Film fans are heading to Tel Aviv Cinematheque from October 22 to 31 for the 21st TLVFest, a lively LGBTQ+ celebration featuring award-winning international films, Israeli premieres, cult favourites and a new creative team. The festival also marks founder Yair Hochner's departure after two decades at its centre.

Essential takeaways

  • A new chapter: Artistic director Gili Porat and producer Yael Lavi are leading the festival this year.
  • Cult cinema on the big screen: Audiences can catch a 35mm presentation of Bound and a screening of The Rocky Horror Picture Show.
  • Award-winning international films: The programme includes Rose, Gugu's World and Iván & Hadoum, all linked to major festival recognition.
  • Strong Israeli presence: New local titles include A Man Walks Down the Street, Where To? and Tell Me Everything.
  • A changing festival: Founder Yair Hochner is stepping away after 20 years as artistic director.

A festival with a fresh point of view

TLVFest is returning to the Tel Aviv Cinematheque from October 22 to 31 with an expanded programme and a new team at the helm. The festival's artistic direction now belongs to Gili Porat, with Yael Lavi producing, giving the event a clear sense of renewal without losing its established personality.

The central question behind this year's selection is what changes when stories are viewed through a queer lens. That's an inviting idea rather than a dusty curatorial slogan, especially for a festival that mixes serious drama, camp comedy, documentary work and the kind of late-night crowd energy that makes cinema feel communal.

Porat said the team wanted to pair familiar names with overlooked histories and emerging voices. In practice, that means audiences can choose between major European productions, new Israeli films and unexpected discoveries that may not have been on their radar at all.

Bound and Rocky Horror bring the fun

One of the most appealing events is a 35mm screening of Bound, the 1996 debut from Lana and Lilly Wachowski. The stylish crime thriller follows a gangster's girlfriend and an ex-con turned repairwoman as attraction, danger and a plan to steal money pull them together.

Thirty years on, the film still has a sleek, tactile quality that suits the big screen. Its combination of noir shadows, sharp chemistry and tightly wound suspense makes it more than a nostalgia pick, while the 35mm presentation adds a pleasingly physical touch in an age of endless streaming menus.

The festival will also screen The Rocky Horror Picture Show, a film practically designed for an audience that wants to dress up, shout back and enjoy the spectacle together. With the final night falling on Halloween, the costume potential is hardly subtle, and that's precisely the point.

Major festival names meet new discoveries

The international programme brings together well-known performers and films with strong festival credentials. Sandra Hüller leads Rose, playing a woman living under a concealed identity in 17th-century Europe, while the actress's reputation has grown rapidly through acclaimed work in Anatomy of a Fall and The Zone of Interest.

Other standouts include Gugu's World, about an effeminate Brazilian boy dreaming of becoming a football star while trying to protect his grandmother and avoid an intolerant father. The film's family story gives its coming-of-age drama a tender but uneasy emotional centre.

Spanish drama Iván & Hadoum focuses on two greenhouse workers whose relationship develops in southern Spain, while Trial of Hein follows a man forced to prove who he is after returning to an island community. Together, the films suggest a programme interested not only in romance, but also in belonging, memory and the pressure to perform an acceptable identity.

From Cannes drama to RuPaul comedy

The selection also has room for flamboyant genre play. Stop! That! Train!, produced by RuPaul, is a camp comedy set aboard a luxury train, where two attendants find themselves responsible for saving passengers during a storm. Ginger Minj and Jujubee appear, while RuPaul takes on the role of the US president.

For something darker and more mischievous, The Wrong Girls stars Kristen Stewart and Alia Shawkat as cash-strapped friends caught up with an experimental substance that gives them telepathic powers. Seth Rogen and Geena Davis add further star appeal to the crime comedy.

The festival's international range stretches into European cinema too, with Bertrand Mandico's Roma elastica, starring Marion Cotillard and Noémie Merlant, and A Woman's Life, featuring Léa Drucker and Mélanie Thierry. Another Day, led by Adèle Exarchopoulos, follows an actress wrestling with alcoholism, adding a more bruised and intimate note to the line-up.

Israeli stories take centre stage

The local programme offers a similarly broad mix of relationships, identity and social history. A Man Walks Down the Street, directed by Yuval Hadadi, follows a man returning to Israel after 30 years and entering a relationship with a younger man.

Where To? centres on a Palestinian Uber driver and a young Israeli in Berlin, while Tell Me Everything travels back to the height of the AIDS epidemic, when a boy discovers that his father is gay. The latter arrives with major Ophir Awards recognition, giving it particular weight within the Israeli competition.

The late Nitzan Gilady's final feature, Thou Shalt Love, rounds out the programme with a story about an ultra-Orthodox yoga teacher whose marriage and faith begin to fracture. Alongside narrative films, TLVFest will present documentaries and competitions for both international and Israeli productions, offering a fuller snapshot of contemporary LGBTQ+ filmmaking.

A new era after Hochner

The festival's 21st edition is also an emotional handover. Yair Hochner, who founded TLVFest and served as its artistic director for 20 years, is leaving the role after helping establish it as a major platform for LGBTQ+ cinema in Israel.

That legacy is visible in the festival's range, from influential international guests to local filmmakers and a loyal audience that keeps returning. The new team has inherited more than a calendar of screenings; it has inherited a community with its own traditions, its own taste and, on Halloween, presumably a wardrobe to match.

For visitors, the best approach may be to plan around one or two must-see films, then leave space for a surprise. As Porat suggests, the most memorable screening might be the one you enter by chance.

It's a small act of cinematic curiosity, but it can lead to a very good night out.

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