OMOVIES 19
XIX EDITION • 2026
INTERNATIONAL COMPETITION REGULATIONS
LGBTQIA+ Audiovisual Works
Submission deadline: September 30, 2026, 11:59 PM (CEST)
Festival dates: December 7–14, 2026 • Naples and online platform
Organized by: i Ken APS ETS Association
Article 1 — Introduction and Purpose
On the occasion of the 19th edition of OMOVIES – International LGBTQIA+ Film Festival, the i Ken APS ETS Association announces an international competition for audiovisual works exploring sexual orientations, gender identities and expressions, bodies, relationships, families, communities, and LGBTQIA+ cultures through free, pluralistic, and intersectional perspectives.
Particular attention is given to questioning, understood not as an incomplete or merely transitional condition, but as a legitimate experience of self-exploration, reflection, and self-determination. OMOVIES recognizes every person's right to question their sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression; to take time before adopting a definition; to change, over time, the language used to describe themselves; or to choose not to adopt any label at all. Cinema has the power to restore dignity to these journeys by freeing them from the pressure of certainty, from pathologization, and from representations that reduce them to confusion, fragility, or merely a transitional stage toward a supposedly definitive identity.
The Festival also recognizes queer cultures as a diverse heritage of memories, artistic practices, languages, forms of resistance, care, kinship, and community building. From this perspective, queer represents not only an identity category or an umbrella term, but also a critical lens through which what is presented as natural, universal, or immutable can be questioned. The Festival therefore welcomes works that expand the boundaries of visibility and storytelling, challenge binary thinking, stereotypes, hierarchies, and power structures, and explore the intersections between gender, sexual orientation, origin, racialization, disability, age, social class, faith, and migration, without reducing the complexity of human experience to new rigid definitions.
The Festival is scheduled to take place from December 7 to 14, 2026, in a hybrid format, featuring both in-person screenings and events in Naples, as well as an online programme. Festival venues, schedule, and access procedures will be published on the official website www.omovies.it.
