What to watch at the Hong Kong Lesbian and Gay Film Festival 2025
Showing 22 movies and 37 shorts, the 36th HKLGFF is a critical reflection on the challenges faced by an LGBTQ community under threat around the world
The latest in these efforts can be seen at the 36th Hong Kong Lesbian and Gay Film Festival (HKLGFF), from September 12 to 27. Continuing its role as a cultural platform for LGBTQ cinema in Asia, the festival will feature 22 feature films and 37 shorts from around the world, offering a reflection on the progress made in LGBTQ rights over the past three decades.
This year’s opening movie is Jimpa (2025), a queer family drama starring Olivia Colman and John Lithgow that premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January. Showing in Hong Kong for the first time, the film follows a mother (Colman) as she takes her non-binary teen (Aud Mason-Hyde) to visit her gay grandfather (Lithgow), in an exploration of family dynamics across generations and shifting perspectives. Mason-Hyde will attend the HKLGFF’s opening ceremony as well as participate in the film’s post-screening discussion.
The rural gay experience in India is the focus of Cactus Pears (2025), directed by Rohan Parashuram Kanawade, who won the inaugural Jury Award for Short Film at the HKLGFF in 2019, for U for Usha. His latest film’s quiet portrayal of grief, friendship and identity in a western Indian village, balanced with a cinematic reverence for the country’s natural beauty, won the World Cinema Grand Jury Prize at this year’s Sundance.
HKLGFF’s “Asian Focus” segment is particularly strong this year, featuring six films: one from Taiwan, another from India and four from South Korea, including 404 Still Remain (2024), a coming-of-age story set in 2001, and 3670 (2025), which follows a North Korean defector who frequents gay clubs.
“Panorama” brings together 12 films from countries including Canada, France, Denmark, Ireland and the United States. Canadian film Drive Back Home (2024), starring two-time Emmy winner Alan Cumming, revisits family and identity against the backdrop of 1970s Toronto, while Danish film Sauna (2025), featuring a transgender protagonist, further underscores the HKGLFF’s commitment to varied storytelling.