Best XPOSED Short Film was awarded to: MURO by Juanma Carrillo
Best GERMAN Short Film was awarded to: MANN MIT BART from Maria Pavlidou
Best INTERNATIONAL Short Film was awarded to: STEAM from Eldar Rappaport
THE LOLLY AWARDS
Over a decade ago, XPOSED introduced its friendly competitive side with the Lolly Awards! The awards were born out of a passionate night of love between a Lola and a Teddy Award, bringing together the extraordinary in queer experimental filmmaking. We know that competition is not nice, and we often debate whether to keep the awards. Here are three reasons for doing so: awards give visibility to filmmakers and their films, thus ultimately supporting queer voices in film distribution. Each Lolly Award comes with a €250 cash prize, which is our small financial contribution to future filmmaking. And by inviting a film jury, we create the space and experience for queer cinephiles to intensely discuss films over four days.
€250 cash prize!
XPOSED awards three short films every year with Lolly Awards, selected by the jury, and one feature and one short film, selected by the audience’s vote.
Our 2026 Lolly
Award Jury
Huei-Yin Chen
Huei-Yin Chen is a curator, writer and researcher. She has been involved in curatorial practices since 2014. She joined the programming team at Women Make Waves Int’l Film Festival Taiwan (WMWIFF) in 2017, and currently works as the Curator of WMWIFF. She also served as jury for various film festivals and as preliminary selection committee for Taiwan International Documentary Festival since 2022. She has independently curated and co-curated programs for Queer East, Taipei Fine Arts Museum, and more. Her interests include expanded cinema, gender in film and film historiography. Her writings can be seen in Film Appreciation Journal, Taiwan Documentary E-Paper, Funscreen, Film Comment, etc.
Jad Salfiti
He/Him
Based between London and Berlin, Jad Salfiti is a British-Palestinian journalist covering culture and politics. He has written for The Guardian, The Nation and Al Jazeera English. His video work includes Germany’s Palestine Problem, which won Best Use of Video at the 2023 WAN-IFRA Digital Media Awards Middle East. He previously co-hosted ARTE’s Europe Weekly and was a Queer Palm juror at Cannes in 2024.
Ashe Schaub
She/They
Ashe Schaub is a filmmaker, photographer and programmer. She is part of the MOIN Film Fund’s Talent Program, studies Film & Media Arts in Flensburg and is based in northern Germany. Her work evolves around the visibility, futures and pasts of queer, trans & black identities, the questioning of power structures and search for queer forms and aesthetics. During her studies she also researched trans representation in popular horror films and the purpose of destruction in anarcha-feminist films. Ashe’s short films and music videos were shown at numerous festivals throughout Germany. The documentary shortfilm FLENSBURG SÜSSBITTER, which she co-directed as part of a 5 person directing collective deals with a city’s lack of colonial reckoning. It premiered at Nordische Filmtage Lübeck and was awarded the German Youth Film Award, among other honors. She selected and programmed for Filmfest im Stadthafen Rostock, Kurzfilmtage Flensburg and as part of the queerfeminist art-collective bilderbanden.
Dan Sokoli
He/Him
Dan Sokoli is a sociologist, activist, and co-founder of Dylberizm, the world’s first Albanian-language queer media platform, as well as the founder of Prishtina Queer Festival, a cultural platform dedicated to celebrating queer art, memory, and resistance. With expertise in gender, sexuality, and human rights, he leads projects that bridge activism, storytelling, and cultural production. Passionate about archiving human experiences, he is a co-author of Stories of Resistance, a collection of Albanian queer stories, and Why Is Cultural Heritage Being Destroyed in Kosovo?, an analysis of institutional care for cultural heritage in Kosovo. He is currently leading pioneering work documenting queer lives during the Kosovo war. A great enthusiast of films, he has served as a jury member at the Cherry Pop Festival in Zagreb and has organized film screenings across Kosovo, Albania, Montenegro, and the United Kingdom. He strongly believes in the power of community and collective solidarity as forces of resistance and transformation.
Past LOLLY AWARD
winners
2025
Lolly Award: JuJu vs The Possibilities of Life, Love and Death – Htet Aung Lwyn – Thailand – 2024
Lolly Award: The Adventures of the Black Girl in Her Search for Mabel Dove – Nnenna Onuoha – Germany – 2024
Lolly Award: Aliens In Beirut – Raghed Charabaty – Lebanon Canada – 2025
Honorable Mention: Hold Me Close – Aurora Brachman and Latajh Weaver – USA – 2025
Audience Award for Short Film: My therapist said, I am full of sadness – Monica Vanesa Tedja – Indonesia – 2024
Audience Award for Feature-Length Film: Trans Memoria – Victoria Verseau – Sweden France – 2024
2024
Lolly Award: The River That Never Ends by John Thomas Trinidad, Philippines, 2022
Lolly Award: Beyond the Golden Line by SJ Rahatoka, Germany, 2024
Lolly Award: I Was Never Really Here by Gabriel Bihina Arrahnio, Germany, 2022
Honorable Mention: Taking My Time to Dance by Celeste Lapida, Philippines, 2022
Honorable Mention: Queer Exile by Ahmed Awadalla, Germany, 2024
Honorable Mention: Flores del otro Patio by Jorge Cadena, Colombia, Switzerland, 2022
XPOSED Audience Award for Short Film: Alex’s Machine (La Machine d’Alex) by Mael Le Mée, France, 2022
XPOSED Audience Award for Feature-Length Film: Queendom by Agniia Galdanova, USA, France, 2023
2023
Food for thought Lolly Award: Tornar-se um Homem na Idade Média (Becoming Male in the Middle Ages) by Pedro Neves Marques, Portugal, 2022
Diverse Languages Lolly Award: Os Animais Mais Fofos e Engraçados do Mundo (The Cutest and Funniest Animals in the World) by Renato Sircilli, Brazil 2023
Relevation Lolly Award: Bigger on the Inside by Angelo Madsen Minax, USA, 2022
Honorable Mention: Behind Every Good Man by Nikolai Ursin, USA, 1967
XPOSED Audience Award for Short Film: A Letter to Myself – Valerie by Omar Gabriel, Lebanon/Canada, 2022
XPOSED Audience Award for Feature-Length Film: KOKOMO CITY by D. Smith, USA 2023
2022
Lolly Awards:
– Uma Paciéncia Selvagem me Trouxe Até (A Wild Patience has taken me here) by Érica Sarmet, Brazil, 2021
– Sitt el Beit (The Lady of the House) by Anya Kneez, USA, 2021
– อนินทรีย์แดง (Red Aninsri; Or, Tiptoeing on the Still Trembling Berlin Wall) by Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke, Thailand, 2020
Special Mention: SESTRE (SISTERS) by Kukla, Slovenia, 2020
XPOSED Audience Award for Short Film: Jackfruit by Thuy Trang Nguyen, Germany 2021
XPOSED Audience Award for Feature-Length Film: VALENTINA by Cássio Pereira dos Santos, Brazil 2020 and FRAMING AGNES by Chase Joynt, Canada & USA 2022
2021
Surpreme Lolly Award: INTERNATIONAL DAWN CHORUS DAY by John Greyson
Political Lolly Award: QUEBRAMAR (BREAKWATER) by Cris Lyra
Experimental Lolly Award: BARBÈS by Randa Maroufi
2019
Best XPOSED Short Film was awarded to: SOMETHING SAID from Jay Bernard
The Audience Choice Lolly Award for the best Short Film was awarded to: MARGUERITE by Marianne Farley
The Audience Choice Feature Film Lolly Award went to: THE SIGN FOR LOVE by El-Ad Cohen and Iris Ben Moshe
2018
Best XPOSED Short Film was awarded to: MY OWN WINGS from Katia Repina & Carla Moral & LATIFÚNDIO from Érica Sarmet
Best GERMAN Short Film was awarded to: RIOT NOT DIET from Julia Fuhr Mann
The Audience Choice Lolly Award for the best Short Film was awarded to: EVERYTHING THAT I’M NOT by Roman Manfredi
2017
Best XPOSED Short Film was awarded to: THE FOX EXPLOITS THE TIGERS MIGHT from Lucky Kuswandi
Best GERMAN Short Film was awarded to: BOY from Yalda Afsah
The Audience Choice Lolly Award for the best Short Film was awarded to: BOY from Yalda Afsah
2016
Best XPOSED Short Film was awarded to: AMERICAN REFLEXXX from Alli Coates
Best GERMAN Short Film was awarded to: HEIMAT XXX from Sebastian Dominic Auer
The Audience Choice Lolly Award for the best Short Film was awarded to: GOSPEL OF ANASYRMA von Elene Naveriani
2015
Best XPOSED Short Film was awarded to: SHYNESS IS NICE from Anna Helme
Best GERMAN Short Film was awarded to: PLEASE RELAX NOW from Vika Kirchenbauer
Best INTERNATIONAL Short Film was awarded to: HOLE from Martin Edralin
The Audience Choice Lolly Award for the best Short Film was awarded to: HOLE by Martin Edralin and Fahrt zur Hölle by Henning Beckhoff
2014
Best XPLICIT Short Film was awarded to: WANT SOME ORANGES from Goodyn Green
Best XPOSED Short Film was awarded to: UNDRESS ME from Victor Lindgren
Best GERMAN Short Film was awarded to: OFF WHITE TULIPS from Aykan Safoglu
Best INTERNATIONAL Short Film was awarded to HATCH from Christoph Kuschnig
2013
Best XPOSED Short Film was awarded to: ES HAT MICH SEHR GEFREUT from Mara Mattuschka
Best GERMAN Short Film was awarded to: IT’S CONSUMING ME from Kai Staenicke
Best INTERNATIONAL Short Film was awarded to GINGERS from Antonio da Silva
2012
Best XPOSED Short Film was awarded to: THROUGH THE WINDOW from Chen Shumowitz
Best GERMAN Short Film was awarded to: ZUCHT UND ORDNUNG from Jan Soldat
Best INTERNATIONAL Short Film was awarded to: THE BURIED from Jonathan Pope Evans
