Nicosia's Queer Wave 2026 brings LGBTQIA+ cinema, workshops, performances and late-night parties to NiMAC until 27 September. From trans storytelling and queer horror to a sing-along Rocky Horror finale, the seventh edition offers a lively, thoughtful programme with room for celebration, debate and community.

Essential Takeaways

  • Dates and venue: Queer Wave 2026 runs until 27 September at NiMAC in Nicosia.
  • Film-led programme: Screenings range from contemporary shorts and documentaries to silent cinema and cult classics.
  • Beyond the cinema: Expect workshops, talks, audiovisual installations, a waacking performance and DJ sets.
  • Standout moments: Pillion, Bearcave and The Rocky Horror Picture Show are among the festival's most anticipated screenings.
  • A space for conversation: Several events explore identity, family, asylum, gender roles, community and queer history.

Queer Wave returns with a packed Nicosia programme

The seventh Queer Wave arrives with the kind of programme that refuses to sit quietly in one category. Across several days at NiMAC, the festival combines films, discussions, performances and parties, creating a warm, restless atmosphere where difficult subjects and joyful release can share the same timetable.

According to festival listings, this year's edition runs through 27 September and is built around LGBTQIA+ stories, queer history and the people shaping Cyprus's cultural conversation. It feels less like a conventional film season and more like a temporary community hub, with something happening from afternoon workshops to late-night music.

The programme also looks beyond the screen. Visitors can see Paola and Karayan, two audiovisual installations dedicated to queer ancestors Paola Revenioti and Andreas Karayian, adding a reflective layer to the festival's more celebratory events.

The screenings move from resistance to romance

The film programme opens up a wide emotional range. Shorts V: The New Era focuses on trans lives, resistance and imagined futures, while Plainclothes brings a darker edge with its story of a closeted police officer working at a gay cruising spot in 1990s America.

On 24 September, Shorts VI: Lady Friends turns towards women-centred stories of desire, connection and longing. The evening then moves into Blue Film, a contested work expected to generate serious discussion, rather than easy agreement.

Family Ties follows on 25 September, before Bearcave offers a more tender, feel-good change of pace. The sapphic film has drawn particular attention after a screening in Greece was cancelled amid homophobic backlash, making its Cyprus appearance feel both timely and quietly defiant.

Workshops and talks give the festival its pulse

Queer Wave isn't only about sitting in the dark and watching a film. On 26 September, The Book Club on Queer Horror invites George Rallis to explore the genre's long relationship with queer ideas, fears and outsider identities.

Later, Shorts VIII: Unity in Community looks at ecology, sport and sex positivity, with a question-and-answer session featuring Thanasis Tsimpinis. The documentary A Song Without Home adds another powerful perspective, following a trans woman from Georgia as she leaves her mother and seeks asylum in Austria.

The festival's Trans Talks on 27 September continues that emphasis on lived experience. The roundtable invites trans, non-binary and gender-expansive people to discuss what navigating the world feels like now. It sounds like one of the programme's most direct and potentially meaningful gatherings.

A bold final weekend blends cinema and nightlife

The closing stretch is deliberately varied. Pillion explores dominant and submissive dynamics with a playful tone, while the Wh*reticu/ture closing party, created with Trash Your Gender, promises a more exuberant finish.

Music also takes over on 25 September, when the festival follows Bearcave with the waacking performance Tea Party and DJ sets from Electrika and NANA. It's the sort of programming that encourages people to stay rather than simply arrive for one screening and leave.

For newcomers, that mix can be reassuring. You don't need to know every filmmaker or arrive with a perfectly formed opinion. Pick a screening that appeals, allow time for a drink or conversation afterwards, and let the evening develop at its own pace.

The final day honours queer film history

The last day begins with The Girl in Tails, a 1926 Swedish silent comedy about conformity, feminism and gender roles. Its inclusion marks a century since the film's release and highlights how questions around identity and social expectation have long appeared in cinema, even when the language around them was very different.

Drunken Noodles follows with a softer, more dreamlike mood, described as magical and fairytale-like. Then the festival closes with The Rocky Horror Picture Show, complete with a sing-along screening for both first-timers and devoted fans.

That finale makes perfect sense. After days of debate, discovery and serious storytelling, a little theatrical chaos feels like the right goodbye. Queer Wave's strength is precisely that it can hold all those moods at once.

Queer Wave 2026 runs until 27 September at NiMAC, Nicosia. Check the festival's official website for screening times, tickets and any programme updates.

Explore the programme and find an event that feels like your kind of night.

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