Dublin’s TITE Festival (Trans Image/Trans Experience) is a relatively new addition to the film festival calendar, having debuted in 2025. While various festivals across Ireland and the UK focus on LGBTQ+ film, TITE has a rare, specific focus on trans-led film (Brighton’s International Trans Film Festival is exclusive to shorts, while TITE showcases both shorts and features). It's already become a must-attend event for fans of queer and trans indie film, and its second outing looks to be as exciting as its first, featuring several European and Irish premieres.

TITE is a smaller festival than most, taking place almost entirely at the Light House Cinema in Smithfield, Dublin (though it has added several other events this year, in association with University College Dublin and the Museum of Literature Ireland). That means it has a greater sense of intimacy and community than most other festivals, offering an unparalleled experience for people who care about indie film, trans life and culture. The 2025 roster was also extremely high-quality throughout; if you want to know where good and boundary-breaking films are being made on small budgets, and where the most exciting directors of the 2030s are starting to hone their craft, look no further. 

The 2026 roster packs a lot into three-and-a-bit days, ranging from the depths of horror to raucous sex comedy to music documentary to more abstract, experimental fare. Here are seven of our recommendations to catch at the festival. 

SHE’S THE HE

A trans twist on She’s the Man? Sign me up! We’re in a real boom time for queer school/college comedies, what with recent hits like Bottoms and Theater Camp, and She’s the He is poised to be a boisterous addition to the genre. It follows Ethan and Alex, who pretend to be trans women for some classic high school hijinks, only for Ethan to realise that she actually is trans. Ethan is played by trans actress Misha Osherovich; her cis guy counterpart is also played by a trans actor, comedian Nico Carney. 

OUTERLANDS

Asia Kate Dillon (Billions) gets their first starring turn in Outerlands, one of the latest instalments in Wolfe Video’s iconic catalogue. (If you’ve been plugged in to queer indie film within the last 25 years, you’ll know Wolfe Video, the distributors behind films like Big Eden, Loving Annabelle and Adam.) Outerlands is the tense yet tender story of a nonbinary gig economy worker, Cass, who offers to look after their work crush’s kid when she goes out of town. When said work crush fails to return, Cass is pushed to breaking point, and decides to face their own traumas head-on. 

BELONGING SHORTS

TITE has a fantastic set of shorts programmes, pulling together a diverse set of films across style, genre and country of origin. Its 2026 shorts programmes are divided into six thematic blocks: WORK, LOVE, SEX, CAMERA, FEEL BAD, and BELONGING. (There are also specially selected shorts screened before most features.) We’re personally most excited for BELONGING, a geographically varied programme of films that “complicate what it means to be of a place and of a people”. This set of eight shorts covers an anonymous nonbinary protest artist in Tbilisi, Georgia; a Native drag queen’s journey out of hell, and a group of trans women’s pilgrimage to Trans Heaven, a “legendary weekend-long party” in early 2010s Pennsylvania. 

DIVINE HAMMER

Trans film is arguably at its strongest in the DIY/horror/online crossover zone: dark internet rabbit holes, cultlike obsessions, the threat of sudden violence. (There’s also the campier midnight-movie output of directors like Dylan Mars Greenberg.) The m. sisters’ debut feature, Divine Hammer, is perfect for fans of We’re All Going to the World’s Fair and Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke: it follows two young women who meet online, excitedly discover a mutual obsession with gore, and make plans that one will kill the other. 

PUPPYGIRL

Chicago-based director Henry Hanson’s work is already beloved by those in the know, despite his relatively short time on the scene. His debut short, Bros Before, is a foundational text on gay trans yearning, and his debut feature, Dog Movie, exploits the troubles and travails of queer housesharing to hilarious effect. Now, for his sophomore feature, Puppygirl, he’s teamed up again with Milo Talwani – the irrepressibly likeable and off-the-wall star of Dog Movie – to tell the story of a repressed trans woman trying to decipher her own sexuality, who decides she’ll figure it out the old-fashioned way: performing as a ‘puppygirl’ in a pornographic film. 

QUEER AS PUNK

TITE had some great documentaries and mockumentaries in its first outing, including the riotously funny TOPS and a screening of ‘80s cult gem Sex Change: Shock! Horror! Probe!. This year, Queer as Punk is poised to take that mantle: it follows Malaysian queer punk band Shh…Diam! (Malay for “Shut up!”) as they careen from gig to gig, spreading their music and their message against the backdrop of both a global pandemic and an increasingly hostile domestic environment for queer Malaysians. 

OCTOBER CROW

The directorial debut of I Saw the TV Glow and Atypical star Jack Haven, October Crow is a DIY gem: mostly improvised and shot on an iPhone, the film runs on the unlikely chemistry between its leads, veteran underground punk writer Peter Nolan Smith and indie actress Alexandra McVicker (Castration Movie Part II). October Crow is a love letter to kink, sex work, and big cities; Vera Drew calls it “truly the feel-good BDSM movie of 2025”, and given Pillion came out last year, that’s high praise. 

TITE Festival runs from April 16 to 19 April at the Light House Cinema, Dublin. Find out more here.