It is no secret that we love a documentary at Out Takes and we’re excited to welcome back one of our favourite local annual film festivals that turns the spotlight on new documentaries with many from a queer perspective. The Melbourne Documentary Film Festival is back in cinemas and online throughout July with an incredibly diverse and eclectic mix of Australian and International films. Our special guests for this show were Dawn Mikkelson and Keri Pickett, the co-directors of ‘Finding Her Beat’, an incredibly entertaining and engaging film that follows an international all-female troupe who perform Taiko, the Japanese drumming art that has been off-limits to women for centuries. They joined us for an in-depth discussion on what it took to capture the essence and energy of the people and performances behind the scenes and on screen in this beautiful and captivating feature length documentary that is screening at Cinema Nova on July 25. We also reviewed ‘Annie Lennox, from Eurythmics to campaigner, the journey of a pop icon’ which is a French production that explores the impact and career of the iconic artist along with two local short films ‘The Kids Turned Out Fine’ and ‘Boy Angel’ which are all screening and streaming as part of this year’s MDFF.