Dublin’s beloved GAZE International LGBTQIA Film Festival is back, and it’s bigger, bolder, and queerer than ever! Celebrating its 33rd edition, GAZE is rolling out a week-long cinematic extravaganza from July 29th to August 4th, taking over the Light House Cinema and Irish Film Institute with the very best in Irish and international queer film.
This year the festival has expanded to a full seven days, so there’s even more time to binge-watch, mingle, and join in on lively post-film chats. The programme is bursting with premieres—Irish, European, and world debuts—plus a fresh strand of queer animation and a focus on stories from queer migrants, asylum seekers, and Irish-language filmmakers. Festival Director Greg Thorpe presents his fourth and final GAZE programme, saying “There’ll be popcorn and tears before bedtime! Life for the queer community is fraught and unpredictable as when I took over, but one thing we can depend on is the power of queer cinema to sustain and astound us.”
Festival Highlights Include
Opening Night: Don’t miss Plainclothes, a sizzling 90s-set drama starring Tom Blyth and Russell Tovey as undercover cops navigating love and identity in New York.
Homegrown Talent: Girls & Boys, a Dublin-made romantic drama, brings a trans-led love story to the screen, with gorgeous cityscapes and heartfelt performances. Directed by Donncha Gilmore, this Irish feature debut sees rising stars Liath Hannon and Adam Lunnon-Collery in a tender trans-led romantic drama. Think Normal People with a queer flair. It’s Dublin-made too, with dreamy scenes of the city by night and great central performances. Very GAZE.
Blast from the Past: Catch a newly restored screening of the cult lesbian classic High Art, showing in Ireland for the first time ever.
Road Trip Feels: Drive Back Home, starring Alan Cumming, follows two estranged brothers on a journey of reconnection, set against a 1970s Canadian backdrop.
International Gems: The Oslo Stories Trilogy: Dreams, from Norway, and the documentary Strange Journey: The Story of Rocky Horror, promise emotional highs and cult nostalgia. GAZE revisits the landscape-shifting documentary Shinjuku Boys on its 30th anniversary, alongside two new lesbian and non-binary narrative shorts from Japan’s contemporary queer filmmaking scene, creating new conversations about Japanese queer film and the legacy of Shinjuku Boys.
Animation Celebration: From the hilarious Lesbian Space Princess to a showcase of 14 new animated shorts, there’s something for every animation lover.
Irish Speaking films at GAZE: Tá an teanga í fhéin Aiteach – the language is queer. GAZE will screen 8 Short films as Gaeilge as part of their partnership with Bród na Gaeltachta, Ireland’s first Gaeltacht Pride. This unmissable selection will also tour to Donegal, where Bród na Gaeltachta is nurturing a new wave of queer Irish-language filmmaking, followed by a conversation centering Gaeilge as a language for queer art. It includes a brand-new weekend film challenge, with the festival running 3–6 July.
Not just movies at GAZE 2025! On Saturday (2 Aug), Sunday (3 Aug) and Monday (4 Aug) GAZE will host talks with visiting filmmakers and more at Café au GAZE. Including the launch of a queer crew database, created by Alba Fernadez, and supported by the National Talent Academy (NTA).
starGAZE: is a unique professional development initiative to support six emerging LGBTQIA filmmakers. GAZE Film Festival has just selected six new participants for their 2025 starGAZE programme – Billy Buckley, Eleanor Rogers, Jack Warren, Lewis Doherty, Stephen T Lally and Venus Patel.
For more information and to book tickets visit : https://www.gaze.ie/