
This is the article I wish I’d found and gotten to read when I was a queer kid hunting the magazine racks in San Francisco for anything and everything about making films.
I’m so proudly a queer filmmaker, and at a time when queer people feel like we’re under renewed attack, we want to give voice to some of the most stunning queer filmmakers out there. To try to reconcile and explore the reality of making films as queer people, we asked them the same three questions:
1. What are the threats to queer cinema as opposed to filmmaking in general, and how do we combat them in the most dynamic, successful way possible?
2. Do you think executives and gatekeepers truly see the value in queer stories, or are they paying lip service? Obviously money drives decisions — should queer stories be universal enough to cross over to hetero audiences? Or is it better to hyper-focus on queer audiences?
3. Should we rely on studios, or go the DIY/guerilla route? If it’s the latter, what rules do we have to bend and break?
These are 13 filmmakers whose work personifies vision, heart, radical action, and a deep love of all things cinema. Their films are light through the cracks, always.
EVE LINDLEY

Eve Lindley (center, above) is an actor and filmmaker best known for National Anthem (2024), Bros (2022), Dispatches from Elsewhere (2020) and All We Had (2016).
I think the most major threat to queer filmmaking is that we’ll be pigeonholed, to be honest. That our films and projects are somehow too niche to be part of the conversation.
To me, we combat that by focusing on universal human experiences like love, loss, pain… things that everyone has dealt with.
I think all stories are niche. And I believe niche stories can be universal. I can’t relate to The Brutalist in the same way I relate to Wicked. These are extremely niche movies and I see myself in both of them because I am willing to. Ultimately I think it all depends on what executives and audience members are willing to do.
I have relied on studios for over 10 years, and have ended up burnt out and disappointed. The best way for me to feel like an artist is to make things for myself and by myself. I say break the rules you’re willing to break and get your project finished. I’d rather ask for forgiveness than permission.
BRIAN MICHAEL SMITH

Brian Michael Smith is an actor, filmmaker and advocate known for breaking barriers as the first Black openly trans man cast as a series regular on network television, with standout roles in 9-1-1: Lone Star and Queen Sugar.
We as queer people are under an existential threat right now, quite literally. Our civil rights are being eroded by executive order and all branches of government and society. Forces in concert and within our government are actively attempting to legislate us out of existence.
So that’s definitely going to impact all aspects of our lives and ability to exist, including our forms of expression.
On top of that, there’s also social contraction that’s happening right now around queerness in media. Even though more Americans than ever are identifying as queer, many companies afraid of running afoul of the “anti-DEI” legislation and “anti-woke” pocket of the population are pulling back support of LGBTQ+ artists and media.
So, now we’re seeing fewer queer characters in mainstream films and TV shows and you’re seeing fewer queer stories breaking out of queer outlets.
The way we combat that is the same way we always have: Keep making dope shit that’s authentic and about our experiences. People crave realness, and in times of oppression, it’s most necessary to see stories of people going against pressure and forging their own path. Our stories have always given other people permission to be their full selves.
SYDNE HORTON

Sydne Horton is known for her films Saturday Ritual and Meta, and explores identity, belonging, and self-discovery through horror, drama and comedy. Her accolades include winning Best Teen Film at NewFest, a world premiere with Palm Springs ShortFest, and being a Women in Film Directing Mentee.
The best way to combat these threats is to keep persevering. Find the stories within that you need to tell and find the people that want to amplify and lift those stories up.
Reach out to queer filmmakers, queer allies, queer businesses and queer festivals and work together to get these stories made, seen, and heard.
Also, be your own marketing team with your friends if you have to, and stay openminded to sharing projects publicly on platforms like YouTube and Vimeo. Get the work out there — we all need it.
It’s also important to continue pushing the boundaries within these narratives. Allow these stories to educate, but also allow them to represent more diverse LGBTQ+ narratives beyond the commercial queer stories we’ve already seen.
As we continue to foster and create this “radical” content, I’d like to believe that we are opening more doors and understanding for further support and inclusivity.
ANDREW KLAUS-VINEYARD

Andrew Klaus-Vineyard (seated, above) is a proudly bisexual L.A.-based filmmaker, musician and visual artist. His works include This House Is Not a Home, Motel, Dream Boy, and Unknown, At Large.
In the current political climate, harsh as it may sound: No one is coming to save you — we must save ourselves.
We must learn from our queer elders, learn our history, and then go make your damn movie by hook or by crook. We have a long and diverse history of scrappy, punk rock, queer AF, groundbreaking independent filmmakers who laid the groundwork before us in every aspect of filmmaking.
Look at amazing underground and indie filmmakers from Andy Warhol and James Bidgood to modern mavens like Vera Drew or Louise Weard. Look at the work they have made, learn their lessons and then pick up the baton and carry that torch proudly into the darkness.
MATHIAS BROE

Mathias Broe (center, above) is a queer filmmaker based in Copenhagen. His debut feature, Sauna, premiered at Sundance 2025 in the World Cinema Dramatic Competition. In 2020, he won the Danish Robert Award for his short documentary “Amphi,” a vulnerable exploration of queer male identity and sexuality.
The primary challenge for queer filmmaking lies in the fact that we tell stories from a minority perspective. While cinema is both an art form and a means of storytelling, it is also driven by sales and profit.
As such, we must strike a delicate balance, crafting universal narratives through the lens of our unique experiences, infused with the nuances that define our queer identities.
In Denmark, a country with a population of just 6 million, the market is relatively small, making it difficult for queer content to reach mainstream audiences. Consequently, such films often remain within the underground scene, struggling to secure the necessary funding.
When reaching an international audience, it may be possible to focus solely on the queer community. However, in a smaller territory with a language like Danish, one must adopt a broader perspective. Personally, I aim to build bridges and strengthen the connection between diverse audiences, while honoring my own lived queer experience and the community that shaped it.
I don’t believe we need to pander to a heteronormative audience, but it’s important to remember that a compelling story is one that speaks to everyone. At times, we must take bold, radical creative risks — like Gregg Araki or John Waters — while at other times, we may need to adopt a more gentle approach, as seen in the work of Luca Guadagnino or Céline Sciamma. Ultimately, the decision rests with the project and the artist, and we should never shy away from taking chances.
LOUISE WEARD

Louise Weard (center, above) is a director with a degree in film semiotics. She is responsible for the films Computer Hearts (2015) and Castration Movie (2025).
I think that like any filmmaker, you gotta take whatever path gets your movie made. I’ve found success in both routes as a producer based on what the filmmakers I worked with needed to tell their stories, and there is certainly no “right way” to stick to.
There are no rules! Make the ickiest and weirdest and most disrespectable and sincere art you can dream of. You just gotta find your voice. I will always take whatever path gets my art made and allows me to collaborate and support my friends, which is really the only reason anyone should want to do this for a living.
The best reason for directing bigger movies is that I can pay more trans girls’ rent. Because of that I’ll probably be running a studio someday. Vive le trans cinéma!!
DANIEL TALBOTT

Daniel Talbott’s feature script Gray is in development in Denmark with Motor Productions. He is attached as the director to the feature film First Resort, and he is in active development with the wonderful folks at Saga Film for the limited series To the Light.
There are absolutely amazing, brilliant trailblazing producers and execs, both queer and not, out there fighting to tell queer stories with bravery and radical action. Shout out to Christian Torpe, Nate Matteson, Flavia Biurrun, Charles Gillibert, Jesper Morthorst, Lorenzo Mieli, Maggie McLean, Kristen Stewart, Dylan Meyer, Peter Spears, Colin Hartman, Connor Jessup and Ashley Shields-Muir, to name a few.
An executive’s commitment depends on the executive, who they’re working for, and their company’s mandate. My experience has been that it’s much harder overall to sell and get the ball moving with queer-led stories in the U.S., because many executives and production companies think of our stories as niche and not as financially viable.
That said, there were extraordinary queer films made and distributed in the U.S. in the past few years, like Queer, The People’s Joker, National Anthem, High Tide, On Swift Horses and The History of Sound.
I want to direct the queer Anora. I want it all to be possible, but when it’s not, I’m going to pull out my iPhone or camcorder and, Louise Weard-style, make a film no matter what.
LARRYJEAN POWELL

Larryjean Powell is an actor, writer, director, producer, teacher, and community organizer born and raised in South Central Los Angeles. Their indie film work has won at the Seattle International Film Festival and Micheaux Film Festival, and The Gaze series has garnered Emmy and Webby Award nominations.
One of the greatest threats to queer filmmaking is a certain type of gatekeeping of the abundance of real-deal resources from the queer and trans folx who are telling their own stories — too much of others successfully or unsuccessfully telling our stories without giving the tools over to us to do it.
This type of excluding systematically keeps overqualified queer+ filmmakers from being able to explore, experiment, and grow with big budgets to match their glorious and authentic ideas.
There’s this robbery of nuance in all of this that is lifeblood to those who need these stories the most. Stories centering humanity over identity. For me, queer filmmaking is us making films as us, with us, by us and for all who feel us no matter how they identify. It’s where the medicine lives.
VERA DREW

Vera Drew is a director and editor who has worked in TV and film for nearly a decade. She earned wide praise for her first feature, The People’s Joker, and recently directed Season 12 of Tim Heidecker’s On Cinema at the Cinema.
Queer people are obviously treated differently inside of American society, with its different structures. If anything, I think that queer people who make films have an advantage because they have a community of support that they can turn to, and in my experience, with the success of my movie, the ways in which I’ve been able to get other projects going, or getting involved in other projects, has come from the support I’ve received from other queer filmmakers. I don’t think that straightcis-het filmmakers necessarily have that luxury as much.
Also Read: How Vera Drew Made The People’s Joker With Her Own Money — and No Budget
Obviously, we live in a society that is rapidly trying to erase queer identity, but if we focus on the support that we have around us in our community, I think that any challenges we face are just illusions. So that’s how we would combat them.
You look to your left and to your right for support — you don’t look to some sort of an arbitrary person that is at a higher level than you. And I think that’s true for just making films in general.
There are no rules and we should really be relying on the communities of support that are trying to tell the same story we are. I’ve now traveled the world with The People’s Joker and I’ve gotten to see all these little local pockets of filmmaking communities.
To me, that’s the future of making film: It looks a lot like mutual aid and the kind of structures like the community I built up around making The People’s Joker, which is kind of a hybrid of studio structure and DIY aesthetic. I don’t think both have to be mutually exclusive.
MARCO CALVANI

Marco Calvani (above, right) is an Italian award-winning writer, director, producer and
actor based in the U.S. His first feature film, High Tide, had its world premiere at SXSW in 2024 and was theatrically released by Strand.
Queer filmmaking is not mainstream by definition and that is probably its biggest threat: to be constantly put in a box, to be considered niche and therefore too small to recoup the money or find its audience.
That said, I believe the threats to queer filmmaking are the same filmmaking in general is currently facing. The industry is changing so quickly and so radically that I have the feeling that both studios and filmmakers are currently making decisions motivated by fear, or worst, by algorithm; nobody knows what’s “working” anymore, what’s selling and what’s not.
LOVELL HOLDER

Lovell Holder most recently directed and co-wrote the award-winning queer feature film Lavender Men. His debut novel, The Book of Luke, follows the tragicomic struggles of a gay reality TV star and will be published by Grand Central Publishing in December.
I think executives often wrongly see queer content that doesn’t bring in non-queer audiences as a failure, but by the same token I understand why a cis straight person might not purchase a ticket to a party where they don’t believe they’ve been invited.
I will always say that I want as many audience members as possible to feel like they have a seat at a story I’m telling, which is probably why I’m so frequently drawn to ensembles in the stories I write.
As such, I’ll often center queer characters but surround them with impactful supporting players who aren’t queer. Do I think that’s an effective equation to tell a good story that reaches more people? Yes.
More importantly, do I feel that’s an authentic representation of my own lived experiences and the incredibly diverse collection of people I personally cherish? Without question.
JAVIER FUENTES-LEÓN

After graduating as a doctor in medicine in Peru, Javier Fuentes-León studied film at CalArts. His debut feature, Contracorriente (Undertow), won the Sundance Audience Award and was Peru’s 2011 Academy Awards submission.
Working with studios vs. DIY doesn’t have to be an “either or” scenario, because it entirely depends on the nature of the project.
If the story and vision would be better realized with a bigger budget, then, yes, we should knock on every single door possible, including studios… knowing, of course, that if they come on board we might have to concede a few things (casting decisions, final cut) if we don’t have the power to keep them.
We should have a very clear notion during those negotiations about what we are willing to give up and what is a deal breaker. The queer heart and integrity of the project should remain intact. If not, that’s a deal breaker for me.
If we go the DIY/guerrilla route, then we have the chance to make the rules. We find the money from wherever we legally can, we make the film with friends and colleagues who believe in the project, making sure they are treated well and safely, and we find the best way to distribute it, both inside and outside the traditional windows.
MIKKO MÄKELÄ

Mikko Mäkelä is a Finnish-British writer-director based in London known for his features A Moment in the Reeds (2017) and Sebastian (2024).
In my experience with European public funds, whose remit is often to encourage and support a diverse and risk-taking, artistically ambitious cinema, executives have seemed very genuine in their desire to see queer stories told (and by queer filmmakers).
In L.A., too, I have had the pleasure to meet with a number of brilliant (queer) executives who seem to be doing their best to push through authentically queer stories, oftentimes against massive commercial pressures against risk-taking.
But that’s not to say that even with some European public funds I have never encountered the notion of “queer quotas” — a kind of thinking which might allow a fund to only produce a certain number of queer films per year in ratio to straight films.
With a reported 28% of Gen Z adults in the U.S. now identifying as LGBTQ, to call the queer audience a “niche” audience is, even statistically speaking, false.
I’m sure that the majority of queer filmmakers would also be happy for their films to reach and speak to as wide an audience as possible — but we should be careful and conscious that a desire to reach wider audiences doesn’t end up diluting the queerness of our work, and lead to failing the core audience whose lives we are hoping to depict on screen.
All photos courtesy of the filmmakers