Rainbow Reels 2026

Rainbow Reels 2SLGBTQIA+ Film Festival brings together three days of queer cinema, conversation, creativity, and community Presented by Spectrum Waterloo Region, the 2026 Rainbow Reels 2SLGBTQIA+ Film Festival brings together three days of queer cinema, conversation, creativity, and community from October 24–25. This year’s festival celebrates the breadth of 2SLGBTQIA+ storytelling, moving across genres, generations, and lived experiences while creating space for audiences to gather, reflect, learn, and imagine together. The festival opens on Friday, October 23 at KW Famous Creative Cafe with Larry (they/them), beginning the weekend with an intimate exploration of gender, identity, and the ways we come to understand and articulate who we are. The film's editor and local filmmaker Rémy Huberdeau will be in attendance. Tickets for just the kick-off party can be found here! On Saturday, October 24, Rainbow Reels expands into a full day of film, workshops, and community conversation at the Kitchener Public Library's Main Central Branch. The day begins with a screening of the beloved animated film ParaNorman, followed by hands-on workshops inviting participants to engage with filmmaking and creative expression. Later in the day, audiences are invited to experience What We Inherit, What We Become, a specially curated collection of short films exploring inheritance, transformation, identity, memory, and the ways queer lives are shaped by—and reshape—the worlds around us. Saturday concludes with a special program featuring Harrison Browne, presented in partnership with Sexual Assault Support Centre (SASC). Harrison will lead a panel conversation on sports and masculinity, examining how gender, identity, athletic culture, and expectations of masculinity intersect. The conversation will be accompanied by a screening of Browne’s short film Pink Light, offering another lens through which to consider embodiment, belonging, and queer and trans experience. The festival closes on Sunday, October 25 at the Kitchener Public Library with two powerful films confronting history, memory, violence, and survival. The Fruit Machine examines the Canadian government’s systematic campaign against 2SLGBTQIA+ people, while At the Place of Ghosts (Skɨte'kmujue'katik) brings audiences into a deeply resonant story shaped by Indigenous memory, place, and the enduring presence of the past. Through feature films, shorts, workshops, and facilitated conversations, Spectrum Waterloo Region’s Rainbow Reels Film Festival celebrates the stories that help us understand what we inherit—and the futures we have the power to become. We hope you will join us as we collectively acknowledge queer cinema not simply as entertainment, but as a space for connection, resistance, remembrance, joy, and possibility.