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May Events...

  • ACID Cannes
  • Cannes Film Festival
  • Cinema Systers Film Festival
  • Divine Queer Film Festival
  • Fabulous Arts & Music Fest
  • Geelong Pride Film Festival
  • Inside Out Toronto 2SLGBTQ+ Film Festival
  • International Queer & Migrant Film Festival
  • Iris on the Move
  • La Semaine de la Critique of Festival de Cannes
  • London Lesbian Film Festival
  • Muskoka Queer Film Festival
  • National Queer Arts Festival
  • Newark LGBTQ Film Festival
  • ORLANDO
  • OUR PRIDE Shorts & Arts Fest
  • Out & Loud: Pune International Queer Film Festival
  • OUT!
  • Pink Apple
  • Puerto Rico Queer Film Festival
  • Qfest St. Louis
  • Queer East
  • Queer Palm
  • Quinzaine des cinéastes
  • Rainbow Visions Film Festival
  • Reel Out Charlotte
  • Schwule Filmwoche Freiburg
  • Sicilia Queer Filmfest
  • TranScreen Amsterdam Transgender Film Festival
  • XPOSED International Queer Film Festival
Inside Out Toronto 2SLGBTQ+ Film Festival

Inside Out Toronto 2SLGBTQ+ Film Festival

Inside Out Toronto LGBT Film Festival

Friday, 23 May 2025 until Saturday, 31 May 2025

For more than three decades, Inside Out has brought Toronto's LGBTQ community together in celebration of the best queer film from Canada and around the world. Through our annual Festivals in Toronto and Ottawa, our filmmaker initiatives, our youth engagement and our year-round events and screenings, Inside Out is engaged every day in challenging attitudes and changing lives.

In 1991, Inside Out celebrated its first film and video festival with a small community of people who yearned to see film and video created by and about lesbians, gays, bisexuals and trans (LGBT) people. Currently the largest event of its kind in Canada, the Festival entertains film buffs of all stripes, showcasing the best and most diverse work of interest to LGBTQ+ communities. Taking place over 11 days, the Festival draws crowds of 35,000 to screenings, artist talks, panel discussions, installations and parties that highlight more than 150 films from Canada and around the world.

Audience Award - Short
Audience Award - Documentary Feature
Audience Award - Narrative Feature
Best First Feature
Emerging Canadian Artist
Best Canadian Short
Best Canadian Feature


 

2025 films... 

Baby

Cactus Pears / Sabar Bonda

Dreams in Nightmares

Enigma

Flamingo Camp

Hacks

I'm Your Venus

In Ashes

Lakeview

Lucky, Apartment

Move Ya Body: The Birth of House

Outerlands

Parade: Queer Acts of Love & Resistance

Ponyboi

Rains Over Babel / Llueve Sobre Babel

Really Happy Someday

Row of Life

SALLY

Sandbag Dam / Zečji nasip

Sauna

Some Nights I Feel Like Walking

Speak.

Starwalker

Sweet Angel Baby

The Best Friend / O Melhor Amigo

The Crowd / Jama'at

The Nature of Invisible Things / A natureza das coisas invisíveis

Two Women

Unlabelled 


Shorts: 24 Flames Per Second 

A Bird Hit My Window and Now I'm a Lesbian

After a mysterious girl shows up at Gray's doorstep holding the corpse of a bird that just cracked her window, an impromptu bird funeral changes the way Gray views herself and her lesbian identity.

Year: 2024
Duration: 8 mins
Country: United States
Director(s): AJ Dubler, Carmela Marie Murphy

HOMUNCULUS

HOMUNCULUS displays the wandering of a man on a quest for other men.

Year: 2025
Duration: 18 mins
Country: France, Italy
Director(s): Bonheur Suprême

Carrotica

A teenage boy is writing an explicit gay erotica in secret in his bedroom and his mother is falling in love with a carrot. They’re doing okay…

Year: 2024
Duration: 14 mins
Country: Canada
Director(s): Daniel Sterlin-Altman

Stoned for Christmas

A multimedia whirlwind and a love letter to weed, Stoned for Christmas follows the adventures of one cannabis courier delivering at Christmas time.

Year: 2024
Duration: 15 mins
Country: United States
Director(s): Morgan Young

27

Alice is 27 years old today and even though she is suffocating under her parents’ roof, she still finds a way to live in her dreams and escape her dreary everyday life.

Year: 2024
Duration: 11 mins
Country: France, Hungary
Director(s): Flóra Anna Buda

PIETRA

In daydreaming about unlikely relationships, the flower —as delicate as it is revolutionary— represents an act of love amidst the suffocation and embrace of a classic Portuguese
neighbourhood.

Year: 2024
Duration: 13 mins
Country: Portugal
Director(s): Cynthia Levitan

The Eating of an Orange

A juicy and surreal exploration of convention and sexuality told through slugs, rituals, and the eating of an orange.

Year: 2024
Duration: 8 mins
Country: United Kingdom
Director(s): May Kindred-Boothby

Two Black Boys in Paradise

A movingly tender animation, based on Dean Atta’s eponymous poem, sees two boys on a journey of self-acceptance and love— for each other and themselves.

Year: 2024
Duration: 9 mins
Country: United Kingdom
Director(s): Baz Sells


Shorts: Afternoon Delight 

SPITI / ΣΠΙΤΙ

A house with nerves, a coughing A/C, two girls in love. A personal guide on love and loss.

Year: 2024
Duration: 26 mins
Country: Greece, Cyprus
Director(s): Sofia Sfyri

Divine Intervention

To get the promotion of their dreams, a mischievous earth-bound angel must get two ex-best friends to finally admit their love for each other.

Year: 2024
Duration: 17 mins
Country: United Kingdom
Director(s): Ravenna Tran

Hold Me Close

A study of a Black Queer couple told through intimate voice recordings documented over the course of a season.

Year: 2024
Duration: 20 mins
Country: United States
Director(s): Aurora Brachman, LaTajh Simmons-Weaver

Dandelion

In 1970s Los Angeles, a rebellious Queer teen gets thrown out of a foster placement and finds herself in the company of a mysterious social worker who’s tasked with finding her a new home before dawn.

Year: 2025
Duration: 20 mins
Country: United States
Director(s): Fiona Obertinca

Ragamuffin

A 12-year-old motocross racer spends an average race weekend at the track with her father but, as things unfold, she’s faced with her identity, her deafness, and what it means to be a girl.

Year: 2024
Duration: 15 mins
Country: United States
Director(s): Kaitlyn Mikayla


Shorts: BOLD 

Caribbean Queen

Follow the journey of Q, a young Caribbean boy, who wants to become the Queen of the West Indian Day Carnival Parade.

Year: 2024
Duration: 22 mins
Country: United States
Director(s): Sekiya Dorsett

YOU DON'T HAVE TO LIKE ME

A woman struggling with societal norms and her insecurities as a masc-presenting Caribbean woman.

Year: 2024
Duration: 10 mins
Country: United States
Director(s): Safiyah Chiniere

Newbies

Two broken strangers wrestling with their queer identities meet on the subway just after midnight. A poetic journey through their night reveals how they got here, and what broke them.

Year: 2025
Duration: 18 mins
Country: United States
Director(s): Kimiko Matsuda-Lawrence, Megan Trufant Tillman

Ancestor / Dédé

Examining the divine female figure in West African sculpture through an exploration of the director/animator’s Bété ancestry, drawing upon the spiritual iconography of the Bété people.

Year: 2025
Duration: 4 mins
Country: United Kingdom
Director(s): Yasmine Djedje-Fisher-Azoume

If We Met Now

If We Met Now has a transgender man confront his cisgender boyfriend's disapproval toward a gender affirming procedure.

Year: 2024
Duration: 9 mins
Country: Canada
Director(s): Halen King

All My Niggas Surround Me And I'm Surrounded By All My Niggas

On a Sunday morning, Jai, converses with older and younger versions of themself, exploring the transcendence of the Queer Black experience.

Year: 2024
Duration: 17 mins
Country: United States
Director(s): Jai Stephenson

Munchies

After lighting up and getting the munchies, a group of vulgar teenage girls stumble into a botched robbery at their local convenience store.

Year: 2024
Duration: 12 mins
Country: United States
Director(s): Brittany Alexia Young


Shorts: Here's Looking at You, Kid 

PRINCIPESSA ² / PRINCIPESSA ² (PRINCIPESSA ALLA SECONDA)

Once upon a time there was a princess, a prince, and a wicked witch. In short, a fairy tale like many others where the prince may be nice, but our princess prefers his sister.

Year: 2024
Duration: 7 mins
Country: Italy
Director(s): Alessandra Francesca Coratella

A KIN SIN

While giving an oiled scalp massage to a friend, filmmaker Gulzar seeks to understand their gender amidst their familial and cultural wishes.

Year: 2025
Duration: 6 mins
Country: Canada
Director(s): Gulzar

Zari

American teen Neelu feels like a fish out of water amidst preparations for her sister’s wedding in Delhi until she forges a brief and unexpected connection with Zeyb, a quiet sari store clerk who moonlights as an internet drag queen.

Year: 2024
Duration: 20 mins
Country: United States
Director(s): Shruti Parekh

The Human Under The Bed

AJ, a little monster awake past their bedtime, has made a terrifying discovery: there's a human under their bed!

Year: 2024
Duration: 10 mins
Country: Canada
Director(s): Euan O'Leary

Phranc: The Butch Closet

Follow artist and musician Phranc as she reflects on her recent exhibition, The Butch Closet, a memoir in the form of an art installation featuring painted paper and cardboard sculptures.

Year: 2025
Duration: 21 mins
Country: Canada
Director(s): Paige Gratland

Wait, Wait, Now!

When best friends are left at home for the night, they do what all teenage boys do.

Year: 2024
Duration: 13 mins
Country: New Zealand
Director(s): Ramon Te Wake

Pinocchio

Pinocchio is the story of a young trans man, Silas, who shares his life story in hopes of adding a new perspective to the trans experience.

Year: 2024
Duration: 6 mins
Country: Canada
Director(s): Silas Howse

Brim Broome Boulevard

In need of some retail therapy? Welcome to Brim Broome Boulevard! When a child wanders through a set of mysterious doors, they embark on a journey of self-discovery where fear and fashion intertwine.

Year: 2024
Duration: 7 mins
Country: United States
Director(s): PJ Magerko-Liquorice


Shorts: I Know Who You Did Last Summer 

Simon at the nightshop

Simon, a lonely gay man in his 40s, feels noticed by a young cashier at a local nightshop. At first more spontaneously, but then more methodically, he sets his mind to winning him over.

Year: 2024
Duration: 16 mins
Country: Belgium
Director(s): Thanasis Tsimpinis

Coming & Going

Two men playfully agree to be “boyfriends” for a week but when lust unexpectedly turns into love, their broken hearts are given a chance to heal and their lives an opportunity to change.

Year: 2024
Duration: 23 mins
Country: Australia, Canada
Director(s): Andy Johnston

To Pee or Not to Pee / 愛失禁

Becoming popular forces a gay doctor couple to confront challenges regarding their acceptance of each other and their hidden fetish.

Year: 2024
Duration: 24 mins
Country: Taiwan
Director(s): Yen Chu Chen

Therapist Crush

Soul-searching transmasculine Frankie has a crush on his hot, new therapist, until one day things get too real.

Year: 2024
Duration: 7 mins
Country: United States
Director(s): MJ Kaufman

Palindrome

A man fervently seeks the truth behind his partner’s disappearance after his mysterious return.

Year: 2024
Duration: 16 mins
Country: Canada
Director(s): Krit Komkrichwarakool

The Job

An exploration of the erotic archive of Canadian photographer and entrepreneur John Phillips who worked in the 1990s for gay male magazines in the USA.

Year: 2024
Duration: 15 mins
Country: Canada
Director(s): Frédéric Moffet


Shorts: Local Heroes 

Last Call

A lesbian couple must rely on a jaded bartender to work through their recent-breakup bubble to survive a sudden zombie attack inside a dying Queer bar.

Year: 2025
Duration: 10 mins
Country: Canada
Director(s): Tricia Hagoriles

Bodyrebuilding

How diversity work led to chronic pain and a journey to healing through weightlifting.

Year: 2025
Duration: 11 mins
Country: Canada
Director(s): Vivek Shraya

Girl / Thiếu, Nữ

A trans Vietnamese woman's letter to herself and her family before secretly starting hormone replacement therapy.

Year: 2025
Duration: 15 mins
Country: Canada, Vietnam
Director(s): Cà Rốt Thái

fastLOVE

A young man falls prey to an elusive hustler.

Year: 2025
Duration: 16 mins
Country: Canada
Director(s): Wayne Burns

baby fat

Kitty, a disillusioned 20-something searching for meaning amidst societal pressures and personal insecurities must navigate an existential crisis after her best friend reveals she’s skipping town to chase her dreams.

Year: 2025
Duration: 15 mins
Country: Canada
Director(s): Iris Kim

Cat Sitters

Four friends reunite to watch scary movies while cat sitting, but a power outage and the nagging suspicion that they’re not alone threatens to kill the vibe.

Year: 2025
Duration: 12 mins
Country: Canada
Director(s): Claren Grosz

MOON & BACK

Two young people spend a weekend memorializing their friendship before one of them permanently moves to the moon.

Year: 2024
Duration: 13 mins
Country: Canada
Director(s): Pony Nicole Herauf

I've Heard a Siren Calling

Nev is a young trans woman in the early stages of her transition. In her small fishing town, she grapples with isolation and managing her fears of reintegrating back into the world she loves… Surfing.

Year: 2025
Duration: 13 mins
Country: Canada
Director(s): Dylan Mitro


Shorts: Real And Spectacular 

Lloyd Wong, Unfinished

A filmmaker unearths and completes an unfinished 1990s video project by a Chinese-Canadian artist who documented his life with HIV. The work bridges three decades, offering a unique perspective on art, identity, and legacy.

Year: 2025
Duration: 29 mins
Country: Canada
Director(s): Lesley Loksi Chan

Because of You: A History of Kilawin Kolektibo / Dahil Sa 'Yo: Ang Storya Ng Kilawin Kolektibo

Joyful, raw, revolutionary: once upon a time in the 1990s, against a racist and lesbophobic backdrop, queer Filipnxs came together for the first time in NYC to create a safe and loving community.

Year: 2024
Duration: 40 mins
Country: United States
Director(s): Desireena Almoradie, Barbara Malaran

Two Travelling Aunties

Two spirited Singaporean seniors ditch years of conventional living for van life, embracing adventure, newfound freedom, and the joy of living on their terms.

Year: 2025
Duration: 22 mins
Country: United Kingdom
Director(s): Christine Seow

While We Still Have Time

A daughter reconciles with her distant sperm-donor father as he manages an aggressive prostate cancer, with little indication of how much time there is left to find out who he really is.

Year: 2024
Duration: 15 mins
Country: Australia
Director(s): Ava Grimshaw-Hall


Shorts: Rude, Lewd + Screwed 

Time Capsule

Through interactions with a self who has yet to exist, Constanze creates a time capsule for herself exploring themes of aging, transition, and consciousness.

Year: 2024
Duration: 5 mins
Country: United States
Director(s): Constanze Brodbeck

Die Bully Die

17 years after high-school, Max catches up with his former bully, Adam, in a fancy restaurant, where Max’s grudge against Adam begins to manifest in horrific ways.

Year: 2024
Duration: 17 mins
Country: Australia
Director(s): Nick Lacey, Nathan Lacey

In The Flesh

A woman's infatuation with her local butcher exposes the cracks in her seemingly perfect marriage.

Year: 2024
Duration: 16 mins
Country: United States
Director(s): Emily Frances Kaplan

Three Minutes

Daria waits a pregnant 3 minutes for her test results.

Year: 2024
Duration: 6 mins
Country: United States, Canada
Director(s): Annika Chavez

Organza's Revenge

Organza, a broke artist in a distant galaxy, travels across the stars to seek revenge on her ex-lover in an attempt to cure her mysterious illness.

Year: 2024
Duration: 21 mins
Country: Canada
Director(s): Walter Scott

PORELESS

A fabulous Queer Muslim beauty entrepreneur competes in a Shark Tank-like contest after suffering an untimely allergic reaction.

Year: 2025
Duration: 13 mins
Country: United States
Director(s): Harris Doran

Hot Young Geek Seeks Blood-Sucking Freak

Fighting off a vampire is hard but coming out is harder. In the midst of pre-party dress-up, Max finds himself the online target of an angry vampire bent on drinking his blood.

Year: 2024
Duration: 13 mins
Country: United Kingdom
Director(s): Heath Virgoe

RAT!

When a disgruntled music journalist accuses a global pop star of queerbaiting, the singer’s devoted fans seek retribution.

Year: 2024
Duration: 17 mins
Country: United States
Director(s): Neal Suresh Mulani


Shorts: Stories We Tell 

Lovin' Her

A mature trans woman navigates the complexities of a fading memory, delving into the intricacies of love and the burgeoning evolution of her gender identity.

Year: 2024
Duration: 15 mins
Country: Canada, United States
Director(s): day

Hello Stranger

Between loads of laundry at the corner laundromat, Cooper shares the tumultuous story of her gender reassignment journey.

Year: 2024
Duration: 17 mins
Country: Canada
Director(s): Amélie Hardy

Forest Echoes

A love story set against the backdrop of the climate crisis and the opioid epidemic, Forest Echoes follows Echo and Wild, two urban Indigenous land defenders.

Year: 2024
Duration: 18 mins
Country: Canada
Director(s): Eva Grant

Everything's Great, You?

When her ex-girlfriend calls asking to meet up, Sofia leaves her a voicemail to talk about how great her life is going.

Year: 2024
Duration: 4 mins
Country: Canada
Director(s): Kristoffer Bradley Cruz

Place d'Armes

Jean-Paul, recently injured at work, spends his days praying at churches and his nights performing as a dancer at a strip club. He copes with his pain and continues to find faith in the beauty of life.

Year: 2024
Duration: 20 mins
Country: Canada
Director(s): Drew Lint

Aliens in Beirut

A Lebanese immigrant’s search for belonging and love in Beirut is shattered by the 2020 Port Explosion, forcing them to confront desire beyond survival.

Year: 2024
Duration: 17 mins
Country: Canada
Director(s): Raghed Charabaty

Yesterday, today, see you tomorrow / Hier aujourd'hui à demain

Braiding, sewing and singing, a young woman passes on the richness of her cultural heritage to the next generation. To the rhythm of the teueikan, she also tells of the trials of the past and present.

Year: 2024
Duration: 4 mins
Country: Canada
Director(s): Irène-Kimberley Valin-Awashish


Shorts: Thrive

IYKYK / iykyk

IYKYK follows Kusum, a trans girl on a series of dates with boys trying to straddle the line of respecting her boundaries and expressing themselves.

Year: 2024
Duration: 18 mins
Country: India
Director(s): Bonita Rajpurohit

Roots That Reach Toward The Sky

When her mother’s Chinese Traditional Medicine shop gets vandalized, Kai, a young botanist, is thrust between her immigrant mother’s avoidance and her partner’s quest for community mutual aid.

Year: 2024
Duration: 16 mins
Country: Canada, United States
Director(s): Jess X. Snow, Jess X. Snow

Witness

A revered small-town imam faces a crisis of faith when he must choose between upholding the values of his mosque or protecting the safety and spiritual belonging of a trans man congregant.

Year: 2024
Duration: 15 mins
Country: United States
Director(s): Radha Mehta, Saif Jaan

Chimera / Quimera

A non-binary person watches the handover of the first non-binary ID in the history of Chile. A poetic exploration of transition and fluidity in the face of rigid bureaucracy.

Year: 2024
Duration: 12 mins
Country: Chile
Director(s): Gael Jara, Martín André

Egg

In a job interview, a young trans woman becomes convinced that the elderly man interviewing her is a closeted trans woman himself —- and that she's the only one who can help him.

Year: 2024
Duration: 7 mins
Country: United States
Director(s): Jamie Kiernan O'Brien

Dreams of Sunlight Through Trees

The trans joy of early transition competes with anti-trans legislation headlines.

Year: 2024
Duration: 16 mins
Country: Canada
Director(s): Theo Cuthand

Cowboy Billi / Billi il Cowboy

Billi is 12 years old: she rides horses and dreams of being a cowboy. When a casting agent shows up looking for young extras to do some stunt work, Billi knows this is her big chance.

Year: 2024
Duration: 15 mins
Country: Italy
Director(s): Fede Gianni

Lost Bois

A hedonistic and gritty exploration into the lives of three rebellious trans bois. Buckle up and embrace chaos.

Year: 2024
Duration: 4 mins
Country: United States
Director(s): Devyn Galindo