QUEER NORTH  FILM FESTIVAL

Thursday, June 18 – Sunday, June 21, 2026

Northern Ontario’s 2S-LGTBQ+ Film Festival

For 10 years now Queer North has created a space for queer people and their allies from across identities, ages, and the great region of Northern Ontario to come together in community to engage in world class cinema, discussions, and social events.

We’re a Social-Justice-focused festival exhibiting bold, diverse queer stories to Northern audiences, ensuring accessibility, and creating meaningful cultural experiences that resonate far beyond the screen.

Canadian Screen Award Qualifying

4 Days

25+ Films

Film Premieres, Artist talks, After-Parties and More

10th Anniversary

Get Your All-Access Pass Today!

Your All Access Pass includes admission to all Queer North screenings and events from June 18 to 21, plus exclusive passholder perks from participating local partners. 

Experience 30+ world-class queer films and artist-led events for just $90!

SCREENING VENUE

Screenings take place at Sudbury Indie Cinema- 162 Mackenzie St. Laneway/side entrance.

Free parking and bike racks!

2026 PRIDE SPOTLIGHT

30th Anniversary

The Birdcage

Friday, June 5 at 7 pm
30th Anniversary

The Watermelon Woman

Friday, June 12 at 7 pm
 Presented by Fierté Sudbury Pride(FSP) in collaboration with Black Lives Matter & Coalition For A Liveable Sudbury

No Pride in Genocide

Friday, June 26 at 7 pm

 *Pride Spotlight series screenings are not included in Queer North All-Access Passes. Separate tickets are required.

2026 FESTIVAL PROGRAMME

THURSDAY, JUNE 18

Thursday, June 18 @ 4 PM | In-Competition Films

Shorts Programme - To be announced

Thursday, June 18 @ 6 PM | Northern Ontario Premiere

I Come Home

by Glen Wood

2026 | Canada | Drama | 97 min

Followed by a Q&A with filmmakers

It’s stressful enough attending the wedding of your normie sister to the guy next door, especially when the event is presided over by your controlling and dysfunctional parents. Now try doing it with your two polyamorous partners in tow. In Glen Wood’s honest and emotionally complex feature debut, we meet Christine (Hannah Cheesman) and longtime partner Alex (Carlos Gonzalez-Vio) as they’re finding their rhythm with a new, younger partner, Stephane (Ryan Ali). When Christine discovers she’s unexpectedly pregnant, all three have very different reactions, causing tensions to arise. To make matters worse, much of this plays out at the wedding of Christine’s sister, Kat (Jordan Hayes), where the throuple must navigate judgmental relatives as well as their own, very complicated feelings.

Thursday, June 18 @ 8:30 PM | Northern Ontario Premiere

The Mysterious Gaze of the Flamingo

by Diego Céspedes

2025 | Chile | Drama | 104 min | Spanish

Set in a remote Chilean mining town in 1982, Diego Céspedes’ dazzling debut feature follows young Lidia, who grows up within a vibrant queer household led by drag performers and trans women. When a mysterious illness—rumored to spread through the gaze between men—sows fear and hysteria, the community becomes the target of suspicion and violence. Through Lidia’s eyes, Céspedes crafts a haunting allegory of love, myth, and prejudice that reimagines the early AIDS era as a queer western with poetic intimacy and desert-dry surrealism. Winner of the Un Certain Regard Award at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival, The Mysterious Gaze of the Flamingo recalls the emotional vibrancy of Almodóvar and continues Chile’s proud legacy of queer cinema—marking Céspedes as one of the most exciting new voices in world cinema.

FRIDAY, JUNE 19

Friday, June 19 @ 1:45 PM | In-Competition Films

Shorts Programme - To be announced

Friday, June 19 @ 3:45 PM | Northern Ontario Premiere

Departures

by Neil Ely & Lloyd Eyre-Morgan

2025 | UK | Drama | 82 min

Two lads – Benji and Jake – meet at an airport gate and begin monthly incognito trips to Amsterdam together. Over time the need to keep their intimacy a secret causes strain for the out Benji, and their trysts become increasingly toxic.

Friday, June 19 @ 6 PM | 4K Restoration

A Litany For Survival: the Life and Work of Audre Lorde

by Ada Gay Griffin, Michelle Parkerson

1995 | USA | Documentary | 80 min

Tenderly tracing the life of poet Audre Lorde, the film cracks open life’s poetry guided by Lorde’s sincere belief more and better is possible if we envision it enough to will it into existence.

Friday, June 19 @ 7:30 PM | Free Entry

Open Mic Night

Presented by Anaphore

The 10th year of Queer North is more than just films! We’re excited to partner with Anaphore_Sudbury to present an Open Mic Night on Friday, June 19!

As always, the event is free. Sign ups open at 7:30pm, open mic will start at 8pm! Come share your writing with us be it, poetry, short story, theatre, film script, prose.

Priority will be given to BIPOC and 2SLGBTQQAI+ although allies are welcome to come up as well☺️❤️!

Friday, June 19 @ 8:30 PM | Northern Ontario Premiere

Tracy & Martina: Goin' Out West

by Brendan Lyle

2025 | Canada | Comedy | 77 min

Two Cape Breton best friends head west to Alberta for the first time with the hopes of making a few bucks as they open for a local band, but things go south when their accommodations fall through and they run out of money before booking a flight back home.

Friday, June 19 @ 10:30 PM 

Rocky Horror Shadowcast

Presented by Mooncrater

The one and only, ROCKY HORROR SHADOWCAST, is back again at the Indie!

SATURDAY, JUNE 20

Saturday, June 20 @ 12 PM | In-Competition Films

Shorts Programme - To be announced

Saturday, June 20 @ 2:30 PM | In-Competition Films

Outlaws

by James Lewis, Lexi Powner

2026 | UK | Documentary | 84 min.

Friedel Dausab is at the heart of a battle centuries in the making. Challenging Namibia’s criminalisation of same-sex love, Friedel becomes a beacon of hope for countless queer Namibians longing for freedom and safety. Amid death threats, relentless public scrutiny, and the chilling spectre of a serial killer, Friedel takes his country to court. The demonisation and incarceration of queer people is an ancient and shocking story of injustice – born in Tudor England, globalised through colonialism and amplified by christian evangelism today. Prominent queer historians trace the origins of criminalisation as Friedel joins fellow activists Rosanna (Sri Lanka) and Raven (Barbados) in London, where they prepare to deliver a rousing speech at Pride and await Friedel’s judgment. Queer The Way is a celebration of resistance, capturing the courage, humour, and resilience it takes to defy a legacy of hatred and forge a future of dignity and equality.

Saturday, June 20 @ 4:30 PM | World Premiere | In-Competition Films

Dark Frequencies

by Bosmo Kosmerly

2026 | Canada | Horror | 136 min.

Followed by a Q&A with Sudbury filmmaker Bosmo Kosmerly

Set in Sudbury during the onset of a cruel winter, Dark Frequencies tells the story of DJ, a mentally unwell electronica musician, who is exposed to a harmful, addictive sound wave called the Master Frequency, which has skin-peeling, mind-destroying consequences.

Saturday, June 20 @ 7 PM | Northern Ontario Premiere

Antidiva: The Carole Pope Confessions

by Michelle Mama

2026 | USA | Documentary | 79 min

Followed by a Q&A with Queer Icon and Rockstar Carole Pope, and Director Michelle Mama

Antidiva: The Carole Pope Confessions is a bold, intimate, and darkly funny portrait of Carole Pope—Canada’s original queer rock icon, a taboo-shattering provocateur whose voice once echoed across radios, TV screens, and underground clubs and impressed David Bowie enough to be invited as his opener on his biggest world tour. Featuring interviews with k.d. lang, Peaches, Rufus Wainwright, Peaches, Jann Arden, Sebastian Bach, Nona Hendrix, Jeanne Beker, and more, Antidiva contextualizes Pope’s place in queer and Canadian cultural history. As artists who followed in her footsteps reflect on her impact, a clear picture emerges: Carole Pope was not just ahead of her time—she cracked the door open for others to walk through. Unvarnished, sexy, and unrepentant, Antidiva reclaims Carole Pope’s place in music history—not as a footnote, but as a godmother of punk glam, queer pride, and radical authenticity.

Saturday, June 20 @ 9:15 PM | Northern Ontario Premiere

She's The He

by Siobhan McCarthy

2025 | USA | Comedy | 81 min

Before graduation, Ethan and Alex pose as trans women in a last ditch effort to quell gay rumors. It’s all a joke until Ethan realizes: she really is trans. The two must reckon with their changing friendship, coming out, and coming-of-age.

Saturday, June 20 @ 10:30 PM | Free Entry

After Party

Featuring Jenna Seppa

SUNDAY, JUNE 21

Sunday, June 21 @ 12 PM | In-Competition Films

Shorts Programme - To be announced

Sunday, June 21 @ 12 PM | In-Competition Films

Starwalker

by Corey Payette

2025 | Canada | Musical | 106 min

Star (Dilan Chiblow), an Indigi-Queer Two-Spirit lonesome call boy has become newly entranced by the world of drag when they are introduced to The House of Borealis, a popular drag house led by their charming matriarch, Mother (Stewart Adam McKensy). Star’s newfound passion propels them to face a cultural past once neglected, but when painful memories re-emerge, their love for drag and their new family is put to the test. Alongside Levi (Jeffrey Follis) and the rest of their sisters in drag, Star journeys through the realization of who they are, leading to the creation of a persona that blends their grounded cultural spirit with a unique take on drag: Starwalker

Sunday, June 21 @ 4:45 PM | Best of Show in Queer North 2018

The pINCO Triangle

by Patrick Crowe and Tristan R. Whiston

1999 | Canada | Documentary | 47 min

Followed by a Q&A with Sudbury’s own Patrick Crowe

A Semi autobiographical musical documentary film about the absurd experience of growing up queer in the redneck Northern Ontario mining town of Sudbury -once infamously known as the (once) barren treeless wasteland where the Apollo astronauts trained for their moonwalks.

RT Collective Presents: Queer Shorts From The North

A Celebration of Northern Ontario’s Queer Filmmakers and Spaces

There aren’t many dedicated queer places in Northern Ontario. We’re often left to create them on our own. This programme is seeking stories set, or about spaces, that queer people have created, or stumbled into; where they can breathe a little easier. What feelings do you associate with Queer spaces? What shape do these spaces take? What relationships or conflicts foster here?

Screening Update

Tuesday, April 21

Unfortunately, our run of MILE END KICKS has been postponed to open Thursday, April 30 at 4:15 PMOther April screenings have been replaced, including:

  • Tuesday, April 21 at 6:30 PM (now Hamnet)
  • Tuesday, April 28 at 4:30 PM (now Pillion)

Thank you for your understanding!!