Sydney’s 12th Queer Screen Film Fest (QSFF) will take place at Event Cinemas George Street from 27 to 31 August 2025, presenting a bold and dynamic program that highlights emerging voices, international excellence and community celebration.

The festival opens with the acclaimed, hotly anticipated Plainclothes, a tense romantic thriller about a closeted undercover cop torn between duty and living his truth, starring Russell Tovey (Looking) and Tom Blyth (The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes).

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Closing the festival is Really Happy Someday, an intimate and empowering drama about a transmasculine musical theatre performer who loses vocal control after starting testosterone, which received the Best Canadian Feature award at the 2025 Inside Out Toronto 2SLGBTQ+ Film Festival. 

Marking both the 40th anniversary of ACON and 30th anniversary of Timothy Conigrave’s cult-classic Australian memoir, head along to a special 10th anniversary screening of Holding the Man, presented with ACON and the Sydney Opera House.

This year, QSFF introduces the inaugural Emerging Narrative Feature Competition, a juried competition awarding a $2,500 (AUD) cash prize to one of six nominated filmmakers presenting their first or second narrative feature. The festival will also continue its support of emerging talent through the popular Queer Screen Pitch Off short film pitching competition, with a combined prize pool of $20,000 (AUD), in partnership with Screen Australia’s Gender Matters Taskforce.

Positioned as a key platform for emerging LGBTQIA+ filmmakers from around the world, QSFF provides valuable opportunities to showcase new work, pitch future projects and connect directly with audiences and industry leaders.

Over five days, the festival will present a curated selection of new queer cinema, including 14 Australian Premieres and the return of the popular Mixed Shorts. QSFF continues to evolve into a more intimate, community-focused experience, inviting audiences to return to the cinema and engage deeply with stories that reflect the diversity and strength of the LGBTQIA+ experience.

“It is an exciting new chapter for Queer Screen,” said Queer Screen CEO Benson Wu.

“This new team has worked tirelessly to bring this festival to life in a short timeframe, and we are proud of the strength, diversity and heart that this year’s program delivers. We look forward to welcoming audiences back into cinemas to share in the joy of queer storytelling.”

At a time when people around the world aim to silence and divide the LGBTIQ+ community, Queer Screen continues to offer a vital opportunity to come together and support each other,” said Andrew Wilkie, Programming & Industry Manager.

“And all the films in this program share that ethos. Stories of people who feel isolated or unseen finding community, friendship and love. Of perseverance and joy. Every film is a chance to not only see ourselves onscreen, but step into someone else’s shoes and gain new perspectives.”

The 2025 program spans continents and genres, showcasing some of the year’s most celebrated titles. Among the highlights are award-winners from the 2025 Sundance Film Festival, including Twinless, a whip-smart, wholly original dark comedy starring Dylan O’Brien and writer-director James Sweeney, which won the U.S. Dramatic Audience Award and Special Jury Award for Acting for O’Brien; and Cactus Pears, a tender, slow-burn romance from India that took home the World Cinema Dramatic Jury Prize.

Other standout selections include Love Letters, a touching French drama that premiered at Cannes Critics’ Week, highlighting the blurring of the personal and political in LGBTIQ+ life as a lesbian couple prepares for the birth of their first child; and Niñxs, a joyful and quietly revolutionary coming-of-age documentary told through the eyes of a Mexican trans child, that premiered at Visions du Réel.

South Korea is strongly represented with striking narrative debut Lucky, Apartment from award-winning documentary filmmaker Kangyu Ga-ram, breaking new ground in Korean queer cinema; and the bold, brash comedy Manok about finding intergenerational queer friendship and joy in a rural small town.

Other anticipated titles include Outerlands, a poignant and introspective drama starring Asia Kate Dillon (Billions) and Lea DeLaria (Orange is the New Black), following a cash-strapped non-binary nanny navigating complex emotional terrain; and Sauna, a steamy Danish romantic drama about two men from different worlds: one whose life revolves around the hypermasculine gay sauna where he works, the other who’s navigating the early stages of his transition.

Closer to home, local filmmaker Bina Bhattacharya (Here Out West) makes her feature directorial debut with From All Sides, a subversive and sexually frank portrayal of a seemingly typical middle-class family in Western Sydney unravelling at the seams.

Tickets for all films are on sale now. Visit queerscreen.org.au.