The line-up of the 12 titles competing for the 20. Queer Lion Award is possible thanks to the direct and precious collaboration of the different selection committees of the 83. Venice International Film Festival.
All films with a duration of 30 minutes or more, with relevant LGBT themes and characters, are eligible for the Queer Lion Award competition.
For the 2026 line-up, special thanks go to:
Alberto Barbera, Angela Savoldi, Paolo Bertolin (for all the sections of the official selection, and in particular Venezia 83, Venice Open, Orizzonti); Michel Reilhac (Venice Immersive, Biennale College Cinema); Federico Gironi (Venice Classics); Gaia Furrer, Francesco Bonerba (Giornate degli Autori); Beatrice Fiorentino (Venice International Film Critics’ Week).
Last but not least, thanks to all of those contributing to the success of Queer Lion Award, directly and indirectly, from the experts and consultants of the Cinema Department to the Press Office, Accreditations Office, Secretariat and Protocol Office.
The 20th Queer Lion Award will be awarded by a jury composed by members of the Board of Queer Lion Association:
Daniel N. Casagrande, creator/founder of the award, journalist and film critic, member of the National Italian Film Critics Association and of the European Film Academy. Has a collection under his name at Cineteca di Bologna dedicated to rediscoveries of silent cinema. He taught Film Language History and worked as a videomaker.
Marco Busato, actor, contributor for Radio Capodistria (Slovenia) and Radio Company (Italy), and member of the European Film Academy.
Jani Kuštrin, cultural operator, external collaborator and jury member of the Ljubljana LGBT Film Festival, the oldest queer-themed film festival in Europe.
Adriano Virone, cultural promoter, gay activist and DJ, founder of Arcigay Ottavio Mai (Ivrea). He previously collaborated with the Torino LGBT Film Festival and created Queever. Now a key figure in Nottalgia’s events and serves as social media manager for various LGBTQ organizations in Piedmont, particularly the Quore Association and the TO Housing project.
The QL team in attendance in Venice Lido during the whole 83. Venice International Film Festival will also include Marco Visca and Alessio Bortolozzo (Marco Visca Studio), in charge of the photo and video production. Last but not least, special thanks to Francesco Gangemi, graphic designer and webmaster.
I Plant My Hand in the Garden by Boris Hadžija and Hoda Taheri (Germany, Serbia, USA, 83’)
Presented in the Giornate degli Autori section
In Berlin, Hoda, a pregnant Iranian refugee, and Boris, a queer Serbian gay man, choose to marry and raise the child together. Blending autobiography and fiction, the film explores identity and family through the blurred boundary between reality and fiction, questioning inherited models of love, masculinity, and fatherhood.
Official screening | Sep 03 | 17:00 Sala Perla | Tickets – All accreditations
Queer Edward II by Theo Rollason (UK, 95’) doc
Presented in the Venice Open section
Spring 1991. As queer life comes under attack in Britain, Derek Jarman turns Edward II into an act of radical protest. Using previously unseen footage from the set, the film tells the story of the power, courage, and price of queer visibility, both then and now.
Official screening | Sep 04 | 14:30 Sala Grande | Tickets – All accreditations
La città dei vivi by Edoardo Gabbriellini (Italy, 103’)
Presented in the Orizzonti section
A young man searches for his place in the world, while around him a city marked by loneliness and contradictions slips toward an inexplicable tragedy that exposes its deepest cracks. Based on the novel by Nicola Lagioia, which reconstructs the murder of Luca Varani.
Official screening | Sep 04 | 16:45 Sala Darsena | Tickets – All accreditations
The Basics of Philosophy by Paul Schrader (USA, 94’)
Presented in the Venice Open section
Professor Jorissen lives an ordinary, repressed life until the return of the victim of a past transgression reopens a wound that never healed. Caught between guilt, desire, and obsession, he spirals toward a reckoning. The film is directed by Paul Schrader, a master of contemporary American cinema.
Official screening | Sep 04 | 21:45 Sala Grande | Tickets – All accreditations
Tijuana, Todavía (Still, Tijuana) by Gabriel Gutierrez Morales (Mexico, 94’)
Presented in the Biennale College Cinema section
In Playas de Tijuana, a young queer Russian fleeing the war in Ukraine and a middle-aged gay man meet on a dating app, hiding behind digital identities. When their connection moves into the real world, the two confront the wounds of exile and the weight of machismo.
Official screening | Sep 05 | 17:15 Sala Giardino | Tickets – All accreditations
London by Victor Di Marco and Márcio Picoli (Brazil, 90’)
Presented in the International Critics’ Week section
London, a young disabled man, works as a dom in a fetish club with his friends Luke and Lilá. When a diagnosis could help him understand his body, he fears being reduced to a label. This is the feature debut of Victor Di Marco and Márcio Picoli, award-winning Brazilian filmmakers for their short films.
Official screening | Sep 06 | 13:45 Sala Perla | Tickets – All accreditations
Salón de belleza by Nathalia Acevedo (Mexico, France, 110’)
Presented in the Giornate degli Autori section
In an unnamed city, a beauty salon run by a former gay hairdresser becomes a shelter for outcasts suspended between life and death. Through rituals, memories, and visions, reality and imagination dissolve as beauty and death intertwine in a sensory meditation on the fragility of existence.
Official screening | Sep 08 | 16:30 Sala Perla | Tickets – All accreditations
The Color of the Sun by Xavier Tera (Canada, Italy, Japan, 111’)
Presented in the Orizzonti section
During the final summer before graduation, Kamei and his friends become acquainted with Colin, a teenager who grew up on an American military base. Amid sexual awakenings, friendships and betrayals, the relationship between the two boys becomes the heart of a coming-of-age story about desire and bonding.
Official screening | Sep 09 | 16:30 Sala Darsena | Tickets – All accreditations
Camouflage by Mykyta Gibalenko (Germany, 102’)
Presented in the Giornate degli Autori section
In 2021, Vitaly leaves Ukraine for Munich in search of a new life. Joining a theatre group makes him feel welcome, but the Russian invasion forces his mother and sister to flee. Amid migration, war, and family conflicts, Vitaly confronts the distance between his own identity and his roots.
Official screening | Sep 09 | 16:45 Sala Perla | Tickets – All accreditations
Huangyan shenghuo (Big Little Things) by Michelle Zhou (Hong Kong SAR, USA, 109’)
Presented in the Orizzonti section
A middle-class Chinese family finds itself in crisis when their daughter, Lei, brings a man home on New Year’s Eve and asks him to pretend to be her boyfriend. The unexpected arrival of her real partner triggers a crisis of intimacy.
Official screening | Sep 11 | 14:30 Sala Darsena | Tickets – All accreditations
Peau d’homme (A Man’s Skin) by Léa Domenach (France, 104’)
Presented in the Giornate degli Autori section
Part comedy, part musical, Blanche is a princess betrothed against her will. Thanks to a mysterious skin that allows her to take on a male appearance, she approaches her future husband in disguise, discovering a new world and challenging gender roles, freedom, and desire.
Official screening | Sep 11 | 16:45 Sala Perla | Tickets – All accreditations
Lovers in the Blue Night by Anuparna Roy (India, USA, 107’)
Presented in the Orizzonti section
On the outskirts of Mumbai, four migrants – a married gay man, his wife, a thief, and a pimp – intertwine their lives amid love, desire, and survival. In her second film, Anuparna Roy portrays a humanity suspended between loneliness and the need to belong.
Official screening | Sep 11 | 17:30 Sala Darsena | Tickets – All accreditations
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