Fringe! Queer Film & Arts Fest 2026

Fringe! is East London's queer film and arts festival, volunteer run and now in its fifteenth edition. It programmes features, shorts, restored archive prints and live art across cinemas, galleries, pop up spaces and basement clubs, mostly around Hackney, Dalston and Hoxton.

The programming leans towards work that never gets a UK release: international premieres, experimental shorts, and retrospectives pulled from queer film history, including 35mm prints and 4K restorations. Parties and club nights are part of the festival rather than a fringe to it, and several screenings run straight into one.

Venues change from edition to edition and the full programme lands shortly before it opens, so the thing to do is watch the festival's own channels rather than book a trip around a specific screening. A launch party runs in Hoxton some weeks ahead of the festival proper.