Thirty-eight years ago, the Vancouver Queer Film Festival looked very different.
There were no major venues across Vancouver. No expansive program bringing together filmmakers and audiences around dozens of queer-made films. According to Eli Morris, Director of Strategy and Programs for the Vancouver Queer Film Festival, its beginnings were considerably more intimate.
“The first edition of the festival was literally bed sheets in a lesbian’s living room,” Morris told The Last Shot Podcast during a recent interview with hosts Julien Serrano-O’Neil and Zachary Heneden.
From those community-organized beginnings, the Vancouver Queer Film Festival has grown into a significant cultural platform for 2SLGBTQIA+ cinema. Its 38th edition arrives September 10-20, 2026, for in-person programming in Vancouver, followed by an online festival September 21-27 for audiences throughout British Columbia.
For LEDGERA and Last Shot Media Group, the upcoming festival represents more than another stop on the film festival calendar. It is an opportunity to examine what happens when communities are given the space and resources to tell their own stories, and when film becomes not simply entertainment but a vehicle for visibility, memory, connection and cultural expression.
FROM REPRESENTATION TO AUTHENTIC STORYTELLING
Queer representation on screen has changed dramatically during VQFF's nearly four decades.
“When we started, queer people were not telling queer stories,” Morris said. “Queer representation was very, very limited.”
Today, Morris points to the ability of queer filmmakers to tell their own stories as one of the festival's most significant areas of progress. In our conversation, they emphasized the importance of queer-made films and the authenticity that comes when communities have the opportunity to tell their own stories.
That distinction matters.
Representation is not simply about whether a queer character appears on screen. It is also about who gets to construct that character, whose experiences inform the story and whether audiences encounter queer lives with the same complexity afforded to everyone else.
Morris acknowledges that the work remains unfinished, particularly where identities intersect.
“There’s still a lot of intersectionality that is missing from particularly mainstream media,” Morris said. “Folks who are still not seeing themselves represented on screen, we want to make a space for them where they can come and see themselves reflected in media that they’re watching.”
That philosophy is reflected throughout this year's programming and in how the festival itself is being built.
“A SEAT AT THE TABLE”
The creative theme for VQFF 2026 is A Seat at the Table, an idea centered on abundance, belonging, memory, gathering and possibility.
For Morris and the VQFF team, the table is not merely a visual metaphor.
“This idea of everybody has a seat at the table, and this act of communing and gathering where we can all feel nourished by the content that we’re watching and feeling nourished by even just the act of gathering together felt really important,” Morris explained.
The theme feels particularly relevant in 2026.
At a moment when queer and trans communities continue to encounter political and cultural challenges, VQFF is choosing not to define its festival exclusively through resistance. Instead, it is making room for something equally necessary: connection.
Morris described wanting to create a space where people do not feel as though they constantly have to brace themselves against what might come next. They described the desired atmosphere in much simpler, more intimate terms:
“We’re just, like, sitting at a table, enjoying a meal with our closest friends,” Morris said. “That’s the vibe that we want to create. Something really nourishing and connective.”
The festival's official creative expands on that idea, presenting the table as a place where storytelling, care, memory and community can exist together, while acknowledging the generations that made today's queer futures possible.
From LEDGERA's perspective, that is one of the most compelling aspects of VQFF 2026. A Seat at the Table is not simply asking who is visible. It is asking who is invited, who is heard, who helped build the table and who has historically been missing from it.
EXPANDING THE TABLE BEHIND THE SCREEN
That philosophy extends to the programming process itself.
Morris explained that VQFF expanded the number of voices involved in shaping this year's festival, including three emerging programming fellows and a 15-member volunteer screening committee.
They described a process in which films move through screenings, repeat viewings, conversations and additional research before selections are finalized. The process is intentionally collaborative.
“There is just more people being involved in the watching of the films and the discussions about them,” Morris said, describing a process that considers “multiple perspectives rather than one dominant voice making all the choices.”
It is an important distinction.
A festival dedicated to inclusion cannot rely solely on inclusion as an external message. The values communicated on screen should also influence the systems determining what reaches that screen.
VQFF's approach suggests that widening participation can complicate decision-making, but that complication can also produce more thoughtful programming.
OPENING WITH “ECOSYSTEMS, NOT EMPIRES”
The festival opens September 10 at the Vancouver Playhouse with Ecosystems Not Empires, a collection of seven short films imagining queer futures through ideas including care, identity, kinship and collective liberation.
The program includes stories spanning countries and communities, from Loss of Altitude and Abjad Ḥawaz to Take Care, Till Springtime, Kiloran Bay, My name is Lilith, Ata Pūao and FLY.
The title also captures something larger about the philosophy behind this year's festival.
Morris connected the idea of ecosystems with VQFF's movement toward shared leadership and its rejection of structures where power becomes concentrated in one place.
“What is the antidote to this harm that is occurring?” Morris asked during the interview. “It’s focusing on the whole ecosystem. Not just, like, one singular power, but how so many creatures are necessary for a healthy ecosystem.”
That idea provides a fitting beginning for a festival built around expanding the table.
A CENTREPIECE ROOTED IN LOVE
Among the films we will be watching closely is Apolo, the festival's Centrepiece Presentation, screening September 17 at Emily Carr University's Reliance Theatre.
Directed by Tainá Müller and Ísis Broken, the Brazilian documentary follows Ísis Broken and Lourenzo Gabriel as a trans couple navigating an unexpected pregnancy. The film examines family, parenthood, healthcare and trans life while ultimately grounding its story in affection and care.
For Morris, that nuance was central to its selection.
“I think with trans representation in particular, we often see a very flat narrative,” Morris said.
Apolo, by contrast, offered the programming team something more complicated and recognizably human.
“There is nuance, and there’s growth,” Morris said. “And it’s not perfect, but it’s still really positive, and it’s just really real to the experience.”
Most importantly, Morris described the film as “a love letter to their child, Apolo.”
That description speaks to why films like Apolo deserve space. Marginalized communities should not only appear on screen when a story requires trauma, conflict or tragedy. Their stories can also contain tenderness, imperfection, family, humor, desire, celebration and ordinary life.
That fullness is representation, too.
WHY FESTIVALS LIKE VQFF STILL MATTER
The increased visibility of queer and trans people has not eliminated hostility toward those communities.
During The Last Shot Podcast interview, Heneden asked Morris whether growing visibility alongside political backlash makes queer film festivals more important or changes their responsibilities.
Morris acknowledged that those responsibilities evolve. They also spoke personally about what it means to navigate this moment as a visibly trans person serving in organizational leadership.
“I think we do as a team feel a different kind of responsibility to members of our community that are under attack,” Morris said.
The conversation also crossed borders. Morris discussed challenges facing trans communities in both Canada and the United States, emphasizing that there remains significant work to protect trans rights and care.
For LEDGERA, this underscores why cultural institutions matter.
Cinema cannot single-handedly resolve political debates or eliminate discrimination. But culture helps determine whose lives audiences understand as complex, valuable and worthy of being seen.
Film festivals can create environments where filmmakers do not have to convince mainstream institutions that their communities are worth centering before their stories can even begin.
And perhaps equally important, they give audiences the chance to recognize themselves in someone else's frame.
JOY CAN BE PART OF THE WORK
One of the most striking moments of our conversation with Morris came near its conclusion.
After discussing representation, politics, programming and community responsibility, they returned to joy.
“There is such political value in cultivating joy and celebration, even in really challenging, tough times where it feels hopeless,” Morris said.
Celebration, Morris argued, can sometimes appear frivolous when communities are facing serious challenges. But gathering, connecting and building relationships can itself strengthen communities.
“It is actually very, very important that we are continuing to build positive community connections,” Morris said, “because that’s what’s going to keep us safe when times get tough.”
That may ultimately be one of the most important ideas audiences carry into VQFF 2026.
Queer cinema does not have to exist solely as an archive of struggle.
It can document resistance while preserving joy. It can confront injustice while making room for laughter. It can remember those who came before while imagining lives that have not yet been lived.
It can allow people to see themselves not simply surviving, but living.
WHAT LEDGERA IS WATCHING
As Last Shot Media Group and The LEDGERA Magazine continue expanding our coverage of film, television, creators and the cultural conversations surrounding their work, the Vancouver Queer Film Festival is precisely the kind of space we believe deserves attention.
We are particularly interested in the festival's commitment to authentic authorship, its international and intersectional approach to queer storytelling, the voices emerging through its shorts and feature programming, and the ways filmmakers are exploring trans identity, race, family, culture, community, joy and belonging.
There is also something worth watching beyond any individual film: the festival itself is making an argument about what the future of cultural institutions can look like when the people traditionally asking for a seat are instead empowered to help build the table.
That is why our conversation with Morris felt like more than a festival preview.
It became a conversation about who creates culture, who controls its narratives and what becomes possible when more people are allowed to participate.
THE FUTURE IS “UNLIMITED”
At the end of the interview, Heneden offered Morris one final prompt:
“The future of queer cinema is...”
Morris needed only one word.
“Unlimited.”
It was a simple answer, but perhaps the right one.
From bedsheets in a living room to 87 films and major Vancouver venues 38 years later, VQFF itself offers evidence of how much can change when communities continue creating, organizing and refusing to disappear from the screen.
This September, another table is being set in Vancouver.
There are more seats now.
There are more voices helping decide what gets served.
And there are generations of filmmakers, audiences and communities arriving hungry for stories that recognize the fullness of who they are.
VANCOUVER QUEER FILM FESTIVAL 2026
The 38th Vancouver Queer Film Festival runs September 10-20, 2026, in person in Vancouver, followed by online screenings September 21-27 for audiences across British Columbia.
Individual tickets are offered on a sliding scale from $7 to $19, with additional accessibility provisions available. Online availability varies by title based on filmmaker and distributor agreements.
The full festival program, screening information, accessibility information and tickets are available through Out On Screen.
Interested in attending or exploring the films? Explore the 2026 Vancouver Queer Film Festival ↗
The LEDGERA Magazine and Last Shot Media Group's coverage of VQFF 2026 includes original reporting from an August 24 interview with Eli Morris, Director of Strategy and Programs for the Vancouver Queer Film Festival, conducted for The Last Shot Podcast by Julien Serrano-O'Neil and Zachary Heneden.
WATCH / LISTEN TO THE INTERVIEW