Queer desire, isolation and connection take centre stage at MIX NYC, where experimental features and shorts invite audiences to sit with stories rarely given this much room. The festival programme ranges from a tender New York drama to playful, provocative and bittersweet shorts, offering a lively snapshot of LGBTQ filmmaking across different styles and experiences.

Essential Takeaways

  • A varied programme: MIX NYC’s festival line-up includes two features and nearly two dozen shorts.
  • An intimate opener: Electronic Witches follows Neda, a trans Croatian woman navigating work, money and connection in New York.
  • Shorts with range: The programme moves between romance, kink, history, obsession, performance and care.
  • A striking contrast: Paint & Leather leans into stylised romance, while Follow Back explores longing that edges into fixation.
  • Check current listings: Screening dates and venues can change, so consult the festival’s website for the latest details.

Queer cinema makes room for desire and everyday life

MIX NYC’s programme brings queer sexuality into view without asking every film to tell the same story. Across its features and shorts, the mood shifts from playful to unsettling, with filmmakers exploring desire, identity, memory and the ways people try to find one another. The festival’s official listings are the best place to check current programme details. (MIX NYC)

One of the more grounded stories is Maja Čule’s Electronic Witches. It follows Neda, a trans Croatian woman in New York, as she navigates ordinary pressures - a new home, money worries and family ties across the ocean - alongside the stranger promise of online fortune-tellers. That mix of the everyday and the uncanny gives the film a quietly appealing warmth. (Gay City News)

Six shorts, six ways to stir things up

The shorts programme Throbbing Hearts and Unzipped Zippers puts very different approaches side by side. In Ian Michael McDonald’s Paint & Leather, a wordless meeting in a gay bar turns into a stylised romance, complete with a cardboard house and moments that shift into black and white. It sounds knowingly theatrical, but that’s part of its charm. (Gay City News)

Other films take a more challenging route. Sakucosas uses personal testimony to confront kink shaming, while Swing Swish Sway builds an experimental collage around lesbian activist Rose Bamberger. Neither asks the viewer to sit back passively; both make the act of looking feel like part of the conversation. (Gay City News)

History, longing and desire take unexpected turns

Cristóbal Guerra’s Muerde Sin Miedo connects queer encounters by a river with the history of Taíno resistance in Borikén, or Puerto Rico. Shot on 16mm, the film brings desire, place and historical memory into the same frame. Cineaparte’s film listing provides a further reference point for the work. (Gay City News; Cineaparte)

Then there’s Follow Back, a personal and increasingly uneasy portrait of a student who becomes fixated on a man broadcasting from his balcony. The premise turns social media watching into a question of boundaries: when does the wish to be noticed stop being romantic? It’s a sharp subject for a culture in which a person’s online presence can seem tantalisingly close, yet remain completely out of reach. (Gay City News)

Camp, care and the complicated business of growing older

Morpheus and Charon begins with a playful musical performance by Zito and his partners, then reveals a more tender picture of care between them. The film’s blend of camp, eroticism and eldercare gives its poolside and bedroom scenes a bittersweet edge. Coverage of the short has also highlighted its frank engagement with ageing, desire and mortality. (Gay City News; The Hollywood Times; Letterboxd)

That tonal balancing act is what makes the film stand out in a programme full of contrasts. A playful costume or musical number can sit beside vulnerability, without either cancelling the other out. Queer cinema is at its most engaging when it allows people to be funny, sensual, complicated and cared for all at once. (Gay City News; The Hollywood Times)

How to choose what to watch at MIX NYC

If you’re picking just one screening, start with the mood you’re after. Electronic Witches offers a slower, character-led story, while the shorts programme promises a brisker mix of styles and themes. For viewers drawn to history and experimental imagery, Muerde Sin Miedo may be the one to seek out; for camp and tenderness, Morpheus and Charon offers a very different kind of evening. (Gay City News)

The festival’s wider programme also includes work touching on family, dance, capitalism, climate change and mental health, according to its published listings. Check the official schedule before setting out, especially if you’re planning around a particular venue or screening time. (MIX NYC; Image + Nation)

MIX NYC’s most inviting quality may be its variety: there’s space for desire, humour, history and awkward longing, often in the same programme. Check the festival listings and choose the stories that speak to you.

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