Reeling: The Chicago LGBTQ+ International Film Festival has announced the complete lineup for its 44th edition, bringing 11 days of international queer cinema to theaters across Chicago from September 17 through September 27, 2026.
ecognized as the second-longest-running LGBTQ+ film festival in the world, Reeling will present 36 feature films and 59 short films organized into ten themed programs. This year’s selections represent 22 countries, including Australia, Brazil, Canada, Israel, Mexico, South Africa, and Spain.
Screenings will take place at the Music Box Theatre, located at 3733 N. Southport Ave.; Landmark Century Centre Cinema at 2828 N. Clark St.; and Chicago Filmmakers’ Firehouse Cinema at 1326 W. Hollywood Ave.
Opening, Centerpiece, and Closing Night Presentations
Reeling will open at the Music Box Theatre with LA BOLA NEGRA, the latest film from Cannes-winning Spanish directors Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi. Featuring Penélope Cruz, Glenn Close, Miguel Bernardeau, and Julio Torres, the film follows three generations of men across pivotal periods of Spanish history.
Beginning around the Spanish Civil War and the rise of Francisco Franco’s dictatorship, LA BOLA NEGRA examines generations of queer life shaped by political repression, family history, and the enduring consequences of fascism.
The festival’s Narrative Centerpiece is CAITY, directed by Lindsay Calleran. The film follows an intelligent teenage girl balancing the excitement of an emerging same-sex crush with the responsibility of keeping her family’s haunted house attraction running after her newly sober father relapses. Calleran brings the story to life through a visually inventive style, with Morgan Spector of The Gilded Age and Chiara Aurelia of Cruel Summer leading the cast.
Documentary Centerpiece JARIPEO, directed by Efraín Mojica and Rebecca Zweig, travels to Penjamillo, Michoacán, where the annual Christmas jaripeo—a traditional central Mexican rodeo—draws local residents and migrants returning from the United States.
The event publicly celebrates community, nostalgia, and the masculine ideals associated with rural life in Michoacán. Beneath the spectacle, however, exists a hidden queer subculture expressed through fleeting touches, coded glances, and secret encounters in the woods surrounding the arena. Blending personal memories, Super 8 footage, stylized sequences, and raw observational filmmaking, Mojica and Zweig question the machismo the rodeo represents while tracing a deeply personal journey toward self-recognition.
Closing Night will commemorate the 30th anniversary of Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman’s award-winning documentary THE CELLULOID CLOSET. Narrated by Lily Tomlin, the landmark film traces a century of LGBTQ+ representation in Hollywood and considers how cinema has shaped public perceptions of queer identity and visibility.
Chicago Stories Take the Screen
Several selections carry meaningful connections to Chicago, including MY BROTHER’S KILLER, a gripping investigation into the 33-year-old cold case of Billy London, a gay adult film performer whose murder remains unsolved. The documentary was produced and edited by longtime Chicagoan Dion Labriola.
LAST DANCE AT THE SUNDANCE STOMPEDE includes footage of Firebrand, Chicago’s LGBTQ+ country-western dance performance group, along with an interview with local dancer Herb Moore. The documentary captures the final edition of San Francisco’s beloved Sundance Stompede after its 27-year run.
Chicago also figures prominently in Charlene A. Carruthers’ PLENUM, an experimental reconstruction of the 1995 Black Nations/Queer Nations Conference that follows two siblings traveling from Chicago to New York City.
Eight Chicago-connected films appear across Reeling’s short-film programs, including Kyle Anne Grendys’ LATE BLOOMER, Whitney Chitwood’s SAM WANTS HER SWEATER BACK, Bi An’s PERMANENT RESIDENCE, and Terry Blade’s MASCULINITIES.
Comedy, Romance, and Complicated Families
Writer-director McKenzie Goodwin makes her feature debut with MEETING MARSHA, a sharply comedic story about an aspiring actress whose carefully planned proposal weekend is disrupted by the unexpected arrival of her biological mother.
Lily believes she has organized the perfect weekend to propose to her girlfriend, Jordan. Everything begins to unravel when her mother, infamous television star Marsha Davis, suddenly appears at her door. Elaine Hendrix of The Parent Trap and Dancing with the Stars plays Marsha, while fellow Parent Trap star and Abbott Elementary favorite Lisa Ann Walter makes a cameo.
Rachel Dratch and Jack Plotnick appear in LOVES COMPANY, while acclaimed actress Joan Chen leads MONTREAL, MY BEAUTIFUL.
Reeling’s sapphic-forward “Who Runs the World?” program explores first love, enduring relationships, family secrets, and the communities queer women build for one another.
Among its highlights is Sandulela Asanda’s BLACK BURNS FAST, an energetic South African coming-of-age comedy about a rule-following boarding school student awakened by an unexpected first love.
Cato Kusters’ JULIAN follows a couple pursuing the ambitious dream of marrying in every country where their union is legally recognized. Leyla Bouzid’s IN A WHISPER examines intergenerational queer kinship and family secrets across France and Tunisia.
Julia Margaret Applegate’s documentary FREE BEER TOMORROW celebrates Ohio’s longest-running lesbian-owned bar and its four decades as a safe space, social destination, and center for community activism.
Trans Stories Move to the Forefront
Trans lives and experiences are represented throughout the festival, including in Andy Fidoten’s SOMETHING YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT ME, a sweet-natured trans romantic comedy executive produced by Lilly Wachowski.
The documentary A DEEPER LOVE: THE STORY OF MISS PEPPERMINT follows Peppermint’s journey from a struggling Harlem drag performer to making history on RuPaul’s Drag Race as the program’s first openly trans contestant and later appearing on Broadway. The film also features Laverne Cox, Bob the Drag Queen, and MJ Rodriguez.
Brazilian filmmaker Daniel Ribeiro, known for The Way He Looks, returns with the North American premiere of I AM GOING TO MISS YOU. Featuring an all-trans cast, the drama follows Amanda and Caio, high school sweethearts who have spent seven years building a life and imagining a future together.
Once they move in together, the pressures of daily life expose significant differences between them. Caio wants emotional stability and a shared future, while Amanda remains focused on launching her legal career. As their priorities begin pulling them apart, the couple must decide whether the connection that carried them through their formative years can survive adulthood.
Also included is MERMAID, the story of a trans child who dreams of becoming a mermaid and forms a transformative friendship with a grieving drag queen.
Horror and Thrillers Power the Midnight Fuel Program
Reeling embraces the darker side of queer cinema through its Midnight Fuel section, led by Houston Bone’s SON OF SARA: VOLUME 1.
The gore-soaked supernatural horror comedy follows Sara, a heavily pregnant woman who is stunned by the return of Troy, the father of her unborn child, after he abandoned her at the beginning of the pregnancy. Despite warnings from her girlfriend—and increasingly strange visions and cravings—Sara accepts Troy’s invitation to dinner at his family estate.
The reunion quickly descends into a supernatural nightmare when Sara discovers that she and her unborn child are the intended targets of a satanic ritual. Wickedly comedic and unapologetically bloody, the film offers a queer reinvention of the pregnancy-horror framework associated with Rosemary’s Baby.
Omar Flores Sarabia’s VERY DEEP INSIDE follows a longtime couple whose weekend getaway to Mexico City forces them to confront truths they have avoided for years.
Australian filmmaker Dean Francis’ BODY BLOW centers on a musclebound young police officer who enters Sydney’s gay scene while working undercover, only to fall for an alluring “twink fatale.”
MINESHAFT: THE CRUISING MURDERS revisits the controversy, production, and public protests surrounding William Friedkin’s 1980 erotic thriller Cruising.
Bodybuilding, Identity, and the Price of Ambition
Sam McConnell’s highly anticipated drama TEST introduces audiences to an amateur bodybuilder attempting to turn professional in rural Ohio. Former bodybuilding champion Brock Yurich, who wrote the film, stars as a man navigating competitive ambition, a dysfunctional family, substance abuse, and his emerging sexuality.
By placing questions of identity within the physically and emotionally demanding world of competitive bodybuilding, TEST examines what happens when carefully constructed ideas about strength and masculinity begin to break down. Yurich is joined by Emmy winner Tammy Blanchard, known for Life with Judy Garland: Me and My Shadows and Into the Woods, and Matthew Morrison of Glee and American Horror Story.
Spanish Cinema Confronts History and Exile
Spanish cinema holds a prominent position in the 2026 program, with several films examining the lasting consequences of fascism, censorship, exile, and erased artistic legacies.
Alongside Opening Night selection LA BOLA NEGRA, the U.S. premiere of A FREE MAN restores Andalusian writer Agustín Gómez Arcos to his place in Spanish cultural history. Gómez Arcos’ sexually transgressive work was banned during Franco’s dictatorship, leading him to leave Spain and continue his career in exile.
THE PRADO & THE MOON celebrates the life and work of Antonio Gómez, the late Spanish designer who left his homeland for Italy and eventually became Valentino’s chief menswear designer, despite never receiving widespread public recognition for his contributions.
Queer History, Culture, and Community
Reeling’s Legacy Lines section explores LGBTQ+ history through lives, places, and communities that have often been overlooked.
Its selections include the U.S. premiere of THE PRADO & THE MOON and Leo Sacks’ A TASTE OF HEAVEN: THE ECSTATIC SONG & GOSPEL OF MAESTRO RAYMOND ANTHONY MYLES, which chronicles the colorful and turbulent life of the performer remembered as the Gospel Genius of New Orleans.
The section also presents LAST DANCE AT THE SUNDANCE STOMPEDE and MADFABULOUS, a film inspired by the true story of Henry Paget, a flamboyant Victorian aristocrat whose extravagant lifestyle openly defied the conventions of his era.
Additional documentary highlights include THE BRITTNEY GRINER STORY, featuring WNBA All-Star and Olympic gold medalist Brittney Griner.
Together, the 2026 selections reflect the breadth of contemporary LGBTQ+ cinema, moving between personal stories and political histories, first love and lasting relationships, hidden communities and unapologetically visible lives.
Returning to shape this year’s festival are narrative feature programmers Richard Knight Jr. and Tatum Yancy, shorts programmer Iona Bodem, and program coordinator Patrick Friel. Brenda Webb, founder and executive director of presenting organization Chicago Filmmakers, programmed the documentary slate.
Tickets and Festival Passes
Tickets will be available to the general public beginning August 13 through
Reeling’s official website or at each theater’s box office on the day of the screening.
Regular screenings at Landmark Century Centre Cinema and Chicago Filmmakers’ Firehouse Cinema are priced at $15, or $13 for Reeling members. Opening Night at the Music Box Theatre is $20 for the film only, or $18 for members. Admission to the film and after-party is $55, or $50 for members.
Festival passes are also available, with Reeling members receiving discounted pricing and early access to tickets and passes.
Reeling is produced by Chicago Filmmakers, a nonprofit media arts organization that has supported independent filmmakers for more than 50 years through education, funding, workforce training, equipment access, screenings, and other creative resources. Chicago Filmmakers also presents The Onion City Experimental Film Festival.
