drive Back Home and ‘Moonlight’ with Barry Jenkins

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Unusually Normal, Drive Back Home and ‘Moonlight’ with Barry Jenkins

The on demand program kicks off soon for the 2025 Mardi Gras Film Festival so we looked at two of the fabulous films on offer that will be available to stream nationally from February 28 to March 10.

First up was ‘Unusually Normal’, a heartwarming documentary spanning eight decades that follows the lives of two lesbian grandmothers, four lesbian mothers and one lesbian granddaughter, all in the same family. Through interviews, archival footage and viral TikToks, this extraordinary family shares their journey from hidden relationships to living proudly and openly, highlighting the similarities (and differences) between three generations of gay women. Then we reviewed ‘Drive Back Home’, a dark comedy road movie showcasing the distance that can grow between two brothers amidst the vastness of the Canadian countryside. In 1970s Toronto, Perley (played by festival favourite Alan Cumming) is arrested for having sex with a man in a park. His estranged brother Weldon (Charlie Creed-Miles) is called on to bail him out. With only each other for company, the quirky Perley, his stoic brother and a taxidermied pug are trapped in a car together as they drive cross country back to small town Stanley. Inspired by a true story, this heartfelt film is about reckoning with the past and learning to forgive.

With special screenings of ‘Moonlight’ coming to IMAX this February, we took the opportunity to revisit our interview with the film’s co-writer and director Barry Jenkins. In 2017, Out Takes was in its first year on JOY and we were offered the opportunity to review a new queer independent film from the U.S. that was generating a lot of buzz in the lead up to the 2017 Academy Awards. ‘Moonlight’ is the searing story of a young black man from Miami struggling with his identity and trying to find his place in the world that Rolling Stone called ‘a masterpiece’ and Vanity Fair called it ‘timely and timeless’. We loved this film and knew it was something special so we were honoured to speak with its very talented writer and director in January 2017 about his ground breaking film and some of its more critical themes: representation, identity and masculinity.

We also announced a special giveaway for our Aussie listeners to win a double pass to the hilarious comedy ‘One of Them Days’ starring Keke Palmer and SZA , in cinemas March 6. Check out Out Takes on Instagram and Facebook for more details. #OneOfThemDays © 2025 CTMG. All Rights Reserved.