47 Films by Queer Women, Transgender and Nonbinary Filmmakers of Color Screen June 12–14 at San Francisco’s Presidio Theatre
Program Highlights Include 10 World Premieres, Newly Restored Print of A Litany for Survival: The Life and Work of Audre Lorde, Powerful Portraits of Afro-descendant Trans Activists in Latin America, and More
San Francisco, CA – May 21, 2026 – Today, the Queer Women of Color Media Arts Project – QWOCMAP unveiled its full program for its 22nd annual International Queer Women of Color Film Festival, presenting over 47 films by queer women, transgender, and nonbinary filmmakers of color. The Film Festival’s flagship weekend takes place from June 12–14, 2026 at San Francisco’s historic Presidio Theatre, with satellite screenings extending across Los Angeles to Atlanta with online encore screenings for global audiences from May through November. Featuring over 10 world premieres and filmmakers represented from North America, Asia, South America, and Europe, this year’s Film Festival theme We Resist, and We Roll reflects films rooted in cultural preservation, protest, and the everyday acts of survival, kinship, and connection. The Film Festival is free and open to all, with the full schedule and required ticket registration available at qwocmap.org/festival/schedule.
QWOCMAP’s flagship annual Film Festival is both one of the world’s largest LGBTQIA+ BIPOC film festivals and a leading example of accessible film exhibition, setting a national standard for disability justice-centered programming with accessibility embedded as a core cultural practice rather than an accommodation.
Festival screenings are organized into themed programs, opening with Queer Black Joy Like Fire, which centers Black queer cultural reclamation and community as part of QWOCMAP’s annual Juneteenth and Pride programming, and closing with Queer Asian Spirit, spotlighting Asian and Asian American stories of belonging and community from filmmakers across the globe. Together, these programs reflect QWOCMAP’s commitment to translocal curation, placing films in dialogue across cultures, from hyperlocal to transnational contexts. Additional themed screenings include Break Shit!, a slate of experimental, narrative, and hybrid works confronting systems of violence and resistance; Land and Resistance, foregrounding Indigenous, environmental, and transnational struggle; Desire & Defiance, exploring intimacy, sexuality, and interiority; and Queer Families Belong, celebrating kinship and chosen family in all its expressions.
Among this year’s highlights is the landmark presentation of a newly restored and remastered presentation of A Litany for Survival, the celebrated and renowned 1995 documentary of the life and legacy of Audre Lorde, directed by Ada Gay Griffin and Michelle Parkerson, with cinematography by Arthur Jafa. Winner of the Golden Gate Award for Best Biographical Documentary at the San Francisco International Film Festival, the film draws on archival footage, interviews, and Lorde’s own poetry to trace her enduring influence across literature, activism, and queer thought. Newly preserved for future generations, this new edition reinforces the Festival’s commitment to preserving and celebrating the cultural legacies of queer and trans storytellers of color.
Additional centerpiece films foreground the lives and leadership of Afro-descendant trans communities across Latin America. These include the world premiere of Standing Tree, a short experimental narrative following Afro-Colombian trans activist and singer Magdalena Morales as she honors her trans sisters and channels music as a force for memory, resistance, and collective liberation; and ¡Quba!, a feature documentary profiling Cuban trans trailblazers Adela Hernández, the country’s first trans elected official, and Ramón Silverio, founder of the landmark LGBTQ cultural center El Mejunje.
Several filmmakers will attend the Festival in person, including Sundance Jury Award-winning filmmaker Jalena Keane-Lee, whose The Second Spring offers an unflinching portrait of Oakland choreographer Sarah Crowell as she redefines her relationship to her body and artistic practice through menopause. Also attending are Ebony Marie Bailey, whose Hannah Mayree: Songs of Reclamation follows a musician reclaiming the banjo’s Black roots by building instruments from earth materials; and Sundance-premiering filmmaker LaTajh Simmons-Weaver, a former QWOCMAP Critical Juncture fellow, whose Budget Paradise is an intimate portrait of a Black nonbinary painter searching for space and selfhood in their hometown. Additional filmmakers in attendance include Chinyce Cole-Henry, Ana Chen, Jude Garcia, Tiffany Zhang, and Sage Tran.
“The 22nd annual QWOCFF arrives at a moment of profound urgency for our communities,” said Madeleine Lim, Founder and Executive/Artistic Director of QWOCMAP. “This year’s Festival theme, We Resist, and We Roll, speaks to resilience not as endurance alone, but as strategy, movement, and collective power. These films confront erasure, preserve memory, and insist on the complexity and brilliance of histories and lives too often excluded from the screen. We are honored to present a newly restored print of A Litany for Survival within this year’s program, as a testament to the enduring power of Audre Lorde’s vision and the long tradition of creativity and resistance it represents.”
Satellite Programs + Virtual Access
Special “satellite” screenings across California and Atlanta will extend the Film Festival’s programs through partnerships with additional screenings continuing from May through November. These editions include partnerships with the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival presented by Visual Communications (May 3); and the Oakland Asian Cultural Center in Chinatown in partnership with the Asian Pacific Islander Cultural Center from San Francisco (May 22); Chinese Culture Center (July 4); and ZAMI NOBLA in Atlanta in September. As a part of Queer Black August, a special edition of screenings will also take place in partnership with EastSide Arts Alliance in Oakland. In November as part of Indigenous Peoples’ Day and Native American Heritage Month, Film Festival screenings will return to San Francisco in celebration of Indigenous films and filmmakers. Online encore screenings will be accessible to the broader community between September 11-21. More information on the satellite screening films and online encore can be found at qwocmap.org/festival/schedule.
Film Festival Accommodations
At the heart of QWOCMAP’s flagship annual Film Festival is a longstanding commitment to disability justice, with accessibility treated not as an add-on, but as an essential part of the cultural experience. Accommodations include:
- English open captions and audio description for every film
- ASL interpretation for screenings, filmmaker Q&As and panel conversations
- Fully wheelchair accessible venue with armless seating options
- Dedicated fragrance-free seating section and non-toxic cleaning products throughout the Presidio Theatre, protecting attendees with chemical sensitivities and environmental injuries
- Assistive listening devices, tactile venue maps, and a screen reader-friendly program guide
- On-site crisis counselors who can provide support to folks processing sensitive film content
- Quiet low-sensory spaces will be available for those with sensory sensitivities
- Free childcare in partnership with Our Family Coalition
- ADA-accessible venues for all satellite screenings
- Free shuttle services will be available for Festival attendees
- For daytime screenings, the Presidio Go shuttle will depart from the Embarcadero BART station
- For evening screenings on Friday and Sunday, free, accessible shuttles from the East Oakland BART station will provide service directly to and from the theatre for evening screenings
For more information on QWOCMAP, past Film Festivals, virtual encore screenings, and to view this year’s full program, visit: https://qwocmap.org/festival/.
A Festival Built on 22 Years of Impact
Since 2005, QWOCMAP has produced the world’s largest free film festival dedicated to queer women of color and transgender, nonbinary, and gender nonconforming people of color filmmakers. Over more than two decades, the Film Festival has premiered 754 films, partnered with 300+ organizations, provided $80,000 in resources directly to filmmakers, and engaged nearly 29,000 audience members worldwide. For every $1 invested, the Film Festival returns $5 to the local economy. The 21st annual edition in June 2025 drew 2,000 in-person attendees, with an online encore that extended the Film Festival’s reach to international audiences in more than 100 countries.
About QWOCMAP
Queer Women of Color Media Arts Project – QWOCMAP builds narrative power by transforming the world’s most expensive art form into a tool for liberation. For 25 years, QWOCMAP has funded, created, exhibited, and distributed high-impact films to shatter stereotypes and bias, reveal the lived truth of inequality, and illuminate the incisive leadership and creative brilliance of LBTQIA+ people of color. QWOCMAP is responsible for more than 50% of queer Black women filmmakers working in the industry today and holds the largest catalog of LBTQIA+ people of color films in the world.
At the center of its public programming is the annual International Queer Women of Color Film Festival, QWOCMAP’s flagship event and is one of the most accessible film festivals in the world. The Film Festival offers fully free admission, multilingual programming, audio description, and open captioning—eliminating reliance on assistive devices required for closed captioning—alongside ASL interpretation, wheelchair accessibility, and community-centered design that removes barriers to participation and expands who gets to see themselves on screen. Each year, it convenes filmmakers and audiences from around the world for an expansive celebration of cinema, storytelling, and cultural resistance, demonstrating what equitable access and radical inclusion can look like in practice for communities long excluded from the industry.
Learn more at www.qwocmap.org.
For more information, contact:
QWOCMAP
T. Kebo Drew
Managing Director / communications@qwocmap.org
Resnicow and Associates
Maria May / Destanie Martin-Johnson / Joanna Yamakami
mmay@resnicow.com / dmartin-johnson@resnicow.com / jyamakami@resnicow.com
214-207-6082 / 212-671-5172 / 212-671-5164
