SCENE: Manchester LGBTQ+ Film and TV Festival

Manchester’s SCENE is back for 2025 with a huge, city-wide celebration of queer screen culture scheduled this August. The vibrant, packed week-long programme of events includes a visit from British television titan Russell T Davies, an outdoor cinema on First Street, special screenings of cult movies and partnerships with some of the city’s most interesting venues and festivals.

The LGBTQ+ Film and TV Festival made a splash with its debut edition last year and we’ve been eagerly awaiting news of what’s in store for SCENE 2025 – and we haven’t been disappointed. 

As mentioned, there are all kinds of partnerships with institutions across the city. At HOME, the festival opens on Friday 15 August with genre-bending sci-fi romance Lesbian Space Princess, while the cinema has scheduled a 30th anniversary screening of camp classic Showgirls with an in-screen drag performance. While outside on First Street there’s six days of free outdoor movies including everything from Oz-themed sing-alongs to Mean Girls.

Just as exciting as the retrospectives and career conversations, SCENE also offers opportunities to discover contemporary LGBTQ+ cinema

There’s plenty of opportunity to hear directly from the talent too. At New Century, Russell T Davies (Queer as Folk, It’s A Sin), will be at New Century alongside cast members Vincent Franklin and Cyril Nri to talk about the legacy of their work on Channel 4’s Cucumber. While filmmaker Regan Latimer presents a witty, personal deep dive into lesbian TV tropes with Bulletproof: A Lesbian’s Guide to Surviving the Plot, followed by a Lesbian TV Quiz.

Also at New Century, members of the cast and crew behind Waterloo Road for a conversation on LGBTQ+ representation in schools and on screen, plus writer Jonathan Harvey shares clips from an illustrious career to accompany a showing of queer classic Beautiful Thing. Over at Aviva Studios, Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato, the producers behind Ru Paul’s Drag Race will be in conversation alongside a screening of their 2003 film Party Monster starring Macaulay Culkin. 

Just as exciting as the retrospectives and career conversations, SCENE also offers opportunities to discover contemporary LGBTQ+ cinema. Fresh from Sheffield DocFest there’s a selection of the best queer documentaries from this year’s programme at Vue, Printworks. The cinema also hosts SCENE New Narrative, a curated selection of new international films including Alan Cumming in Drive Back Home and Plainclothes starring Russell Tovey & Tom Blythe.

We’re promised more announcements as the festival approaches, including partnerships with the likes of Cultplex, GAZE and GASP!, in addition to more guests, premieres and parties.