Reeling: The Chicago LGBTQ+ International Film Festival has set its full slate of screenings and programs for the 43rd edition, running Sept. 19–28 at Landmark Century Centre Cinemas and Chicago Filmmakers Firehouse Cinema.
The second-oldest LGBTQ+ film festival in the world will present 38 features and 59 shorts from 31 countries, including Croatia, Cuba, Spain, China, New Zealand, Argentina, Colombia, the Netherlands and Iceland.
The festival opens with “Lesbian Space Princess,” an animated sci-fi comedy from Emma Hough Hobbs and Leela Varghese. Centerpiece titles include Siobhan McCarthy’s trans coming-of-age comedy “She’s the He” and Jeffrey McHale’s documentary “It’s Dorothy!,” exploring the “Wizard of Oz” legacy through the women who have portrayed its iconic heroine.
World premieres are set for Mario Garza’s “Censurada,” a 1969 Spain-set romance about an organist’s forbidden love affair with the town firecracker; along with the U.S. premieres of J. Markus Anderson and B. Robert Anderson’s “If You Should Leave Before Me,” following a married couple who guide the recently deceased into the afterlife, and Tadeo Pestaña Caro’s “A Few Feet Away,” about a 20-year-old man navigating hookup apps and Berlin sex clubs in search of connection.
Chicago ties in the lineup include Jack Newell’s “American Schemers,” about two flamboyant con artists posing as heirs to a deceased socialite, and McHale’s “It’s Dorothy!” Local work is also showcased in shorts programs “Love Songs for Ourselves,” “Litany for Survival,” “Manshots,” “My Lover Is a Woman” and “Queer Joy.”
The program features appearances from Alan Cumming (“Drive Back Home”), Asia Kate Dillon (“Outerlands”), Tom Blyth and Russell Tovey (“Plainclothes”) and John Waters, who appears in both “It’s Dorothy!” and “Velvet Visions.”
Several selections arrive in Chicago with festival accolades. Croatian Oscar submission “Beautiful Evening, Beautiful Day” won the Frameline Audience Award for Best Film; Sundance ensemble award winner “Plainclothes”; Inside Out Toronto’s Best Film winner “Rains Over Babel”; and “Cactus Pears,” which took both the World Cinema Dramatic Grand Jury Prize at Sundance and Best Feature Film at SXSW London.
Programming reflects recurring themes in queer cinema this year. Films exploring relationships between men include “Departures,” about two strangers meeting at an airport gate; “A Night Like This,” set over a December night in London; “Drunken Noodles,” chronicling intimate encounters across two summers; “A Few Feet Away”; “Queerpanorama,” about a man adopting the personas of his partners; and Marco Berger’s “Perro Perro,” a whimsical story of flirtation and attachment involving a man and a dog-man figure.
Lesbian narratives include “Lakeview,” about seven friends navigating upheaval during a divorce celebration, and “Sisters,” examining the bond between two friends tested by the arrival of a half-sister.
Transgender and nonbinary stories are represented in “She’s the He,” “Odd Fish,” set in an Icelandic fishing village disrupted by a local coming out as trans; “Outerlands,” about a drifting gig worker who becomes guardian to a young girl; and “Really Happy Someday,” following a transmasculine theater performer facing vocal changes and self-doubt.
Period-set titles revisit LGBTQ+ histories, including “Censurada,” set under Franco’s Spain; “Beautiful Evening, Beautiful Day,” depicting closeted filmmakers in post-WWII Yugoslavia; “Jimmy,” dramatizing James Baldwin’s move to Paris in the 1940s; and “Plainclothes,” centered on police entrapment in 1990s New York.
Archival programming includes a restored presentation of James Bidgood’s 1971 underground feature “Pink Narcissus,” originally credited anonymously due to the director’s fear of exposure. Bidgood is also the subject of “Velvet Vision: The Story of James Bidgood and the Making of Pink Narcissus,” which follows him as he returns to filmmaking after a 40-year hiatus.
Nonfiction offerings include Antongiulio Panizzi’s “Bear Week Diaries,” about love and community during Provincetown’s Bear Week; Manuel Acuña’s “The Silence of My Hands,” following a deaf queer couple in a long-distance relationship; and Juru & Vitã’s “This Is Ballroom,” chronicling ballroom culture in Brazil.
The Picture Restart Series, presented by Chicago Filmmakers, will screen 16mm films from 1971–88, including “His Sacred Flesh” with works by Edgar Barens, James Broughton, James Herbert and Ronald Chase.
A partnership with Asian Pop-Up Cinema brings two Taiwanese titles: “Daughter’s Daughter,” starring Sylvia Chang as a mother faced with a decision about her late daughter’s embryo, and Leading Lee’s “The Time of Huan Nan,” a time travel romance and forbidden love set in the Huan Nan Market in 1991. Director Leading Lee and “Daughter’s Daughter” producer Shiny Fang are expected to attend.
Reeling: The Chicago LGBTQ+ International Film Festival runs Sept. 19–28, 2025.