SQIFF 2026 continues to showcase the very best LGBTQIA+ filmmakers and stories from Scotland and across the world. This year’s euphoric programme embraces experimentation, rebellion, and creating its own mythology. The programme features 27 curated events, over 100 short films, six features, plus an exhibition, poetry, performances, a drawing social, talks, panels, industry events, a craft fair, and a late-night party.
The festival’s diverse programme presents: explorations into the uncanny; tactile experimental filmmaking; illuminating documentaries; erotica, horror, and fairytales; intimate love stories; and apocalyptic odysseys.
The festival’s flagship programme, Scottish Shorts, presents a diverse range of queer talent from Scotland, with the Best Scottish Short Award chosen by a jury of queer icons, including Tyra More, star of I Kissed a Girl Season 2, and BAFTA-winner Chez Oteka.
Five feature films will have their Scottish premiere at SQIFF 2026: I Am Going to Miss You (dir. Daniel Ribeiro) follows transgender couple Amanda and Caio as they try to create a home together, but external forces in their lives make them question their new commitment. In A Frown Gone Mad, director Omar Mismar films patients at Bouba’s Lebanese beauty salon as they haggle and gossip, and are consulted then injected. Meanwhile, the threat of war hovers over the treatment room, anxious questions revealing the decades-long presence of violence in Beirut.
Adam’s Apple follows transgender teen, Adam, and his mother, director Amy K. Jenkins, through two decades of footage chronicling their lives, artistically weaving a rare and intimate portrait of a family in transition. Yapping Out Loud: Contagious Thoughts from an Unrepentant Whore (dir. Mark Karbusicky, Mirha-Soleil Ross) combines sharp political commentary with striking performance documentation, confronting anti-prostitution rhetoric and creating a manifesto for bodily autonomy, solidarity, and freedom for all.
The closing gala will be the Scottish premiere of Hunky Jesus (dir. Jennifer Kroot), a documentary capturing the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence’s massive annual Easter Sunday drag competition for who can be the hunkiest Jesus.
