AllMovie

The 1992 Sydney Mardi Gras was a much-heralded gay event in that city. This documentary focuses on the gay community in Australia and Sydney in the year preceding the Mardi Gras, as well as covering the event itself. What is shown demonstrates a lively and exhuberant gay community in Australia which, despite many advances in social acceptance, still clearly has a long way to go. In evidence of this, the names of those who have died of AIDS are not read aloud during a showing of the Australian AIDS "Name Project" quilts. This is a customary practice elsewhere in the world, but was seen as too risky in Australia. Other footage covers the reaction of conservative elements in the country's society which are adamantly opposed to gays in any form. A brief history lesson helps make clear where the local term for homosexuals (cannibals) came from, and makes clear just how much the community has already achieved.