QFest St. Louis is back for its 19th annual fest, bringing some of the best in contemporary LGBTQ+ cinema and more to the Hi-Pointe Theatre from June 12-21. This year’s program consists of eight feature films, as well as four shorts blocks—three focused on narrative shorts and one on documentary shorts.
The theme for this year’s festival is “OUT, LOUD,” which Emmett Williams, director of festival curation and education for Cinema St. Louis, notes reflects ideas of resilience and joy by bringing visibility to voices across the LGBTQ+ community, even as anti-queer sentiment continues to escalate across the country.
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“The films we get for every festival are often a mirror into what’s going on in society at a time,” Williams says. “It just shows you what’s going on in the minds of folks, so it’s great that we have a place where people can see themselves and one another and imagine the possibility of a somewhat better future.”
This kind of inclusive environment is exactly what QFest has cultivated over the past two decades, and this year’s programming has grown to include more than just film. Williams notes that, for the first time, the fest will host a live TV taping for the sapphic dating show Closet Space on June 13 at 6:30 p.m., with an afterparty at Platypus following the taping. Additionally, the fest will also host the Trans Youth Art Sale for the second year on June 20 at 11:30 a.m., featuring work from trans and nonbinary youth artists available for sale. These additional events, alongside the myriad screenings and panels, all contribute to transforming the Hi-Pointe from just a theater into a true community space.
“My goal with this job is to make sure everyone sees themselves on our screen, but also has a chance to see their work on our screen,” Williams says.
Tickets and passes for this year’s program are currently on sale and available online. Here are a few must-sees from this year’s QFest lineup:
Moonlight | June 12, 7:30 p.m.
Kicking things off is a 10th anniversary screening of Barry Jenkins’ Moonlight, which took home the Oscar for Best Picture at the 2017 Academy Awards. The film follows three distinct periods in the life of Chiron, a young gay Black man growing up in Miami, charting his struggles with identity, family, first love, and masculinity as he grows up, eventually reconnecting with an important figure from his past as an adult. Williams notes that this screening will be followed by a panel discussion about Moonlight’s place as an important film for Black queer audiences.
Lesbians in Boystown & Free Beer Tomorrow | June 13, 1 p.m.
This short and feature, screening as a pair, highlight forgotten chapters of lesbian history. Lesbians in Boystown is a documentary short that unearths the history of gay and queer women in West Hollywood, dubbed the “first gay city” in the U.S. Free Beer Tomorrow is a documentary feature that turns the spotlight on Jack’s A Go-Go, later renamed Summit Station, the longest-running lesbian owned and operated bar in Ohio. Lesbians in Boystown director Betsy Kalin will also be present for the screening and will be in conversation with activist and theater artist Joan Lipkin after the program.
Mary Oliver: Saved by the Beauty of the World | June 19, 7 p.m.
This crowd-pleaser documentary from PBS’s American Masters series premiered at the True/False Film Fest back in March and chronicles the poet Mary Oliver’s intensely private life as an out, queer woman. The film features a cadre of celebrities, such as Stephen Colbert, Lucy Dacus, and Steve Buscemi, sharing their relationship to Oliver’s work. But the most engaging of these celebrity perspectives is director John Waters, who was neighbors with Oliver in Provincetown for decades. Waters’ perspective gives a special level of depth to Oliver, as well as a degree of humor that many may not immediately associate with the poet.
Come See Me in the Good Light | June 20, 1:30 p.m.
Every year, QFest reaches out to someone prominent in the local LGBTQ+ community and asks them to program a queer film that is meaningful to them for the OUT, LOUD series. This year, Williams reached out to photographer Jess T. Dugan, who in turn chose Come See Me in the Good Light, the 2025 Oscar-nominated documentary about the life of the poet and activist Andrea Gibson and their battle with ovarian cancer. This free screening will feature an introduction from Dugan talking about why the film is important to them.
The Dads | June 21, 1 p.m.
Coinciding with Father’s Day, the final day of QFest kicks off with a screening of The Dads. Inspired by the 2023 short film of the same name, The Dads follows a group of dads from across the United States who have banded together to fight for their trans and gender expansive children. But as anti-trans legislation and hostility continue to escalate, they’re faced with the difficult choice of either staying and fighting for their children’s rights or fleeing the country.
