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A tight-knit group of revolutionary gay filmmakers in late-1950s former Yugoslavia are shackled by the state to Emir, a communist bureaucrat conditioned to see sabotage everywhere. When the group endeavours to use the Tito regime’s ideological weapons against them, an upended system or the horrors of Barren Island await. Desire—for all of us—can be a heady cocktail. In a society that turns desire inside out, with trust shaken and lover pitted against lover, it becomes a minefield. Dancing cheek to cheek and screwing with abandon turned into revolutionary acts, art a tool for undermining authority. All tactics taken up by professional and romantic partners Lovro (Dado Cosic) and Nenad (Djordje Galic) and their fellow filmmakers (Slaven Doslo, Elmir Krivalic). The four friends determined to savour glimpses of the beautiful lives possible if defense mechanisms could safely fall—a boogie-woogie record; a secluded, seaside house in Istria—as they risk their lives for the cause of freedom. In Croatia’s official submission for the 2025 Academy Awards, the sex is explicit, the stakes and brutality intense, the cinematography stunning. A gutting and rarefied concoction immortalized by writer-director Ivona Juka’s daring cinematic achievement.

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DANISH • FRENCH ST | With In Ashes, writer-director Ludvig Christian Næsted Poulsen grippingly toys with genre. He inflects one Danish collegian’s immersion in frantic hook-up culture amidst a relationship mysteriously ended with elements of psychological horror and the tension of a spy thriller. In 2017 Copenhagen, baby-faced Christian (Rex Leonard, a nervy knockout) is glued to his camera, determined to capture every giddy moment he spends with his long-distance boyfriend Aske (Lior Cohen). Flash forward to 2022 Aarhus, “the most wonderful city in the world,” and a scruffier Christian seems less than content. He interrogates his schoolmate’s perspective and confronts strangers over assumed slights. He’s plagued by an unspoken ailment. And Aske seems nowhere to be found. With each empty tryst, each hungrily inhaled cigarette, Christian descends into a type of madness. Or is it clarity? Aske’s reappearance, arriving with the jolt of a jump scare, may hold the key to that question, as desperation congeals into starry-eyed determination. For those drawn in by the enigmatic pull of All of Us Strangers, In Ashes will have you guessing ‘is this a romance or a tragedy’ until the very last second—perhaps, even, long after.

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Lionel and David have a mutual passion for music and an abiding affection. Their love story, one of parting and reuniting, of the frigid Maine wilderness and the hot cobblestone streets of Rome. The two chasing down scraps of sound and fleeting moments of connection before they may disappear altogether. When vocalist Lionel (Paul Mescal) hears composer David (Josh O’Connor) playing the piano in a Boston pub—a song he knows from back home in Kentucky—it transports him, and the two experience a crackling chemistry. A synesthete, Lionel can “see music,” taste it too. While David has a photographic memory, a thousand songs in his head. Armed with these skills and a case of wax cylinders, the two eventually embark on a trek to capture old folk songs in Maine’s remotest places, including Malaga Island as its Black and Irish residents face eviction. The men pass happy, hardscrabble weeks—though they will have to stray much farther afield before they can complete the song their hearts are singing. Directed by Queer Palm Award-winner Oliver Hermanus (Beauty, I+N22, 2011), The History of Sound is a stirring, tuneful historical drama that will leave you forever moved.

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Irish author Edward Brady is beside himself when literary success calls to him from the US, but the timing couldn’t be worse: he must care for his ailing mother. Then, when his friends—who are (self-proclaimed) THE worst—abruptly fly to Spain for Pride, they saddle him with three more elderly mothers. Edward’s mother, mute from a recent stroke, communicates to him through wry facial expressions and an iPad that imparts her needs, requests, and matronly advice in a feminine robot voice. “Be. Con. Fi. Dent,” she taps onto her keyboard as Edward rushes to answer a Zoom call to give an author interview. Thanks to TikTok, he is now gaining long-awaited recognition for his queer coming-of-age novel, though his decision to travel overseas for a book tour is put on hold when he suddenly finds himself anchored, like the walls of a house, by four elderly mothers. With plenty of claustrophobic close-ups from the camera, Edward is neither here nor there, but loveably neurotic as he stumbles to get out of his own way long enough to claim his future, discovering among his uninvited guests a most unexpected allyship.

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Azad is a transman and aspiring film student who lives discreetly, but happily, with his girlfriend Nora in Iran’s bustling capital, Tehran. After the long and grueling process of acquiring gender affirming care, one last step stands in Azad’s way of medically transitioning–a signature of consent from his estranged father. Farnoosh Samadi presents the heart-wrenching tale of young love strained under the confines of social oppression, where sumptuary legislation enforces dress codes and women can be subjected to ‘virginity tests.’ Even darker shadows lurk beneath the stunning scenery of the remote Iranian village where Azad hails from–a place he is no longer welcome for bringing shame to his conservative and superstitious family simply by being himself. Plagued by strange premonitions, in intermittent and surreal dream sequences, Nora soon finds herself suspicious of her partner’s true whereabouts when Azad suddenly goes missing and his family insists that he has returned to Tehran without her. A slow burn that eventually heats up with riveting intensity, Between Dreams and Hope tells a remarkable story of strength, courage, and resilience that leaves a profound and lasting impression long after the credits have rolled.

CompetitionFeature

A stroke upends 76-year-old Vicente’s recently charmed life in the Canary Islands, forcing him to trade his queer eden for a restrictive care home in San Sebastián—and to consider how essential his sexuality is to his identity. Among the nude forms dotting the Maspalomas dunes is Vicente (Jose Ramón Soroiz), a young man giving him pleasure. After 50 closeted years, this sensual existence is to be his reward. But three months later, he finds himself in a long-term care facility with neither income nor his beloved dog, minded by his estranged daughter (Nagore Aranburu). Paired with a motormouthed roommate (Kandido Uranga) with far right sympathies. Anonymously messaging his carer Iñaki (Kepa Errasti) but rejecting him in person. Camera sweeps and choral flourishes encapsulating a world that moves while he sits still. Then, a new manager brings changes just as he’s assimilated to the pale ghost of his days, dangling the hope of a “real home.” Taking us from 2018 Pride to the 2020 pandemic, directors Aitor Arregi and José Mari Goenaga honour those affected by health crises and the inexorable fact of time’s passage, which alters us in unpredictable ways.

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By opening forgotten boxes in the Montreal Gay Archive Center, fragments of history from the LGBTQIA2S+ community are rediscovered. Among them are Michael and René, the first gay couple to get married in Canada, Linda and Catherine, two owners of the lesbian bar Le Kiev, and Kimura, multidisciplinary artists of diverse origins. The portraits of these diverse characters bear witness to the diversity of Montreal's queer communities.

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João and Vitor, former lovers estranged for 30 years, reunite at 70 after Vitor's wife passes. Together, they reconcile past and present, contemplating a possible future as they face the final chapter of their lives.

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I watch tv so you don't have to. Like the short description summaries that often accompany tv programs though an on-screen cable guide, Don't Ask Don't Tell Gay, Gay, Gay is a jump-cut/short-cut edit that summarizes the content of Season 4, episode 4 of Boston Legal. All excess footage has been removed to capture the mainstream reflection and tone of American discourse around DADT.

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At a secret forest hideout, suburban teen Dani meets her crush Jayde, only to encounter a mysterious, otherworldly presence.

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A lesbian couple must rely on a jaded bartender to work through their recent-breakup bubble to survive a sudden zombie attack inside a dying Queer bar.

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The director revisits a pivotal period of his life, marked by frequent one-night stands. By exploring the complexities of his sexual orientation and the dynamics of his interpersonal relationships, the film immerses us in the era of hook-ups, where fleeting intimacy and the search for identity intertwine.

Made au CanadaDocumentaryVIRTUAL

Celestial Queer celebrates James MacSwain, Nova Scotia's beloved and beguiling queer artist, animator and gay-rights activist who passed away this past September 2025. Born and raised in the “backwater” of Atlantic Canada, MacSwain has been making ground-breaking experimental films, animations and provocative art performances for more than half a century. A quietly outspoken feminist, naturalist, and gay rights activist, Celestial Queer introduces audiences to a charmingly obscure and prolific Canadian artist. Through a combination of playful verité and rarely seen footage from his archive, Celestial Queer accompanies MacSwain and a revolving cast of characters as he revisits everything from the sites of some of his most recognized works to the rocky tidal shores of Nova Scotia. The film also includes rarely-seen footage from the infamous 1984 rooftop ‘Phallus Performance’ during which MacSwain was almost both arrested and charged with obscenity. Jim’s effusive character, prolific work, and community organizing have inspired generations of artists to fearlessly be themselves. Celestial Queer now introduces audiences to one of Canada’s best kept secrets, an artist who is effortlessly charming, engagingly prolific, and subversive to his surrealist core.

CompetitionDocumentaryVIRTUAL

Of the 8.7 million living animal species on Earth, thousands defy our expectations. Inspired by trans evolutionary biologist Dr. Joan Roughgarden’s groundbreaking work, narrator Elliot Page and preeminent queer, BIPOC, and immigrant scientists transcend well-trod narratives, revealing how survival hinges on being the most open to change. The scientific establishment has long been stymied by suppression and resistant to evidence debunking the primacy of three rigid categories: “insatiable” males, “coy” females, and “maladaptive and unnatural” others. But, from university labs to the forests of Costa Rica, that picture is changing, opening our eyes to a nature teeming with variations: polyandrous tamarins and polygamous Capuchin monkeys, “very gay” water fowl and sex-role reversed species like seahorses. We are guided through this diversity by sweeping footage, Caitlin Craggs’ delightfully quirky animations, and mind-blowing facts (for example, did you know 50% of fish on a coral reef are members of a sex-changing species?). In a political present where truth is under attack, Second Nature follows the trailblazers who are shifting the consensus from “sometimes this happens” to a codified science, leaving the “quaint myth” of the binary in the historical dust.

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Army of Lovers tells the untold epic saga of the Sacred Band, an elite force of 150 pairs of male lovers who became the most formidable warriors of the ancient world. This Greek army was formed inThebes in 379 BCE to end Spartan domination. Fighting undefeated for four decades and finally annihilated at the Battle of Chaeronea. Buried on the battlefield where they fell, the 300 were forgotten by history, until a Greek archaeologist discovered the mass grave in 1880. The discovery was never made public and the grave covered up, leading some historians to claim that the Sacred Band never existed. It was only in 2019 that a missing skeleton was found in the basement of the Athens Archaeological Museum, as well as excavation logs with detailed drawings of the grave: it depicted an army of 300 men lying in pairs, their arms linked together. A team of international archaeologists and historians is re-examining the newly uncovered evidence, gaining unprecedented insight into the story of the Sacred Band. Their findings challenge us to rethink our understanding of Ancient Greece and our perceptions of heroism and masculinity across time.

CompetitionDocumentary

In Muslim-majority Malaysia, a queer punk band led by a transman are outliers of the system —carving out spaces to exist through their music while challenging conservative traditions and religious extremism. Brash, defiant and wickedly funny, punk rockers Shh…Diam! are an underground sensation in Kuala Lumpur. An all-queer band led by charismatic trans man Farris Saad, they’ve won devoted fans with playful anthems like “I Woke Up Gay” and “Lonely Lesbian.” Even their name (“Shut up!” in Malay) is a joke, poking fun at those who’d rather queer folks just kept quiet. Malaysia’s harsh laws are no laughing matter, however, and they put Farris and his bandmates at real risk of state persecution. Filming over six years, director Yihwen Chen follows them to practices, gigs and protests, capturing their irreverent advocacy amid a spate of anti-LGBTQ+ raids and arrests. She also documents major developments in their personal lives and relationships, including Farris’s preparations for his surgical transition. Both an iconic portrait of fearless activism and an intimate chronicle of chosen family, Queer as Punk is an instant entry in the queer cult canon.