FILMMAKER SOCIAL↪

Saturday 5th August
11:30
Light House Cinema

Are you a filmmaker, film programmer, actor, writer, artist, producer…? Or perhaps a GAZE aficionado and cinephile? Living in Ireland or just passing through Dublin for the festival? Come and join us for a relaxed pre-cinema festival social hosted by Festival Director Greg Thorpe where you can get a coffee, chat about cinema, swap your top tips for the festival, and meet other filmmakers. The social will take place at the Light House Cinema and all are welcome. If you need any kind of assistance to attend, are feeling shy, or would like to know more before you come along, just email julian@gaze.ie. Looking forward to meeting you all for festival gossip and networking. Please note there will be a second Filmmaker Social at the same time on Sunday also at Light House Cinema.

BAD ROMANCE↪

SHORT FILM SHOWCASE

SATURDAY 5TH AUGUST
12:45
LIGHT HOUSE CINEMA
1hr 43m

Queer relationships can be honest and pure, wholesome and fulfilling. They can also be the total opposite. Celebrate connections that are complex, messy, petty, sometimes criminal and not always free in these eight tales of love and lover's revenge.

BOOK NOW↪

BLOND NIGHT
Dir. Gabrielle Demers / Canada / 2022 / 16m
Unhappy in his housing for autistic adults, Victor goes out for a late-night walk, unexpectedly meeting a young prostitute along the way.

DUO EN SOUS-SOL
Dir. Vinciane Le Men / France / 2021 / 12m
Games of power and seduction are all at play as a detective interrogates a homicide suspect who doesn't seem keen on hiding her guilt

COME CLEAN
Dir. Sal Bardo / USA / 2022 / 13m
A young man struggling with OCD white-knuckles his way through a Grindr hook-up, ultimately making a mess of things.

SHEE
Dir. Lia Campbell / UK / 2023 / 10m
Shee and Magnus deal with the aftermath of an unplanned pregnancy in a country where same-sex couples face significant barriers to parenthood.

DILATING FOR MAXIMUM RESULTS
Dir. Nyala Moon / USA / 2023 / 14m
Preparing to meet her online boyfriend IRL, a trans woman tries to dilate for the first time in four years.

WET HAIR
Dir. Julian Dieterich / Germany / 2023 / 6m
When two men reconnect to find comfort in a common fetish, a tender conversation about loss, violence and a shared past unfolds.

THE TREE
Dir. Ida Hansen EldØen / Norway / 2023 / 14m
While battling a hangover, Rebecca also finds herself at war with an ex-girlfriend, who has come to claim the apple tree they planted together.

COWBOY, CHOKER, HARNESS & HEART
Dir. Nicolas Blanco, Julia Ponce Diaz / USA / 2023 / 8m
Highlighting both the destructive and constructive natures of desire, four partygoers grapple with the limits of commitment in the bathroom of a gay rave.

QUEER LISBOA SHORTS↪

INTRODUCED BY THE QUEER LISBOA FESTIVAL DIRECTORS

SATURDAY 5TH AUGUST
13:00
LIGHT HOUSE CINEMA
1hr 41m

We are so excited to partner with Queer Lisboa, one of the most important queer film festivals in the world, to present a selection of their favourite contemporay LGBTQIA shorts. Queer Lisboa has been pioneering LGBTQIA film programming since 1997, bringing new voices to audiences and supporting the future of international filmmaking. We certainly share a vision in common and now we are excited to share some new film work too.

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SOB INFLUENÇA (UNDER THE INFLUENCE)
Dir, Ricardo Branco / Portugal / 2022 / 20m
A trio of friends - played by multidisciplinary artist Odete the Slayer, João Abreu (Immaterial Girl), and Alexander David (To Die Like a Man) - retreat to a luxurious and isolated home in the middle of the woods for a weekend of hallucinogens and pool-lounging. But a strange nighttime encounter upends their queer holiday.

AZUL BLUE HAS NO DIMENSIONS
Dir. Ágata de Pinho / Portugal / 2022 / 20m
Ara had always believed she would disappear at twenty-eight years old. With that birthday approaching, she pursues the most basic feelings of existence in the water, the sun and the sublime. The state of trance is a wholesome place, alien-like, pervaded by invisible forces. When Ara realizes where her belief came from, she's propelled to catharsis: does she disappear?

TORNAR-SE UM HOMEM NA IDADE MÉDIA (BECOMING MALE IN THE MIDDLE AGES)
Dir. Pedro Neves Marques / Portugal / 2022 / 22m
Mirene and André, and Carl and Vicente, are both couples in their mid-thirties. While Mirene and André struggle with their fertility, Vicente decides to undergo an experimental procedure, implanting an ovary in his body in the hopes of having a child with Carl. A love drama of speculative undertones, 'Becoming Male in the Middle Ages' is an intimate tale about queer sexuality, bodily autonomy, reproductive desires, and the ghost of normativity.

UM CAROÇO DE ABACATE (AN AVOCADO PIT)
Dir. Ary Zara / Portugal / 2022 / 20m
Larissa, a trans woman and Cláudio, a cis man, meet one night, in the streets of Lisbon. Two people, two realities, who dance their differences away till morning light. In challenge, in surprise, in awe and in recognition. An empowering story, free from violence and filled with light and hope for the better days yet to come.

LUGAR NENHUM (NOWHERE)
Dir. Pedro Gonçalves Ribeiro / Portugal / 2021 / 19m
An electropop remix about places, loneliness, and the color blue.

NEW IRISH SHORTS↪

RELAXED SCREENING

SATURDAY 5TH AUGUST
14:00
Light House Cinema
1hr 44m

A second chance to watch this year's bumper crop of new Irish short films in a chilled and friendly afternoon setting. This relaxed screening aimed at neurodivergent cinemagoers and guests with sensory disorders will be a repeat of our Irish shorts programme with dim lighting and lowered volume levels. Some of the films will have subtitles. There are 68 seats in the screen and no allocated seating. Patrons are free to come and go from the screen as they please, bring a support worker, use any toys and stims, and above all enjoy this exciting selection of new Irish screen voices.

BOOK NOW↪

WORTHY
Dir. Zainab Boladale / 2023 / 3m
Sewa is a black woman struggling to get over her ex-girlfriend. Through her monologue we experience the emotional rollercoaster of a first break up.

THE TALK
Dir. Jonathan Hughes / 2022 / 10m
The Talk chronicles the life changing conversation that takes place between father and son when staunchly unionist father Dennis walks in on his son Barry in bed with a man. But Barry isn't the only one hiding a secret from the family.

LET ME LIVE
Dir. Éadaoin O'Shea Costley / 2022 / 4m
Documentary short film on the experience of a trans young person in Dublin Ireland.

TRY AND TOUCH
Dir. Nell Hensey / 2022 / 12m
Emer Danagher is a school girl in rural Ireland who is battling with the overwhelming agony of unrequited love. We see her build up the courage to come clean to her crush as she realises that she has nothing to lose and everything to gain. But at 17, it feels like her life will be over if she doesn't get the response she so desperately wants.

LAMBING
Dir. Katie McNeice / 2022 / 18m
A young dad in rural Ireland must face his anxiety around gender and bullying when his baby is born intersex.

MALCOLM
Dir. Caleb Roberts / 2023 / 12m
Emotionally unstable Joe seeks couples' counselling with a sock puppet likeness of his ex-boyfriend, Malcolm.

HOW TO LIVE HERE
Dir. Alisha Doody / 2022 / 3m
How to Live Here is a short film that is part of a wider biographical multimedia project that explores the trajectory of a queer woman who leaves their rural upbringing in search of community only to return to the conditions she once ran away from.

SNUFF
Dir. Louise Nesbitt / 2021 / 9m
A woman in the middle of an affair arrives home to find her wife making a snuff film in their living room.

AGAPE
Dir. Ethan Donoghue / 2022 / 17m
Agape follows Margret, a young Traveller Women who is forced into a marriage she has no say in with a man she can never love. While she battles confronting her new reality, the woman Margret really loves has no choice but to watch as everything goes downhill.

WHAT COULD GO WRONG
Dir. Caroline Quinn / 2023 / 17m
Six best friends decide to go camping to spend one last fun weekend together before they go their separate ways, to escape their stresses ... well that was the plan anyways.

MUSIC IS MY BOYFRIEND↪

Saturday 5th August
15:15
Light House Cinema

Dir. Robert Kennedy
Canada, 2022
49m

The Hidden Cameras burst onto the music scene in the early 2000s boasting an irresistible combination of pop and queer sensibilities. Music Is My Boyfriend chronicles the early days of Joel Gibb's mighty band as they gather steam in their native Toronto. Combining interviews with original members, behind-the-scenes session footage and rarely-seen 16mm film of two legendary live church shows, the film is both a mash note to a beloved band and a time capsule of the raucous, vivacious queer underground scene from which they emerged. The film features stunning live performances of tracks from their debut album and the screening will be accompanied by rare short films A Miracle and The Making of a Miracle, the band's first video and a series of rushes from its making, plus Breathe On It.

Joel Gibb will join GAZE for a post-screening conversation.

PLUS The Hidden Cameras are LIVE IN DUBLIN TONIGHT at The Workmans Club.

BOOK NOW↪

Pre-Feature Short:

BOYBEND
Dir. Eva Malmberg / Sweden / 2023 / 14m
With hair trimmers, contour makeup, and a whole lot of denim, four queer boyband fans create the four heartthrobs of 'Boybend' - the greatest boyband the world has never seen.

IT'S NOT THE FIRST TIME WE FIGHT FOR OUR LOVE↪

Saturday 5th August
15:20
Light House Cinema

Dir. Luis Carlos de Alencar
Brazil, 2022
1hr 44m

Drawing on a wealth of incredible archival imagery, personal testimony and public record, this epic and engrossing documentary recounts the long complex histories of LGBTQ+ persecution and resistance in Brazil. Director, screenwriter and researcher Luis Carlos de Alencar delves deep to chart the long-held societal prejudices against the LGBTQ population in Brazil which came to the fore following the coup of 1964, at which point queerness came to represent the enemy of the traditional family, conservative values, morality and good behaviour - a sadly familiar tale. The journey from then until now is explosive, terrifying, moving and triumphant - but never over. The emergence of the Brazilian LGBT movement is a moving and powerful experience and the richness of this film's tapestry acts also a call to arms for resistance and resilience today, characteristics that have defined Brazil's vast queer communities. As a city with close community ties to Brazilian LGBTQIA life, we hope our Dublin audiences will come along with us on an incredible eye-opening historical journey of discovery and pride. As Alencar writes, 'Being a filmmaker in Brazil now means dealing not with just one challenge, but with several. However, it is precisely in this moment of intense crisis that we cannot give up.'

BOOK NOW↪

Pre-Feature Short:

BEHIND MY DRAG QUEEN
Dir. Leonardo Oliveira / Ireland / 2023 / 14m
This short documentary tells the story of Chantelle Perez, a Brazilian drag queen who discovered a new life for herself in Ireland through the art of drag.

THE GEORGE↪

Saturday 5th August
17:45
Light House Cinema

Dir. Clark Harding
Ireland, 2002
55m

Way back in 2002 at 'The Tenth Dublin Lesbian & Gay Film Festival' we were excited to screen a hot new documentary by a young filmmaker named Clark Harding. Clark's film The George focused on the regulars of Dublin's favourite gay bar as a starting point for a wider exploration of the city's changing queer scene and gay life in the capital. More than twenty years later we revisit The George and screen this amazing archive piece in front of an audience for the first time since its original outing. Dublin has changed, gay life has changed, GAZE has changed, have you? With fantastic footage of The George, Alternative Miss Ireland, drag shows and an already unrecognisable Dublin, you will adore this trip down memory lane via South Great George's Street, featuring a cast of Irish queer heroes including Brendan Courtney, Panti, Veda, Shirley Temple Bar, and many more blasts from the past.

We are excited to welcome Clark all the way from Los Angeles to share this screening with us, along with as many of the original cast of queer icons, Dublin divas and familiar faces as we can find. Join us after the screening for a conversation about the scene and nightlife then and now.

BOOK NOW↪

Pre-Feature Short:

Making Waves
Dir. Shane O'Callaghan / Ireland / 2023 / 11m
This short documentary was filmed over the course of a weekend gathering on the coast of Co.Clare and explores the experiences, uncertainties and joys of life as an LGBTQ+ person in rural Ireland.

MIGHTY REAL↪

SHORT FILM SHOWCASE

SATURDAY 5TH AUGUST
19:30
LIGHT HOUSE CINEMA
1hr 35m

Queer and particularly trans filmmakers have an affinity for the make-believe, from sex dreams to scream queens and all the galaxies in between. What makes fantasy, sci-fi and horror so appealing to us? These shorts offer a kaleidoscopic array of answers. Reimagining a Hawaiian legend revives suppressed histories, a bawdy romp in outer space imagines new destinies; digital utopias give new perspectives to real-world trans lives; the appearance of ghosts collapses queer pasts and presents into one. And as all these ideas and more are untangled in this block of genre shorts, a timeless queer question arises: Is it just me, or are shapeshifters kind of sexy?

BOOK NOW↪

DAISY: PROPHET OF THE APOCALYPSE
Dir. Venus Patel / Ireland / 2023 / 20m
A radical trans street preacher and her followers prophesy the end of the world with salvation only for those who denounce heterosexuality. Men must be women! Women must be men! All sexual intercourse must be interracial! PRAISE HER!

YOU CAN STAY OVER (IF YOU WANT)
Dir. Zach Siegel / USA / 2022 / 11m
After a hookup, John and Alex touch on the beginnings of intimacy despite being near-strangers. Embarrassing stories give way to personal anecdotes, but how do you know when it's safe to show someone your real self?

AIKĀNE
Dir. Daniel Sousa, Dean Hamer & Joe Wilson / USA / 2023 / 14m
In this sumptuously animated odyssey, a Pacific Island warrior is thrown to the sea in a battle against foreign invaders. Below the waves he finds not death but a beautiful, magical stranger who may just be able to turn the tides of this anti-colonial fight.

DO DIGITAL CURANDERAS USE EGGS IN THEIR LIMPIAS?
Dir. Roberto Fatal / USA / 2022 / 14m
Ria, an indigenous curandera, is one of the last people in their barrio who has not uploaded their mind to the Internet to escape the pain of life on Earth. As their magic fades and loneliness grows, Ria asks a friend to sign off as their next of kin so they can upload to digital utopia.

CELESTIAL BODIES
INDir. Ryan Suits / USA / 2022 / 5mFO
With kitschy sets and campy glamour, this short follows two astronauts attempting to overpower an alien spaceship. If the ship's pleasure-based defences don't overpower them first.

AFTERPARTY
Dir. Alex Matraxia / UK / 2023 / 9m
Settling in for a bath with a vinyl on the record player, an ageing Charlie (played by David Hoyle) finds themself beset by apparitions of old friends. In an intimately dreamlike atmosphere that blurs the line between past and present, ghost and memory, the unwelcome party helps Charlie come to terms with life after a generational loss.

PAPERGIRL
Dir. Jack Warren / USA / 2023 / 5m
En route to a party, a lonely traveler discovers their skin is turning to paper. The more they try to blend in, the more they fall apart, and suddenly gender dysphoria and gender euphoria clash in a mess of spilled ink, split skin and torn paper.

GLORY, HOLE
Dir. Hiram Harrington / Ireland / 2023 / 17m
Two men hide behind a glory hole in a gay nightclub. One has a pair of scissors and plans to castrate his rapist. The other feverishly tries to talk him down. A third man approaches. A fly unzips. No one walks away intact.

KENYA↪

IRISH PREMIERE

Saturday 5th August
19:55
Light House Cinema

Dir. Gisela Delgadillo
Mexico, 2022
1h 30m

Amongst a vulnerable community of transgender sex workers surviving in Mexico City, Kenya finds herself becoming the mother and the voice for this multiply-marginalised population. Filmmaker Gisela Delgadillo employs a generous and empowering hands-off filmmaking technique that places the energy of story-telling into its subject's hands, with raw and intimate results. The tragedy at the centre of this incredible documentary is the murder of a fellow trans sex worker, Paola, at the hands of one of her clients. The ensuing transformative fight for justice for Paola encompasses the entire fabric of life as a trans woman sex worker in Mexico, igniting purpose, activism, grief and bonding. By the end of the film the time spent by the viewer in Kenya's circle and emotional inner world feels both an honour and a call to action.

Kenya is presented in partnership with Red Umbrella Film Festival (RUFF), a collective of current and former sex workers using cinema to connect and explore storytelling from their community. Check out the RUFF shorts programme taking place on the Monday afternoon of GAZE and read more about the project over at their Instagram @redumbrellafilmfestival.

BOOK NOW↪

Pre-Feature Short:

PECCADILLO
Dir. Sofia Garza-Barba / US / 2023 / 25m
Lorenzo secretly yearns to explore his femininity, and according to his religious family, secrets belong to the devil. Faced with a choice, he must live a lie or confront the devil himself.

THE HIDDEN CAMERAS: LIVE↪

The Hidden Cameras Live
At The Workman's Club
Doors 8pm

Indulge in a whole day of The Hidden Cameras with GAZE. You can see the band's fantastic early-years documentary Music Is My Boyfriend at Light House Cinema this afternoon (see page 31 for more) including singer Joel Gibb in a post-screening conversation, and then you can catch the band in their live glorious incarnation on stage tonight at The Workman's Club. Arriving as a live act, The Hidden Cameras set fire to an already hot early 2000s Toronto music scene and their energy on stage has not waned. Get your tickets quick smart to this rare live Dublin show of one of the best queer pop and all round great guitar bands of this century.

BARRIO BOY↪

Saturday 5th August
20:30
Irish FIlm Institute

Dir. Dennis Shimmers
USA, 2022
1h 22m

It's a hot and sultry New York summer. Handsome Latinx barber Quique comes from a super macho Brooklyn world where the men are men and barbershops like his are the heterosexual ground zero. But when Quique crosses paths with a handsome visiting Irish stranger, the edges of this world begin to fray for Quique as he becomes tangled in the complexity of balancing two distinct lives. The result is a sexually charged odyssey of self-discovery and inescapable attraction. This is the long-awaited feature from Dennis Shinners based on the acclaimed short of the same name, and it is definitely worth the wait. As director Shinners confesses, Barrio Boy is “a bittersweet love letter to hookups, breakups, dustups and fuckups.” The charismatic central p erformances, the rough exciting city setting, and the truly sexy pairing between the male leads makes for a pretty much perfect summer night of heartfelt homoerotic viewing.

BOOK NOW↪

Pre-Feature Short:

IMPASSE
Dir. Nicolas Reza / Poland / 2023 / 16m
After Piotrek is attacked by a group of guys from his school, a taxi driver named Arek helps him home-but during their journey, Arek makes Piotrek an offer that will change his night, if not his life.

THE PEOPLE'S JOKER↪

Saturday 5th August
22:15
Light House Cinema

Dir. Vera Drew
USA, 2022
1h 32m

'We're the Jokers of the daughters… We're the daughters of the Jokers you couldn't burn?' >

Welcome to Gotham City, where you're either a jokeman or a harlequin. Comedy is a controlled substance and Smylex addictions are rising. But one rebellious, unfunny, transgender clown called Joker is ready to fight the system—just as soon as she legally changes her name, finally creates a good comedy act, and deals with her toxic boyfriend, Jared Leto's Joker. Cut short in its 2022 festival run but kept alive by word of mouth and secret screenings, this feature debut from Emmy-nominated editor and jester visionary Vera Drew brings a bombastic mix of anti-comedy, animation and transsexual clowns, made with the help of over 100 artists and with zero authorisation from DC Comics. Fun, frenetic and fair use! Last year we were devastated that our screening of The People's Joker had to be cancelled at the last moment, but we persevered and are thrilled to present this future cult queer classic in all its glory for 2023.

The screening will be followed by an in-conversation with Director Vera Drew.

Presented in partnership with the Small Trans Library.

BOOK NOW↪

Pre-Feature Short:

HORMONAL
Dir. Maz Murray / UK / 2023 / 12m
When three trans people in a small town in Essex get ripped off by their DIY testosterone supplier, they must come together to undertake a daring hormone heist in this working-class, neo-noir flight of fancy.

LE BEAU MEC↪

IRISH PREMIERE Saturday 5th August
22:30
Light House Cinema

Dir. Wallace Potts
France, 1979
1h 10m

Le Beau Mec ('The Handsome Guy') is a lovingly restored masterpiece of French erotic cinema, a true diamond in the rough from the history of French gay porn, a film that was once feared lost and is now available in all its original glory following the discovery of forgotten master prints. Le Beau Mec was directed by Wallace Potts with a contemporary cinematic restoration produced by Gerald Herman who will be on hand to introduce this Irish premiere screening and to describe its incredible journey back to the screen. Director Potts was the well-known lover of Rudolf Nureyev and the legendary dancer even lent his choreographic skills to the making of the film. (Yes, the sex is that athletic). The centrepiece of the movie is 'Le Beau Mec' himself, the dazzlingly handsome Karl Forest, who roams the city for sexual encounters and never fails to find them. Outdoors, kink, gym sex and more are on tap to this Parisian hunk and you're invited along for the ride.

Part of our celebration of the history of gay sexuality, marking thirty years since decriminalisation in Ireland.

BOOK NOW↪

Pre-Feature Short:

DUBLIN IS KINKY
Dir. Greg Smyth Bernes / Ireland / 2023 / 10m
This short documentary explores the kink and fetish subculture among Dublin's queer men, as well as the community they've discovered with their fellow kinksters.