01/12/2025 | Writer: Kaos GL
Turkey’s first queer film festival, Pink Life QueerFest, met its audiences despite all the bans.
As Türkiye’s first and still only queer festival, Pink Life QueerFest held its ground on the screen against all bans and obstacles throughout 2025, reaching audiences across two countries and eight cities.
The 13th edition began with an opening night held in Ankara between 22-26 January 2025. Within the festival program, the documentary QueerFest’s Oral History: BELLEKVARİ, produced with the support of the European Union’s CultureCIVIC arts and culture program, premiered for the first time.
Despite the ban orders, the festival continued uninterrupted for five days.
This year too, QueerFest brought together thousands of participants through film screenings, talks, workshops, and its opening and closing events. The strong solidarity built in defiance of the bans, and the story of the BELLEKVARİ documentary, wove a tight network across social media, as always, with the vibrant participation of QueerFest followers.
This year also marked the first time the festival’s 12-year archive was made accessible through its website. This digital archive, featuring posters, catalogues, film selections, and event photos from previous years, aims to contribute a lasting memory to queer film history. QueerFest also introduced its renewed visual identity, embracing a joyful, bold, and inclusive aesthetic inspired by lubunya resistance.
After the ban process in Ankara, the 13th QueerFest made an emergency landing in Istanbul
Held on 11-13 April, “4444. KürFest: We’re Here, Darling” was realized as a reactive program. This quickly organized solidarity gathering created a collective space of production against censorship.
The festival’s strong digital impact centered around themes of “emergency landing,” lubunya solidarity, and freedom of expression. Audiences followed this short but powerful gathering, spanning film screenings to workshops, closely through social media.
QueerFest returned to Amed for the second time
Held on 30-31 August, the 2nd QueerFest Amed infused the city with color for two days through film screenings, workshops, and forums. As always, the program centered not only cinema but also solidarity.
Alongside film screenings, the program included workshops on sexual health, addiction, queer representation, and media language, as well as a major forum. At the event titled “Where Is the Queer Gaze on Screen?”, participants discussed politics of representation in cinema, while the Peace Forum brought together a wide range of women’s, LGBTI+, and human rights organizations.
One of the strongest outcomes of QueerFest Amed was the public announcement of the founding of Amed Lubunya Solidarity during the festival. For two days, lubunyas not only watched films but also engaged in creation, sharing, and organizing.
The festival concluded with the gifting of the specially designed 13th edition keffiyeh (puşi) to Amed’s lubunyas.
QueerFest Antakya was held for the first time
The final stop of QueerFest this year, Antakya, witnessed one of the most memorable moments in the festival’s history: its first open air film screening. The three day program brought together Hatay’s layered culture with lubunya solidarity. The Turkish premiere of Mea Culpa, held outdoors, became a milestone for QueerFest.
With memory-focused walks, communal dinners, and community events, Antakya became a space of solidarity and queer creation.
From the Aegean to Europe: İzmir, Ayvalık, Cologne, Hamburg…
The 13th Pink Life QueerFest expanded its rainbow route from Türkiye’s coastlines to European cities. The festival held programs in İzmir and Ayvalık, followed by screenings and events in Germany, particularly in Cologne and Hamburg, major hubs of the lubunya diaspora.
As the festival returned to its itinerant structure after dedicating its 12th year to Ankara, the 13th edition hosted 2600+ participants, achieved 7M+ social media reach, and featured 60 events and 61 films.
Tags: human rights, media, arts and culture, life, trans, lgbti
