Greetings from the Korea Queer Film Festival Executive Committee.
We are pleased to announce the results of the international submissions for the 2026 26th Korea Queer Film Festival.
This year, we received a total of 362 entries from 56 countries, and through a careful review process, 21 films have been finally selected.
Please note that individually invited films, apart from those chosen through this open call, will be announced later along with the final lineup introduction.
We look forward to the lives and perspectives of LGBTQIA+ people that the selected films will beautifully bring to the screen.
1. Programming Note (All Domestic & International Selection)
The selection process for this year’s Korea Queer Film Festival began with a question: What kinds of relationships are shaping our lives today, and how are we reaching out to one another? As we followed this question through a diverse range of films, we encountered moments where different temporalities of life converged into a single current.
For the domestic section, we selected thirteen films in total—twelve shorts and one feature-length film. Rather than focusing on grand events or declarative statements, this year’s selections center on the subtle tremors of emotion that emerge within intimate relationships. Moving between love and friendship, care and distance, choice and hesitation, the characters continually negotiate the distance between themselves and the world. These emotional shifts, arriving like fractures within ordinary daily life, reveal that queer lives are not confined to any fixed framework, but are instead continually questioned, unsettled, and reshaped. Through quiet observation—and at times through humor and fantasy—these stories open up new possibilities of perception within the realities we already inhabit.
Meanwhile, the international shorts section presents twenty films organized around five sub-themes. From lives forced to prove their existence before borders and institutions, to moments of crossing into a new chapter at the threshold where endings and beginnings meet; from journeys of rediscovering oneself through acts of writing and recording, to attitudes of resilience that refuse to relinquish possibility even within a deadlocked reality—these films reveal, in layered ways, that queer experience does not remain confined to the inner self, but continually collides, negotiates, and transforms in relation to the world. Though these stories emerge from different languages and places, the question running through them is one and the same: How do we exist in this world, and how can we reach one another?
Lastly, for the international feature section, we selected three films. Following the traces of memory left behind after the loss of a loved one, confronting the tension between queer lives and the family as one of society’s oldest institutions, and portraying love that continues in strange and unexpected ways even beyond death, all three films gaze toward a shared truth at the heart of relationships: that another person can never be fully known. To understand someone may not mean arriving at complete comprehension, but rather continuing, again and again, to live alongside what cannot fully be understood without abandoning it altogether. Through this process, we come to encounter not only others, but also parts of ourselves we have yet to know.
The films presented at the 2026 26th Korea Queer Film Festival do not offer definitive answers. Instead, through moments where different trajectories of life intersect, they invite us to reflect on the emotions, imaginations, and diverse ways of relating that shape queer lives in the contemporary moment. We hope that within the landscapes these films create, audiences will see their own experiences reflected and discover a sense of connection with others. Precisely because we cannot fully understand one another, we continue to question, choose, and reach out once more. And perhaps it is within that very movement that we may discover new possibilities for the world we inhabit together.
2. Contact
- Korea Queer Film Festival Executive Committee kqff@kqff.co.kr
3. International Official Selection*
* Listed in alphabetical order.
1) Born at Night
- Spain | 2025 | 18min | ⑮ | Short
- Director | Alba Cros Pellisé
2) Far Far Away From LA
- Argentina | 2025 | 17min | ⑲ | Short
- Director | Rita Hostt, Maruja Bustamante
3) GLITTER
- Poland | 2025 | 17min | ⑫ | Short
- Director | Konrad Kultys
4) Heartbroken for Good
- France | 2025 | 9min | Ⓖ | Short, Experimental
- Director | Camille Simon Baudry
5) How's Archie?
- Canada | 2025 | 16min | Ⓖ | Short
- Director | Jessie Posthumus
6) kiss kiss bang bang
- Netherlands | 2025 | 28min | ⑫ | Short, Documentary, Experimental
- Director | Ollie Launspach
7) Kotowari
- France | 2025 | 22min | ⑫ | Short
- Director | Coralie Watanabe Prosper
8) Lucrecia & The Witches
- Mexico | 2025 | 23min | ⑫ | Short
- Director | Eduardo Lecuona
9) Mia Mio
- Luxembourg | 2025 | 21min | ⑫ | Short
- Director | Roxanne Peguet
10) No Contest
- France | 2025 | 18min | ⑫ | Short
- Director | Olivier Wright
11) Pakka
- Netherlands | 2025 | 19min | ⑫ | Short
- Director | Iniyavan Elumalai
12) Room 206
- France | 2025 | 17min | ⑫ | Short, Documentary
- Director | Laurie Bisceglia
13) Scaredy-cat
- Kazakhstan | 2025 | 11min | ⑮ | Short
- Director | Assel Aushakimova
14) Skin on Skin
- Germany | 2025 | 30min | ⑮ | Short
- Director | Simon Schneckenburger
15) The deepest is the skin: LGBT60+
- Brazil | 2025 | 23min | ⑮ | Short, Documentary
- Director | Rafael Medina
16) The Deepest Space in Us
- Japan | 2025 | 98min | ⑮ | Feature
- Director | Yasutomo CHIKUMA
17) The Man in the Showers
- France | 2026 | 14min | ⑮ | Short
- Director | Hakim Atoui
18) The Swimsuit
- Austria | 2025 | 11min | Ⓖ | Short
- Director | Amina Krami
19) TIGER
- Japan | 2025 | 127min | ⑲ | Feature
- Director | Anshul Chauhan
20) Uncovered
- Canada | 2025 | 6min | ⑫ | Short, Animation, Experimental
- Director | Max Vannienschoot
21) Yet to be Named
- Japan | 2025 | 39min | Ⓖ | Short, Experimental
- Director | Mizuki Ebayashi
Greetings from the Korea Queer Film Festival Executive Committee.
We are pleased to announce the results of the international submissions for the 2026 26th Korea Queer Film Festival.
This year, we received a total of 362 entries from 56 countries, and through a careful review process, 21 films have been finally selected.
Please note that individually invited films, apart from those chosen through this open call, will be announced later along with the final lineup introduction.
We look forward to the lives and perspectives of LGBTQIA+ people that the selected films will beautifully bring to the screen.
1. Programming Note (All Domestic & International Selection)
The selection process for this year’s Korea Queer Film Festival began with a question: What kinds of relationships are shaping our lives today, and how are we reaching out to one another? As we followed this question through a diverse range of films, we encountered moments where different temporalities of life converged into a single current.
For the domestic section, we selected thirteen films in total—twelve shorts and one feature-length film. Rather than focusing on grand events or declarative statements, this year’s selections center on the subtle tremors of emotion that emerge within intimate relationships. Moving between love and friendship, care and distance, choice and hesitation, the characters continually negotiate the distance between themselves and the world. These emotional shifts, arriving like fractures within ordinary daily life, reveal that queer lives are not confined to any fixed framework, but are instead continually questioned, unsettled, and reshaped. Through quiet observation—and at times through humor and fantasy—these stories open up new possibilities of perception within the realities we already inhabit.
Meanwhile, the international shorts section presents twenty films organized around five sub-themes. From lives forced to prove their existence before borders and institutions, to moments of crossing into a new chapter at the threshold where endings and beginnings meet; from journeys of rediscovering oneself through acts of writing and recording, to attitudes of resilience that refuse to relinquish possibility even within a deadlocked reality—these films reveal, in layered ways, that queer experience does not remain confined to the inner self, but continually collides, negotiates, and transforms in relation to the world. Though these stories emerge from different languages and places, the question running through them is one and the same: How do we exist in this world, and how can we reach one another?
Lastly, for the international feature section, we selected three films. Following the traces of memory left behind after the loss of a loved one, confronting the tension between queer lives and the family as one of society’s oldest institutions, and portraying love that continues in strange and unexpected ways even beyond death, all three films gaze toward a shared truth at the heart of relationships: that another person can never be fully known. To understand someone may not mean arriving at complete comprehension, but rather continuing, again and again, to live alongside what cannot fully be understood without abandoning it altogether. Through this process, we come to encounter not only others, but also parts of ourselves we have yet to know.
The films presented at the 2026 26th Korea Queer Film Festival do not offer definitive answers. Instead, through moments where different trajectories of life intersect, they invite us to reflect on the emotions, imaginations, and diverse ways of relating that shape queer lives in the contemporary moment. We hope that within the landscapes these films create, audiences will see their own experiences reflected and discover a sense of connection with others. Precisely because we cannot fully understand one another, we continue to question, choose, and reach out once more. And perhaps it is within that very movement that we may discover new possibilities for the world we inhabit together.
2. Contact
- Korea Queer Film Festival Executive Committee kqff@kqff.co.kr
3. International Official Selection*
* Listed in alphabetical order.
1) Born at Night
- Spain | 2025 | 18min | ⑮ | Short
- Director | Alba Cros Pellisé
2) Far Far Away From LA
- Argentina | 2025 | 17min | ⑲ | Short
- Director | Rita Hostt, Maruja Bustamante
3) GLITTER
- Poland | 2025 | 17min | ⑫ | Short
- Director | Konrad Kultys
4) Heartbroken for Good
- France | 2025 | 9min | Ⓖ | Short, Experimental
- Director | Camille Simon Baudry
5) How's Archie?
- Canada | 2025 | 16min | Ⓖ | Short
- Director | Jessie Posthumus
6) kiss kiss bang bang
- Netherlands | 2025 | 28min | ⑫ | Short, Documentary, Experimental
- Director | Ollie Launspach
7) Kotowari
- France | 2025 | 22min | ⑫ | Short
- Director | Coralie Watanabe Prosper
8) Lucrecia & The Witches
- Mexico | 2025 | 23min | ⑫ | Short
- Director | Eduardo Lecuona
9) Mia Mio
- Luxembourg | 2025 | 21min | ⑫ | Short
- Director | Roxanne Peguet
10) No Contest
- France | 2025 | 18min | ⑫ | Short
- Director | Olivier Wright
11) Pakka
- Netherlands | 2025 | 19min | ⑫ | Short
- Director | Iniyavan Elumalai
12) Room 206
- France | 2025 | 17min | ⑫ | Short, Documentary
- Director | Laurie Bisceglia
13) Scaredy-cat
- Kazakhstan | 2025 | 11min | ⑮ | Short
- Director | Assel Aushakimova
14) Skin on Skin
- Germany | 2025 | 30min | ⑮ | Short
- Director | Simon Schneckenburger
15) The deepest is the skin: LGBT60+
- Brazil | 2025 | 23min | ⑮ | Short, Documentary
- Director | Rafael Medina
16) The Deepest Space in Us
- Japan | 2025 | 98min | ⑮ | Feature
- Director | Yasutomo CHIKUMA
17) The Man in the Showers
- France | 2026 | 14min | ⑮ | Short
- Director | Hakim Atoui
18) The Swimsuit
- Austria | 2025 | 11min | Ⓖ | Short
- Director | Amina Krami
19) TIGER
- Japan | 2025 | 127min | ⑲ | Feature
- Director | Anshul Chauhan
20) Uncovered
- Canada | 2025 | 6min | ⑫ | Short, Animation, Experimental
- Director | Max Vannienschoot
21) Yet to be Named
- Japan | 2025 | 39min | Ⓖ | Short, Experimental
- Director | Mizuki Ebayashi