XPOSED Queer Film Festival Berlin · 19th Edition · May 29th – June 1st, 2025

THE QUEER SHORT FILM FUND

The Queer Short Film Fund was set up to facilitate annual development and production of Queer Film Projects that originate from Germany. Submissions are accepted for documentary, narrative, animated or experimental projects that are queer in content and or form. Projects should ideally challenge and question normative perspectives and simultaneously broaden their vision to topics beyond traditional LGBTQIA+ representation of the mainstream niche market.

The fund is awarded a cash prize of 1.500 €, donated by XPOSED and a voucher for filming equipment worth 2,000 €, provided by 25p.

In addition, the fund is accompanied by a mentoring programme: An industry expert advises the winner in five sessions from script development to the production phase and post-production. Our mentor this year will be Jakob M. Erwa.

ELIGIBILITY

  • The Applicant must be the copyright holder of the project.
  • The Applicant must have made at least 1 short film as a director to be eligible.
  • The Applicant must live in Germany.
  • Student projects are eligible, as long as they retain the rights of the film.
  • Projects must be no longer than 10 minutes / 15 pages in duration.
  • Projects can be in any film/video/other format.

DEADLINES & DATES

  • Submissions –  Deadline May 9th, 2025
  • Announcement of the Semi-finalists – May 26th, 2025
  • Semi-finalists public pitch – May 31st, 2025
  • Winner Announcement at Lolly Awards – June 1st, 2025

SEMI-FINALISTS 2025

Five projects were pre-selected as our semi-finalists for 2025. The five semi-finalists will pitch their projects on Saturday, May 31st, 2025, at 16:00 in a public session at aquarium (next to Südblock). The jury will announce the winning project during the Lolly Awards Ceremony on Sunday evening, the 1st of June.


FRAGMENTOS DE FOGO by Simon(e) Jaikiriuma Paetau
Simon(e) Jaikiriuma Paetau is a German-Colombian interdisciplinary artist whose work spans video art, installations, experimental cinema, and performance, with a focus on decolonial themes and queer cultures. In recent years, Simon(e) has focused on inventing myths and utopias inspired by rural and urban cultures in Latin America, challenging hegemonic discourses. In this way, they have created interdisciplinary works and collaborations with racialized artists and historically marginalized communities, especially Emberá & Wayúu, non-binary sexual dissident bodies (including themselves), and rebellious LatinX trans women.
Simon(e) studied Media Art at KHM Cologne and Film at EICTV Cuba. Their films and videos have premiered and won awards at prestigious festivals and exhibitions like documenta14, Cannes Directors Fortnight, New Directors/New Films MoMA & Lincoln Center, Berlin Biennale 11, BFI London, and the New York Film Festival. Notable awards and recognitions include the Emerging Talent Award at International Short Film Festival Oberhausen 2022, the Norman Award at Stuttgarter Filmwinter 2023, the Best Director Award at the Cartagena de Indias International Film Festival Colombia (FICCI) 2018, and a nomination for the Queer Palm at Cannes Directors’ Fortnight 2022.
Simon(e) has presented their performances and video installations at renowned venues such as the Wexner Center of the Arts, HKW, Martin Gropius Bau, Kasseler Kunstverein, nGbK, Ballhaus Naunynstraße, Shedhalle Zurich, HAU, the Sharjah Art Foundation, and the Cinemateca de Bogotá. In 2023, Simon(e) held their first solo exhibition at the IBB Video Space of the Berlinische Galerie—Museum of Modern Art. The National Museum of Colombia recently acquired several of their works for its permanent collection.
Since 2022, Simon(e) has been co-founder and artistic director of the transnational German-Colombian experimental artistic laboratory, Atelier Lapaetau.

OUT OF BOUNDS by Ahmed Awadalla
Ahmed Awadalla aka Madi is a writer, historian, and transdisciplinary artist. Their work centers marginality as a site of insight, resistance, and imagination. Moving across writing, performance, and visual storytelling, Awadalla draws on personal and collective memory, archival fragments, and embodied experience to explore how queerness and exile generate alternative ways of knowing and being. Alongside their artistic and research practice, they have worked extensively in community care, education, and training, particularly around issues of health, sexuality, and displacement. Their award-winning debut short documentary film, Queer Exile, has been showcased at esteemed film festivals worldwide.

SILENT NIGHT, BERLIN by Grant Gulczynski
Grant Gulczynski is a filmmaker, whose work has screened internationally at festivals such as CPH:DOX, Molodist and the Singapore International Film Festival. Outside of filmmaking Grant was the Head of Festival for the Fringe! Queer Film & Arts Fest, and volunteers in the queer sexual health sector. Grant has been a recipient of the Leverhulme Trust’s Scholarship, as well as being selected for Berlin Talent Campus and MIDPOINT Intensive Queer among other development labs.

YOU DON’T KNOW ME by Seç Ka & Besire Paralik
Seç Ka (they/them) Queer feminist activist, freelance journalist writes in different media platforms, sociologist, and social worker based in Berlin, creates content, produces videos and events motivated by queer and migration experience. They have produced a interview series for LGBTIQ+ news channel Lubunya Haber (the 10th anniversary of O-Platz, a serie about Jin Jiyan Azadi movement…). They were the second director and line producer of Berlin-based queer group Gazino Neukölln’s music video Koli Tutmaz. Their first short film debut No Matter What (2024) will be shown in 48 Stunden Neukölln Festival in June.
Besire Paralik (she/her) Queer feminist activist who works on video projects focusing on art, gender, migration, and border policies. Overcoming (2023) is her first feature-length documentary, based on the division of Cyprus from a queer-feminist perspective. The film has been screened in many festivals and received a 1974 Memorial Award from the Cyprus AEI Festival in 2023. The film was also shown last year at the Xposed Special: Films Against War. She is a co-producer, camera operator, and video editor of a youtube page Lubunya Haber in which news content related to the queer community in Berlin is published. She is also co-directed with Seç Ka No Matter What which will be shown in 48 Stunden Neukölln Festival in June.

WILD IS THE WIND by Misi Hoogvliets
Misi Hoogvliets is a 23-year-old performer, writer and filmmaker based in Berlin. A recent graduate of Bard College Berlin with a BA in Arts & Aesthetics, she was born and raised in the Netherlands and draws deeply from her Surinamese heritage, trans and queer identity. 
Her work is grounded in care and extends into her role as community organizer in Berlin’s vibrant ballroom scene. With a strong affinity for Afrosurrealism and experimental film, Misi blends visionary feminism and radical imagination to craft expansive narratives around transness and identity. Deeply influenced by meditation, ancestral connection and a sense of cosmic belonging, her storytelling reflects a search for meaning, healing, and transformation across time and space.

PREVIOUS RECIPIENTS

  • The 1st Queer Short Film Fund was received by: Doireann O’Malley for the project PROTOTYPES
  • The 2nd Queer Short Film Fund was received by: Zara Zandieh for the project THE SEAS RUNS THROUGH MY VEINS
  • The 3rd Queer Short Film Fund was received by: Pol Merchan for the project PIRATEBOYS
  • The 4th Queer Short Film Fund was received by: Popo Fan for the project BEER! BEER!
  • The 5th Queer Short Film Fund was received by: Tonina Matamalas for the project AMIGAS… MUY AMAIGAS
  • The 6th Queer Short Film Fund was received by: Sarnt Utamachote for the project SONIC REVERBS
  • The 7th Queer Short Film Fund was received by: João Carvalho for the project WAIT YOUR TURN
  • The 8th Queer Short Film Fund was received by: Eric Bitencourt for the project UNCANNY HOME
  • The 9th Queer Short Film Fund was received by: Katrina Singleton for the project CABIN FEVER
  • The 10th Queer Short Film Fund was received by: Wellington Almeida for the project MASCQUERADE