The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert is the name of a 1994 Australian film about a trio of drag queens driving across the outback from Sydney to Alice Springs in a large bus they have named Priscilla.
Weaving plays "Mitzi" (he goes by "Tick"), a bisexual transvestite who secured the gig; it is later learned that he set it up so he could go meet his wife and son after a long absence.
Pearce plays Felicia, who is a younger queen than the other two and is fond of getting under their skin.
The chemistry between the three characters is palpable at times as they bicker their way through the desert landscape in Priscilla, a run-down old bus.
The overwhelmingly gaudy costumes of the drag queens is juxtaposed with the rich reds of the sunburnt plains on a number of occasions, giving rise to glorious, saturated shots that recall the images of isolation presented by Nicholas Roeg in Walkabout (1971).
Priscilla has become an important film in the study of Australia's portrayal of sexuality on film, as it is one of the first films, along with Love and Other Catastrophes (1995) and The Sum of Us (1994), to celebrate homosexuality rather than to employ it as a shallow, humorous device.
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