Out on Film 2026 - What We Can't Hide: Narrative Shorts

From the venue:

Secrets have a way of demanding to be seen. These seven stories follow people caught between who they are, whom they love and what the world expects of them—until desire, grief or an inconvenient truth brings everything into the open.

Nonbinary Max and their straight, cisgender boyfriend spiral into an identity crisis when Max announces that they are finally off the waitlist for top surgery. Two Pentecostal youth pastors face a crisis of faith during an afternoon of forbidden love. Strapped for cash, lifelong friends make an amateur adult film and awaken feelings neither is prepared to acknowledge. Peigí is discovered in a bedroom where she should not be. A newly single man preparing to spend Christmas alone unexpectedly takes in his ex-boyfriend’s grieving mother. A polarizing self-help personality, played by Russell Tovey (Plainclothes), begins to unravel at the height of his lecture tour. And when Guy tells his parents that he is living with someone and finally happy, Sunday lunch becomes a coming-out encounter no one anticipated.

Expected Attendance:

The Upper Room - Joel Perez, Director/Writer

JJ - Mark Thiedeman, Director

Featured Shorts:

She's Nonbinary - Nonbinary Max and their straight, cis boyfriend, Jake, spiral into a cataclysmic identity crisis when Max reveals they're off the waitlist for top surgery.

The Upper Room - Two Pentecostal youth pastors have a crisis of faith when they meet up for an afternoon of forbidden love.

JJ - Strapped for cash in a declining industrial town, two young men perform in an amateur adult video, bringing up repressed feelings that could jeopardize their lifelong friendship.

Claonadh - Peigí is discovered in a bedroom she shouldn't be in.

the layover - Prepared to spend his Christmas alone, a newly single man unexpectedly takes in his ex-boyfriend’s grieving mother.

I Am the Prize - A polarizing self-help figure (Russell Tovey – Plainclothes, The War Between the Land and the Sea), whose carefully constructed identity begins to unravel during the height of a lecture tour.

Meet Frankie - When 30-year-old Guy tells his parents he is living with someone and finally happy, he also has to come out to his father, Rob – though his mother, Tess, has known for years. Wanting to be supportive, Tess and Rob invite Frankie for Sunday lunch.

But Frankie isn’t quite who Tess and Rob are expecting – least of all Rob. A potential disaster looms that will hurt everyone and help nobody. Can they rise to the moment with grace, or will everything come crashing down?