The animation industry is a hotbed of queer talent, and 2025 is one bumper year. GAZE has a selection of the best animated LGBTQIA shorts from around the world, highlighted in the block Our Animated Lives – a selection of 14 new animations – and a hilarious full-length animated feature from Australia – the impeccably titled Lesbian Space Princess. You can easily access the strand online at: gaze.ie/animation
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Presented in partnership with Animation Ireland
Saturday August 2nd 2025 • 7:15pm • Light House Cinema
Saira is a shy, anxious lesbian princess from the planet Clitopolis, thrust from her quiet palace life into joining forces with a non-binary popstar on a quest to rescue her ex-girlfriend from the dreaded Straight White Maliens.
Pre-feature
STARDUST AND CAMP
Australia/ 2025/ 12m
A wandering cosmonaut interviews artists and artworks about identity, creativity, and what it means to make queer art.
Director: Jayden Van Win
Writer: Jayden Van WinProducers: Louise Harvey & Leila Honari
Presented in partnership with Animation Workers Ireland
Saturday August 2nd 2025 • 4:45pm • Light House Cinema
In an abundant year for queer animation, GAZE is delighted to showcase an entire block of animated shorts. Genre hopping, boundary pushing, skin tingling and heartwarming, these shorts show how skilfully animators condense the expansive queer experience into their art.
Gardening (dir. Sarah Beeby) |
Unanimated Strangers (dir. Roisín Sinai) |
 Unanimated Strangers (dir. Renato José Duque) |
 Unanimated Strangers (dir. Haakon Ziegler) |
Stoned for Christmas
Dir. Morgan Young/ USA/ 14m
Built like a blunt rotation, this multimedia love letter to weed cycles follows a weed courier’s deliveries through different animation styles, resulting in a delightfully surrealist trip through the chaos of NYC and the unpredictability of navigating the world while trans.
Gossip/Clecs
Dir. Harri Shanahan/ Wales/ 2m
Told in a Welsh narration of a poem from Jane Campbell’s prize winning debut collection, the subjects of this titular gossip are two older women on a “train-powered honey moon”.
High Diver
Dir. Oscar Bittner/ Germany/ 5m
As Tuan and Felix young men train to become Olympic high divers, their budding love suffers under the weight of the competition. Tuan will sacrifice everything for his sport … or will he?
Grand Dandy (For Ezra)
Dir. The Campbells/ UK, USA/ 4m
Based on Libro Levi Bridgeman’s poem “For Ezra”, a love letter to their grandson, the film follows the playful and tender moments of daily routine as a queer grandparent while the narrator explores how to tell a child they’re non-binary.
Making Space
Dir. Alan Power/ Ireland/ 6m
In a town where fun and inclusivity have long been forgotten, an energetic and free-spirited character named Cardboard decides to change things up, creating a fun queer night for their friends and the queer community in a push against boredom and fascists.
No One Knows I’m A Dog On The Internet
Dir. Nate King/ USA/ 4m
Exploring digital taboos, kink subculture, and ideas of privacy in an age of Twitter porn and OnlyFans, the artist composites an online puppy play identity and questions if we’re able to share ourselves online while still retaining privacy.
Keith
Dir. Steven Fraser/ UK/ 8m
Exploring neurodiversity and autism, different means of communication and animation, and the simultaneous openness and overwhelm of social media, Keith follows the filmmaker’s attempts to learn about a person who was found dead behind the rubbish bins at his flat in Glasgow.
see you soon
Dir. Elisa Beli Borrelli/ Ireland/ 6m
A trans woman has gone very far in her transition journey, but she still feels like something is amiss.
Come the Sun
Dir. Haakon Ziegler/ UK/ 5m
A new divine creation story imagines red stars, frozen earth, and gods in heat.
Cherry, Passion Fruit
Dir. Renato José Duque/ Portugal/ 5m
A dreamy snapshot of a mysterious narrator who intrigues and excites, evoking the humid forests of the filmmaker’s native Brazil where lust takes shape between love and pain.
Tiger Lily Mountain Pass
Dir. Nate King/ USA/ 5m
Inspired by the filmmaker’s time in the forests of Appalachia, this hand-drawn animation explores nature as a space of queer erotic encounter in a region where queerness is often hidden.
Y
Dir. Matea Kovač/ Croatia/ 7m
As the narrator-protagonist reminisces about a tumultuous relationship with a former girlfriend, an empty paper depicts a struggle between artistic composition and decomposition, frustration and release.
Unanimated Strangers
Dir. Róisín Sinai/ Ireland/ 5m
Surrounded by strangers, a woman’s memories of her past relationship unravel and intertwine with the people around her.
Gardening
Dir. Sarah Beeby/ UK/ 14m
In the aftermath of sexual assault, a woman retreats into the garden of her mind. Unsure how to do ‘the right thing’, she embarks on a breathtaking visual odyssey through rage and catharsis to regain her voice and find new paths to healing, before she and her garden are destroyed completely.
MORE ANIMATION
There were far more excellent animation films than we could fit in one shorts block at GAZE 2025, and we’re delighted to have an additional four animated shorts placed throughout the programme.
SHEMERGENCY (dir. Paolo Accogli) |
Orgy Every Other Day (dir. Samuel Döring) |
 GIVE ME THE MONEY (dir. Vida Behar) |
 SKINFLICKER (dir. Helena Gouveia Monteiro) |
SHEMERGENCY
Screening in the sci-fi, fantasy and horror shorts block Our Unnatural Ways
Dir. Paolo Accogli/ Italy/ 3m
A trans superheroine intervenes in crises big and small at her sisters’ times of need.
Orgy Every Other Day
Screening in the intimacy and eroticism shorts block Our Body Doubles
Dir. Samuel Döring/ USA, Germany/ 13m
Set in New York City’s queer underground sex party scene, this short documentary featuring animated illustrations explores the importance of creating spaces where diverse genders can come together and discover sexuality and desire next to one another.
GIVE ME THE MONEY
Screening in the complicated queers shorts block Our Messy People
Dir. Vida Behar/ USA/ 8m
This experimental documentary short shot and hand-animated on Super 8mm film follows Seattle-based noise/electronic band GIVE ME THE MONEY, exploring the lead singer’s experience as a trans nonbinary performer in the local underground punk scene.
SKINFLICKER
Pre-feature to the film A Body to Live In
Dir. Helena Gouveia Monteiro/ Ireland/ 2025/ 5m
As a digital editing technique arbitrarily shuffles Super8 footage of skin, accompanied by the animal hide percussion of the bodhrán, SKINFLICKER reinterprets the flicker film form to explore the representation of a body through surface and fragmentation.
