RIOT

Jeffrey Walker 2018 Australia 105min english
Synopsis:
There is a moment, late in director Jeffrey Walker’s Riot, when Marg McMann (a sensational Kate Box) breaks down in the midst of a custody battle for her children. In this exquisitely acted scene, the audience is hit viscerally with the impact of years of fierce activism and the brutality of the New South Wales police, of a society drenched in homophobia, of dehumanizing laws. Worn out, depressed, and tired of in-fighting, the Gay Solidarity Group is desperate for a solution. Beginning briefly in 1978 on the night of the inaugural incarnation of the now famous Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras, the film takes the audience back to 1972, leading them through the relentlessly courageous attempts at liberation that led up to that solution through the eyes of the Group’s leader, Lance Gowland (Damon Herriman). Affectingly direct about tough issues of sexual assault and suicide and about revealing the tensions within the Group, including misogyny from its male members, Riot memorializes an integral and gripping chapter in the fight for equality, experienced one loss, hug, protest, and celebration at a time. – Michael Belcher