The story starts with two drag queens and a former Les Girls transgender woman contracted to perform a four-week drag show at a resort in the remote Australian desert town of Alice Springs.

It’s 1994, and as the trio drive west from Sydney aboard their pinkish lavender bus christened Priscilla, the road trip becomes a rollercoaster of vignettes about identity, sexuality, homophobia and resilience.

Spectacular costumes, divas, 1970s disco hits and that performance of an aria from Verdi’s La Traviata on top of the bus, the iconic film The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert sealed its fate in our cultural zeitgeist forever.

Premiering at a midnight screening in Cannes, and starring Hugo Weaving (Mitzi), 64, Guy Pearce (Felicia), 56, and Terence Stamp (Bernadette), 86, the cult-camp classic is about to celebrate its 30th birthday on September 8.

And everybody is gearing up for a big bash.

Special screenings

Major cinema complexes, independent chains including the Lido and RMIT University are holding special screenings, Q&A sessions and panel discussions.

The Priscilla-inspired annual Broken Heel Festival has a four-day party based at the Palace Hotel in Broken Hill, where scenes from the original film took place.

National treasure Marcia Hines is even billed to hold a “disco inferno” show on opening night.

Why does the film still resonate?

RMIT’s School of Media and Communications associate professor Stephen Gaunson, whose fellow panelist is its Oscar-winning costume designer Tim Chappel, tells The New Daily there really is no other film like Priscilla.

“The film celebrates the LGBTQ+ community … it is not a film about conflicted characters in any form, it is a film about characters standing tall for who they truly are.

“There is a strong message here that is still not rarely seen.

“These characters are also perfectly nuanced. They are not stereotypes or cliches in any form. They feel authentic and real.”

‘Where are you blokes from?’

The National Film and Sound Archive remembers the film for being one of the first to question the male stereotypes of the 1970s and ’80s on the big screen.

In one scene, the three drag queens walk into the Palace hotel and order Bloody Mary, a lime Daiquiri and a Vodka tonic to the amusement of the locals.

They all end up drinking and becoming friends but when they return to Priscilla, they’re shocked to find her defaced and covered in graffiti with homophobic slurs.

“Outside their home community in Sydney, there is no truly safe place for these three friends,” NFSA curator Paul Byrnes wrote.

Isolation and vulnerability

“The script constantly reinforces the sense of their isolation and vulnerability.

“Their response to adversity is to frock up and become ‘even more fabulous’ – even if no one can see them on top of the bus in the middle of the desert.”

Byrnes says Priscilla attacked “the Crocodile Dundee mythology of the essentially harmless heterosexual outback male”.

“These same types of men, usually depicted in bars in Priscilla, can be suspicious, violent, vulgar and extremely intolerant, especially when confronted with alternative definitions of masculinity.

“The film’s cultural masterstroke was to impose an extreme aesthetic of artificiality (the drag queens) on a natural desert landscape of equal extremity.”

Hugo Weaving’s headpiece continues to inspire costume designers around the world. Photo: AAP

International impact

The Stephan Elliott-directed film joined the list of 1990s Australian blockbusters that made a huge impact internationally, including Muriel’s Wedding, Strictly Ballroom and The Sum of Us.

The soundtrack was an immediate hit, loaded with classics like I Will Survive, Finally, Mamma Mia and Shake Your Groove Thing which are still on repeat.

It was even celebrated at the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games.

Weaving went on to make Proof and The Interview before scoring a lead role in The Matrix and Lord of the Rings franchises.

Pearce’s career similarly took off, with LA Confidential and Memento, while Stamp was already a star from the 1960s and returned to the big screen.

As for Priscilla, she was abandoned and eventually found in NSW and returned to a museum for safekeeping.

“The film has been enhanced by the rise of its stars [Weaving and Pearce] … there is something about watching this as their breakout film,” Gaunson said.

He says the film remains a “seminal text in Australian culture resonating with new audiences every year”.

“It also proves that mainstream Australian audiences are willing and accepting of storylines about the LGBTQ+ community”.

The three men are in pre-production for Priscilla Queen of the Desert 2.