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Programme Announced for
Queer Spectrum Film Festival 2026
at the Irish Film Institute, Dublin
Powerful stories and moving images
from LGBTQIA+ migrants and
queer people of colour around the world
12 – 14 June 2026
TICKETS ON SALE NOW: ifi.ie/queer-spectrum-film-festival-2026/
Images free to use across media can be downloaded HERE
Tuesday, 12 May 2026: The Irish Film Institute (IFI), Dublin is delighted to announce the third edition of the Queer Spectrum Film Festival (QSFF), a vibrant celebration of queer stories in motion. As Ireland’s first film festival dedicated to LGBTQIA+ people of colour and migrant voices, QSFF foregrounds powerful narratives shaped by migration, desire, nostalgia, intimacy, community, and transformation. This year’s theme, Tender Migrations: Queer Journeys Through Desire, Transition, and Healing, explores how queer lives are continually reshaped across borders, generations, and identities.
Across three days, QSFF 2026 presents four acclaimed international feature films alongside three specially curated shorts programmes, which map the rich landscape of contemporary queer cinema. Together, these features are a multi-faceted look at stories of migration, memory, survival, and queer identities across diverse cultural landscapes.
Opening the festival is the Irish Premiere of Treat Me Like Your Mother (Friday, June 12th, 18.30 – Irish Premiere) by Lebanese filmmaker Mohamad Abdouni, an intimate documentary uncovering intimate histories of transfeminine experiences in post-war Beirut. Through a blend of personal archives and storytelling, the film traces decades of visibility, survival, and social integration within the city, preserving histories too often erased from public memory. The screening will be followed by a discussion with director Mohamed Abdouni.
Out Laws (Saturday, June 13th, 14.30 – Irish Premiere), directed by James Lewis and Lexi Powner, follows Namibian activist Friedel Dausab’s fight against preserving histories too often erased from public memory. An insightful weaving of queer struggles across Namibia, Sri Lanka, and Barbados emerges in a powerful celebration of resistance, solidarity and courage. The screening will be followed by a discussion with director James Lewis.
Japanese director Anshul Chauhan’s moving drama TIGER (Saturday, June 13th, 16.00 – Irish Premiere) explores family expectations, queer intimacy, and self-reinvention through the story of a gay masseuse returning home to confront his past and imagine a different future.
Closing the festival, Xiaodan He’s Montréal, ma belle (Sunday, June 14th, 19.40 – Irish Premiere) follows a Chinese immigrant and mother living in Montreal as she embarks on a journey of forbidden love and long-overdue self-discovery, reckoning with identity, exile, and the steep cost of liberation. The screening will be followed by a discussion with director Xiaodan He.
The festival’s three shorts programmes further expand these themes through bold, experimental, and deeply personal filmmaking from emerging and established voices around the world.
Living with HIV (Saturday, June 13th, 17.00), the first shorts programme, presented in partnership with Poz Vibe Tribe, explores HIV stigma, queer survival, resistance, and collective healing through documentaries and experimental works spanning Tunisia, Ireland, and the UK.
Intimate Colours (Sunday, June 14th, 15.00), the second shorts programme, brings together vibrant films exploring queer desire, race, drag performance, migration, and self-expression, from underground nightlife in Hong Kong and Singapore to reflections on love, identity, and belonging across multiple continents.
The final shorts programme, Tender Migration (Sunday, June 14th, 17.20), explores queer survival, self-expression, and chosen kinship through intimate and inventive storytelling. Blending experimental works with powerful narratives, these films examine migration, gender identity, forbidden love, cultural inheritance, and resilience against social constraint
Running parallel to the screenings will be Spectrum Lab, supported by Screen Ireland. Spectrum Lab, taking place in the IFI Tiernan McBride Library, creates a space for learning, dialogue, and community-building among underrepresented creatives. Eight selected filmmakers and creative producers will have the opportunity to take part in the programme, attending workshops and talks with established international filmmakers and local curators and industry professionals. Those interested in applying should visit https://www.qapi.ie/spectrumlab for more information.
Responding to Ireland’s evolving role as a place of refuge and possibility for LGBTQIA+ migrants from the Global South and East, the festival moves beyond familiar coming-out narratives to centre stories of becoming, resilience, and belonging. Organised by Queer Asian Pride Ireland (QAPI) with the support of Screen Ireland and community partners, QSFF honours those who carry memories of home while courageously imagining new futures. These films breathe with vulnerability, resistance, joy, and the beauty of transformation.
FESTIVAL SCHEDULE
Friday 12 June
18.30 Treat Me Like Your Mother | Irish Premiere Directed by Mohamad Abdouni, 75mins, Lebanon, 2025. Documentary. This film will be followed by a 20 minute panel discussion with director Mohamad Abdouni.
Saturday 13 June
14.30 Out Laws | Irish Premiere Dir. James Lewis, Lexi Powner, 84 mins, United Kingdom, 2026. Documentary. This film will be followed by a 30 minute panel discussion with director James Lewis.
17.00 Living with HIV | Shorts Programme Presented in partnership with Poz Vibe Tribe. 155 mins (including panel discussion).
20.00 TIGER | Irish Premiere Dir. Anshul Chauhan, 126 mins, Japan, 2025. Drama.
Sunday 14 June
15.00 Intimate Colours | Shorts Programme 100 mins.
17.20 Tender Migration | Shorts Programme 100 mins.
19.40 Montréal, ma belle | Irish Premiere Dir. Xiaodan He, 118 mins, Canada, 2025. Drama.
Preceeding short: Fluid Dir. Diana Tenti, 1.58 mins, Ireland, 2026.
This screening will be followed by a 30 minute panel discussion with feature director Xiaodan He. Presented in partnership with Dublin Lesbian Line.
FILM NOTES
FRIDAY 12TH JUNE 2026 | 18.30
Opening Film
Treat Me Like Your Mother | Irish Premiere Directed by Mohamad Abdouni, 75 mins, Lebanon, 2025. Documentary. This film will be followed by a 20 minute panel discussion with director Mohamad Abdouni.
Blending personal archive and documentary storytelling, Treat Me Like Your Mother uncovers intimate transfeminine experiences in post-war Beirut. Drawing from a rare five-year photographic archive of trans women in Lebanon, the film revives the untold stories of four remarkable women whose lives trace decades of visibility, survival, and social integration within the city. Against a backdrop of rising hostility toward queer communities, the documentary becomes both an act of remembrance and resistance.
SATURDAY 13TH JUNE 2026 | 14.30
Out Laws | Irish Premiere Dir. James Lewis, Lexi Powner, 84 mins, United Kingdom, 2026. Documentary. This film will be followed by a 30 minute panel discussion with director James Lewis.
Out Laws follows Namibian activist Friedel Dausab as he figts to preserve histories too often erased from public memory. Amid threats, public scrutiny, and rising hostility, Friedel’s fight becomes a symbol of hope for LGBTQ+ communities seeking dignity and freedom. Connecting Namibia’s struggle to activists in Sri Lanka and Barbados, the film is a powerful celebration of resistance, solidarity, and the courage required to confront injustice and imagine liberation.
SATURDAY 13TH JUNE 2025 | 17.00
Living with HIV | Shorts Programme Presented in partnership with Poz Vibe Tribe. 155 mins (including panel discussion).
Blending documentary and experimental filmmaking, this programme explores HIV stigma, queer survival, and resistance across different histories and geographies. From Tunisia’s hidden HIV crisis to Britain’s racist and homophobic response to AIDS in the 1980s, these films reclaim memory, visibility, and care as acts of defiance, offering a powerful reflection on resilience, activism, and the ongoing struggle for dignity, justice, and collective healing.
FILMS:
Exile Dir. Yesmine Fersi, Lina Hamouda, Minyar Mrabti, 45 mins, Tunisia, 2025. Experimental.
In Tunisia, a silent HIV epidemic spreads within the country’s repressed queer community, hidden beneath layers of societal stigma and discrimination. The film tells the stories of two individuals who navigate the harsh realities of living in a country where their identities are illegal, and healthcare is inaccessible due to fear and shame.
Reframing AIDS Dir. Pratibha Parmar, 36 mins, UK, 1987. Documentary.
Reframing AIDS (1987) is a 35-minute documentary film by activist filmmaker Pratibha Parmar that counters homophobic and racist narratives surrounding the 1980s AIDS crisis in Britain. It challenges the “gay plague” rhetoric, examining state harassment and centring the voices of lesbians and gay men of colour. It is recognised as a crucial form of cultural activism that challenges one-dimensional, discriminatory representations of the pandemic. The film was featured in the “Women in Revolt!” exhibition at Tate Britain (2024-2025).
Out of Shadows Dir. Pradeep Mahadeshwar, 15 mins, Ireland, 2025. Experimental Documentary.
SATURDAY 13TH JUNE 2026 | 20.00
TIGER | Irish Premiere Dir. Anshul Chauhan, 126 mins, Japan, 2025. Drama.
Returning to his hometown after learning his father is critically ill, Tiger, a 35-year-old gay masseuse navigating Tokyo’s underground queer economy, is forced to confront family expectations, inheritance, and his own future. As tensions rise with his sister, who threatens to out him, Tiger reconnects with old friends and unexpectedly finds himself caring for his young niece. Through these encounters, he begins to question what family, belonging, and intimacy might look like for him, imagining new possibilities beyond traditional norms.
SUNDAY 14TH JUNE 2026 | 15:00
Intimate Colours | Shorts Programme 100 mins
Spanning documentary, experimental, and narrative cinema, this programme brings together bold queer voices from across the world. These films explore intimacy, identity, performance, migration, race, and belonging through deeply personal and politically resonant stories. From underground drag culture in Hong Kong and Singapore’s trans history to reflections on love, self-image, and queer desire, each work challenges systems of erasure and normativity. Together, they create a vibrant, emotional portrait of LGBTQ+ lives navigating vulnerability, resistance, and the search for connection.
Almost There Dir. Mina Eusebio, 2 mins, Ireland, 2026. Experimental.
A young trans woman struggles with her appearance while getting ready to go out.
A handsome man Dir. Marcelo Núñez, 7 mins, Peru, 2025. Experimental.
Being called handsome is such a weird thing, especially after being left out many times by different men. The handsome promised he would never allow himself to be hurt again, even after the right one just appeared in his life. Can the promise of true love overcome the fear of pain? Is it a risk worth taking?
A ( ) Job Interview Dir. Wenhao Shen, 15 mins, China, Ireland, 2026. Experimental.
A Chinese gay man attends a series of increasingly absurd “job interviews” that mirror the micro-aggression, negotiations, and power dynamics of gay hookup culture in Dublin.
The Art of Cruising Dir. Fadzli Jambari, 4 mins, Singapore, 2026. Documentary.
A gay man describes the frustrations and thrills of picking strangers up for sex and the intimate encounters that ensue in uncanny, deserted pockets of Singapore.
a_blurred_fluxx_00.avi Dir. Osadolor Osawemwenze, 26 mins, United States, 2026. Experimental Documentary.
As an experimental documentary, a_blurred_fluxx_00.avi delves deep into the nuance of today’s Blackqueer youth. This dynamic and non-linear supercut provides a carefully crafted audiovisual space for the multiplicity of Blackqueer self-expressions.
Twilight Ladies Dir. Alexe Liebert, Alain Soldeville, 11 mins, France, 2026. Documentary.
In the 1950s Singapore’s transgender community began to settle in the Bugis street area. Attracted by the street reputation as « the Montmartre of Singapore » tourists and sailors from all over the world came to enjoy themselves until dawn, sometimes being seduced by trans women dressed like divas. In the early 1980s, an urban renovation project planned to demolish the area.
We Were No Desert Dir. Agustina Comedi, Chiachio & Giannone, 13 mins, Argentina, 2026.
This short film was born from an installation by Argentine textile artists Chiachio & Giannone. In it, a group of dancers, wearing dresses crafted and sublimated by the artists, challenge the choreography of the “Pericón,” the national folk dance, to question the portrayal of a homeland projected as white, binary, and civilized. The film rejects the conquest imaginary that narrated a void erasing diversity: we were no desert.
Where do we go? Dir. Shabnam Singla, 6 mins, Estonia, India, United States, 2026.
A letter from a queer, BIPOC daughter to her mother, describing her visit to a western dreamland, turns into a journey between this new city and herself.
Hong Kong Heels – 港出我天后 Dir. Elias Fritz, Carlos Laux y Silió, 20 mins, Germany, Hong Kong, 2026.
Pan lives two lives. During the day, he is the son of a traditional Hong Kong family. But at night, he transforms into the unapologetic drag queen Pansze Diva, entertaining the underground of the city. While building their own drag house, they are still figuring out their own identity.
SUNDAY 14TH JUNE 2026 | 17.20
Tender Migration | Shorts Programme 100 mins.
Across borders, languages, and generations, this programme explores queer survival, self-expression, and chosen kinship through intimate and inventive storytelling. Blending experimental works with powerful narratives, these films examine migration, gender identity, forbidden love, cultural inheritance, and resilience against social constraint. From a transgender wizard searching for belonging to lovers reunited through memory and rebellion blooming amid political violence, each story reveals the fragility and strength of queer lives. Together, they form a moving tapestry of resistance, care, transformation, and self-acceptance.
My Love Is On The Reduced Shelf Dir. Leonardo Oliveira, 3 mins, Ireland, 2026. Experimental.
My Love Is on the Reduced Shelf is an experimental short film that uses the metaphor of discounted supermarket products to explore power, desire, and intimacy within relationships shaped by migration, language, and colonial gaze.
Handwoven Dir. Dasha Levin, Mason Cazalet, Mihika Das, Matthew Wisdom, 9 mins, India, Ireland, Mexico, United States, 2026. Experimental.
A lyrical portrait of Nikyle Begay, a non-binary shepherd and weaver; working to preserve their way of life through the traditional art of weaving.
My Comrade Dir. Tathagata Ghosh, 25 mins, India, 2025.
When a wounded rebel accidentally takes refuge in the home of a tribal villager, both the men’s lives spiral into a tense interplay of politics and forbidden love.
Circle Dir. Ferhat Ertan, 10 mins, Turkey, 2026.
The chador brought to the tailor’s shop will confront Arif with his own reality once more.
Merlyn’s Beard! Dir. Almudena Zúñiga, 2 mins, United Kingdom, 2026.
It is a funny, light-hearted story filled with magic and wonder; it’s a story about self-acceptance. It follows Merlyn, a transgender wizard who really wants a beard to fit in and match his idols. He and his trusty companion, a Maine Coon Merp, as he is trying new and creative ways to make beards, as they go wrong and he starts to lose hope, Merp breaks him out of his spiral and helps him realise he is awesome just the way he is.
4 Better or 4 Worse Dir. Ronjay-C Fernandez Mendiola, 18 mins, Philippines, 2026
Trapped in an abusive home and desperate to live as her true self, Jennifer risks everything to transition using unsafe, black-market hormones. When she reaches the verge of her death, her chosen family — Barbara, Tintoy, and Bianca — step in, joining beauty pageants to raise money for her survival.
Abjad Hawaz (أبجد هوز) Dir. Hadi Moussally, 5 mins, Lebanon, 2026.
Blending fashion, music, poetry, and performance, the film reclaims a language often feared and misunderstood, turning it into a celebration of identity, resilience, and artistic freedom.
The Wandering Trees Dir. Jianan Li, 24 mins, China, 2025.
After watching a play about the wandering trees, a broken-up lesbian couple reunites and revisits their shared memories, exploring their current attitudes towards love to fix this doomed relationship.
A KIN SIN Dir. Gulzar G, 5 mins, Canada, 2026.
A young queer adult seeks to understand their transness amidst their familial and cultural wishes.
SUNDAY 14TH JUNE 2026 | 19.40
Closing Pre-Feature Short Fluid Dir. Diana Tenti, 2 mins, Ireland, 2026.
Embodying nature’s fluidity in a playful dance with daffodils and chirping birds.
Closing Film Montréal, ma belle | Irish Premiere Dir. Xiaodan He, 118 mins, Canada, 2025. Drama.
Feng Xia, a 53-year-old Chinese immigrant and mother living in Montreal, has spent her life shaped by duty, to her family, her culture, and a loveless marriage. But when she meets Camille, a spirited young Québécoise, a long-buried desire is awakened. During the joyful Montreal summer, Feng Xia takes the radical step of choosing herself, embarking on a journey of forbidden love and long-overdue self-discovery. Her awakening becomes a profound reckoning with identity, exile, and the steep cost of liberation.
NOW BOOKING
Book now for cinema screenings via https://ifi.ie/queer-spectrum-film-festival-2026/ or via IFI Box Office in-person or over the phone via 01 679 5744.
Non-Member: €15.50 (Standard) €12.50 (Concession – Third Level Student, over 65, Unwaged, eligible for Disability Allowance, Asylum seekers and Refugees, a member of Irish Equity, or HSE Staff)
IFI Member: €13.50 (Standard) €11.40 (Concession – Third Level Student, over 65, Unwaged, eligible for Disability Allowance, Asylum seekers and Refugees, a member of Irish Equity, or HSE Staff)
Season bundles are available for IFI Members only (including features and shorts programmes):
3 Screening Pass*
€30
7 Screening Pass*
€70
These bundles can only be booked by IFI Members in-person or by calling the IFI Box Office on 01 679 5744. See https://ifi.ie/support for full details on IFI Membership and to sign up.
QSFF TEAM
Founder, director and programmer – Pradeep Mahadeshwar (He/They)
Festival management support – Prateek Bhardwaj (He/Him)
QSFF 2026 JURIES
Dr. Meishan Zhang (She/her)
Kay (She/Her)
Prateek Bhardwaj (He/Him)
QSFF SPONSORS:
Screen Ireland
Certified Proud
Gay Health Network (GHN)
Outhouse LGBTQ+ Centre
Dublin LGBTQ+ Pride
LGBT Ireland
Dublin Bears
Maharani Gin
QSFF COLLABORATORS:
Poz Vibe Tribe
TITE film festival
Dublin Lesbian Line
QSFF SUPPORTERS
GAZE International LGBTQIA Film Festival, GCN, Asian & Irish Community Connect CLG, The Grá.
IFI SUPPORT
The IFI acknowledges the support of the Arts Council.
About the IFI
The Irish Film Institute (IFI) is Ireland’s national cultural institution for film. It provides audiences throughout Ireland with access to the finest independent, Irish and international cinema, including online via its streaming platform IFI@Home; it preserves and promotes Ireland’s moving image heritage through the IFI Irish Film Archive, and provides opportunities for audiences of all ages and backgrounds to learn and critically engage with film. As the only cinema with a 70mm projector, the IFI is the home of film in Ireland with a commitment to analogue exhibition.
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EAFFI DISCOVERIES: YAKUSHIMA’S ILLUSION 18.15
FATHER MOTHER SISTER BROTHER 15.40, 20.25
HOKUM 20.35
ONCE UPON A TIME IN A CINEMA 13.25
PRIMAVERA 15.30
ROMERÍA 13.00, 18.00
ROSE OF NEVADA 18.10
THE STRANGER 15.15
TRAD 13.10, 20.50
The IFI is supported by The Arts Council
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