Queer East Brings Asian LGBTQ+ Films to Sheffield With Five November Screenings

Sheffield cinema audiences will have the opportunity to discover five LGBTQ+ film programmes exploring relationships, family, migration and identity across East and Southeast Asia when Queer East begins a special season at Showroom Cinema on Tuesday 3 November 2026.

The programme forms part of Queer East on the Road, which brings international films to cinemas across the UK, giving audiences outside London opportunities to see productions that may not receive a widespread theatrical release.

Running until Thursday 26 November, the Sheffield season includes romantic drama, supernatural comedy, documentaries and short films celebrating older LGBTQ+ generations, with all five screenings taking place at Showroom Cinema in the city centre.

Girlfriends Opens the Season With a Story of Love and Identity

The programme begins on Tuesday 3 November at 8.30pm with Girlfriends, directed by Tracy Choi, which follows Lok, a 34-year-old filmmaker from Macau whose personal and professional life has reached a difficult point.

Although she has already directed a feature film, her next project has stalled, while her girlfriend Bei Bei wants them to marry, buy a home and establish a more settled future together.

As Lok considers those expectations, the story moves backwards through her life, revisiting her experiences as a university student in Taiwan and her teenage years in Macau.

On Tuesday 10 November at 8.15pm, the festival takes a very different direction with A Useful Ghost, a Thai supernatural comedy about a widower whose deceased wife returns in the form of a vacuum cleaner.

Directed by Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke, the film combines an unconventional love story with dark humour and criticism of industrial pollution and social hypocrisy.

Korean Films Explore Family and Finding Acceptance

The season continues on Tuesday 17 November at 8.30pm with Between Goodbyes, a documentary following Mieke, a Korean adoptee raised in the Netherlands, as she travels to Seoul with her wife.

The couple are celebrating their marriage with Mieke's birth mother, Okgyun, who was forced to give up her daughter in 1982. Their reunion provides an opportunity to examine the emotional consequences of international adoption and the complicated relationships that can develop between biological and adoptive families.

A week later, on Tuesday 24 November at 8.30pm, the South Korean drama 3670 follows Cheol-jun, a young North Korean defector who has struggled to acknowledge his sexuality while adjusting to life in Seoul.

After gathering the confidence to attend a social event, he meets Yeong-jun and begins spending time with a group of gay men, discovering a community with its own expectations and social difficulties.

Final Screening Celebrates Older LGBTQ+ Generations

The programme concludes on Thursday 26 November at 8.30pm with Twilight in Your Eyes, a collection of five short films focusing on older queer people whose experiences are often overlooked in mainstream cinema.

The selection includes Two Travelling Aunties, Golden Voice, Jasmine that Blooms in Autumn, Ibu and Silig, exploring personal histories, relationships and experiences of social and political upheaval.

Curated by Xi Liu, the collection moves between different parts of Asia, including Cambodia and Singapore, presenting stories of people whose lives have been shaped by decades of social change.

Where to Watch and How Much Are Tickets?

All five screenings take place at Showroom Cinema, 15 Paternoster Row, Sheffield, S1 2BX, a short walk from Sheffield railway station.

Standard evening tickets cost £12, with concessions available for £10. Visitors aged between 16 and 26 can obtain £6 tickets through the cinema's free CINE26 membership scheme, subject to the screenings' advertised age classifications.

Tickets and full programme: Queer East on the Road at Showroom Cinema.