Special Presentations
Please click on the posters to read about the films
Opening Shorts Program LOVE = PEACE
Wed Jun 4, 8.30 PM / St. Andrews Auditorium
Opening, Closing & Special Presentations
Centerpiece Films
DANCING DHAMAAL!
Director: Nimisha Mahatme
5 min / 2024 / No Dialogues / USA / Animation Short
An animated Bollywood music video where Aadarshini, feeling out of place, finds acceptance and joy
through her unique dance style after being inspired by the graceful Parvati at a wedding.
THREE
Director: Amie Song
15 min / 2024/ USA / Mandarin, English
At a home gathering, a Chinese woman who has recently moved to the United States to live with her
daughter tries to keep her daughter’s secrets from her new friends.
KOUPEPIA
Director: Yorgo Glynatsis
11 min / 2024/ UK / English, Modern Greek
Petros, a Widowed Cypriot Man, attends his son’s engagement party although tolerant of his son’s homosexuality he is yet to be truly accepting of him. Over ‘Koupepia’- a traditional Cypriot delicacy, he meets Eleni – a British Cypriot Transgender Woman.
LEO
Director: Fernando Reinaldos
14 min / 2023 / Spain, USA / English / Narrative Short
On their last day together before he moves to Los Angeles for college, Leo and Kai hide in the sports center where they have always played basketball. What starts as a prank ends with Leo confessing his feelings for his best friend Kai.
Opening Feature
Thu Jun 5, 7.45 PM / Cinepolis Screen 3
QUEER
Director: Luca Guadagnino
137 min / 2024 / Italy, USA / English, Spanish, French
William Lee (Daniel Craig), an American expat and heroin addict in Mexico City, spends his days almost entirely alone, except for a few contacts with other members of the small American community he lives in. His encounter with Eugene Allerton (Drew Starkey), an expat former soldier, makes him believe it might finally be possible to establish an intimate connection with somebody.
Closing Film
Sun Jun 8 10.15 PM / Cinepolis Screen 3 & 4
CLOSE TO YOU
Director: Dominic Savage
100 min / 2023 / Canada, UK / English
Sam (Elliot Page) hasn’t been home since his transition, and after four years in Toronto, he takes a long-dreaded trip back to Cobourg for his father’s birthday. On the train there, he runs into Katherine (Hillary Baack), a friend from high school with her own complicated life now, and feelings from their unresolved past begin to bubble to the surface. Close to You is an emotionally observant drama about coming home as yourself, only for everyone to treat you like a completely different person. It’s a powerful new film from star and producer Page, capturing an all-too-familiar experience, as Sam exercises patience with his family’s baseline acceptance and well-intentioned clumsiness.
Tribute to Mr.Shyam Benegal
Fri Jun 6, 7.45 PM / Cinepolis Screen 3
MANDI
Dir: Shyam Benegal
167 min / 1983 / India / Hindi
This classic film is based on a classic Urdu short story ‘Aanandi’ by Pakistani writer Ghulam Abbas. It deals with a brothel at the heart of a city, in an area that some politicians want for its prime locality. They rally up against the brothel and its inhabitants in the name of morality, and soon everyone in the area jumps on the bandwagon. The politicians offer to put up an alternative residence for the sex workers, only this place is miles away, isolated from the city. The madam of the house has no choice but to comply, but by the end things take a (logical) turn for the better. After all, men will be men.
Special Presentation
Sun Jun 8, 12.00 NOON / Alliance Francaise
OUT
Director: Dennis Alink
95 min / 2023 / Netherlands, Germany / Dutch
Capturing the recklessness of youth and the excitement of newfound sexual liberties in sensuous black-and-white cinematography, Dennis Alink’s Out offers up a vivid and tender tale of being young and gay. Tom (Bas Keizer, in a star-making performance) and Ajani (an effervescent Jefferson Yaw Frempong-Manson) are closeted secondary school sweethearts who yearn for life outside of their small-minded, rural community in the Netherlands. Their solution is Amsterdam, where the queer scene is thriving and they can work at their dreams of becoming filmmakers. Quickly falling into the Dutch capital’s gay nightlife offers the pair some initial thrills: cheeky games of Never Have I Ever, limo rides across the city, eye-opening trips to the bathhouse. But the challenges quickly follow, pushing them to separately question: “Who am I, and where do I fit in?”
Indian Narrative Centerpiece
Sat Jun 7, 8.00 PM / Cinepolis Screen 3
WE ARE FAHEEM & KARUN
Director: Onir
75 min / 2025 / India / Urdu / Hindi / Kashmiri / English / Malayalam
A young security man, Karun from south of India, is posted in Gurez, a remote village in Kashmir, North of India. One day a young Kashmiri man, Faheem, with a disarming smile appears at the check post. This is the beginning of a romance between Karun and Faheem. A romance that is doomed right from the beginning. One man who cannot be open about his identity because of homosexuality being considered a taboo in the context of religion and the man he loves cannot be open about his identity in his profession. Shot in the border area of India and Pakistan this is the first Kashmiri language LGBTQI+ themed film. A doomed romance, the film explores themes of love, family, friendship, religion, duty and the impact of geopolitical conflicts on personal lives.
International Narrative Centerpiece
Sat Jun 7, 12.45 PM / Cinepolis Screen 3
THREE KILOMETERS TO THE END OF THE WORLD
Director: Emanuel Parvu
105 min / 2024 / Romania / Romanian
Adi (17) is spending the summer in his home village in the Danube Delta. One night he is brutally attacked on the street, the next day his world is turned upside-down. His parents no longer look at him as they did, and the seeming tranquility of the village starts to crack.
Indian Documentary Centerpiece
Fri Jun 6, 5.30 PM / Alliance Francaise
I AM REVATHI (Njan Revathi)
Director: Abhijith P
115 min / 2025 / India / Kannada, Malayalam, Tamil
Njaan Revathi (I am Revathi) is a brief journey into the life of transwoman A. Revathi, a writer, activist, and actor. It depicts the lifelong ordeals and struggles of a trans person. Revathi left her home in Namakkal, Tamil Nadu in the mid-1980s and lived in the hijra communities of Delhi, Mumbai and Bengaluru. Over the years, she became a trans rights activist, a well-known writer , speaker and a theatre actor. As Revathi and her contemporaries narrate her eventful life, the documentary explores the lives of trans people in India.
International Documentary Centerpiece
Sat Jun 7, 10.45 PM / Cinepolis Screen 4
IF I DIE, IT’LL BE OF JOY (Si Je Meurs, Ce Sera De Joie)
Director: Alexis Taillant
80 min / 2024 / France / French
In a world that underestimates the power of the elderly, Micheline, Francis and Yves lead a group of older activists on a daring journey to revolutionize senior living, challenging stereotypes and judgments while redefining the notions of sex, love, and aging.
