Age suitability: 18+

Duration: 90 mins

Supported by Lithuanian Cultural Institute

Age suitability: 16+

Duration: 60 mins

Age suitability: Strictly 18+

Part of a Belfast 2024 commission by Outburst Arts, for the Are You on the Bus? project in partnership with Kabosh and Paperxclips

Age suitability: 16+

Duration: 60 mins

Age suitability: 16+

Duration: 60 mins

In partnership with Household

We are so excited to welcome award-winning theatre-maker Rachel Mars to Outburst for the first time, with a gloriously rude show that unearths the hot-as-hell letters that make sexts blush.

Before sexts there were hand-written letters. And loads of them were proper filthy. With the help of the internet, friends and two sexologists, Rachel has unearthed missives dating back centuries. Triangulating these sex and love letters of long dead artists and writers with contemporary sexts and a
meditation on the construction of the queer female body, the show is a tenderand surprising hour that asks – how do we write ourselves and for whom?

Come! Take pleasure in James Joyce’s passion for arse, find out who sneaked her gay lover into the White House, hear from Frida Kahlo, Georgia O’Keeffe, Mozart and bear witness to the best/worst sexts ever sent.

This delightfully intimate, very funny and surprisingly moving show is an erotic archive shot through with Rachel’s personal ventures in contemporary Queer kink.

A triumphant show… dripping with uninhibited desire.
The Guardian

Written and Performed by Rachel Mars
Sound Dinah Mullen
Lights Alex Fernandes
Dramaturgy Wendy Hubbard and nat tarrab
Additional Letter written & performed by Lesley Ewen
Production Manager Lincoln Campbell
Originally developed at The Yard Theatre
Design UandnonU

Content Information: Explicit sexual references

Age suitability: Strictly 18+

Duration: 60 mins

Red Umbrella Film Festival is organised by current and former sex workers in Dublin, creating conversation and community around the issues faced by sex workers in Ireland and internationally through the medium of film. 

Outburst warmly welcomes the collective to Belfast to present their curated short film programme by established filmmaking talent and DIY producers, films made by, featuring, and championing sex workers on screen.

After the film programme, there will be an in-person discussion with the Red Umbrella team, focusing on the intersections of sexuality, gender and sex work and exploring the importance of creating space for sex workers’ stories that challenge stigma and shame, advocates for sex workers’ safety and self-determination, and build towards a decriminalised future. 

Last Rescue in Siam / Thailand / 2012 / 10 mins EMPOWER Thailand presents their short film made by sex workers, exposing the impact of law and law enforcement, raids and rescues used against sex workers in Thailand and around the world.

Roxanne / UK / 2015 / 14 mins Paul Frankl’s award-winning short film follows an isolated transgender sex worker who takes in a young girl abandoned by her mother, throwing her life into question.

House of Whoreship / Australia / 2023 / 15 mins A recently heartbroken brothel worker returns to work post break-up to find her ex-girlfriend hustling the same shift. In this debut short, Holly Bates explores the choice between avoidance and vulnerability in order to make a month’s rent.

Content information:  Explicit sexual references. Nudity.

Age suitability: Strictly 18+

Duration: 120 mins

Dir. Theda Hammel / 2024 / USA / 95 mins

Terry Goon is keeping a strict Covid quarantine in his ex-husband’s Brooklyn home while caring for his nephew Bahul, a 19-year-old model from Morocco, bedridden after an electric scooter accident. Unfortunately for Terry, everyone in his life wants to meet The Model.

Descending on the dilapidated house, breaking Terry’s cherished lockdown rules and putting his barely-formed political convictions to the test, this electric debut from writer, director and star Theda Hammel cements itself as a comedic cesspool of queer, Covid and Millennial anxieties. 

A sharp, borderline offensive satire with an imperfect pseudo-documentary flare, Stress Positions holds up the mirror to the claustrophobic, introspective moments of the COVID-19 pandemic, allowing us to look at our queer connections and laugh at relationships sometimes forged more out of convenience and need for community than from choice. 

Age suitability: 18+

Screened in partnership with QFT

Dir. Esteban Arango / 2023 / USA / 103 mins

UK & IRISH PREMIERE

Neon lights, drug busts, cowboy hats and a sleazy Dylan O’Brien – what’s not to love?

Unfolding over the course of Valentine’s Day in New Jersey, an intersex sex worker runs from the mob after a drug deal goes sideways. 

Intersecting identity crises culminate in this fast-paced queer thriller, revelatory in its intersex representation and a critically acclaimed performance by writer and star, River Gallo, as the anonymous Ponyboi.

Beautifully grounded in a sense of place, space and reality, and with a gorgeous turn from gay fave Murray Bartlett (The Last of Us, The White Lotus), Ponyboi indulges fans of the thriller-comedy while also exploring the reluctant catharsis of confronting a haunted past. 

A UK and Ireland premiere here at Outburst Queer Arts Festival, this highly anticipated sophomore feature, adapted from the award-winning short film of the same name, revels in its stylised, ambitious queering of the neo-noir, leading to a highly entertaining 24 hours on the East Coast.

Age suitability: 18+

Screened in partnership with QFT

Dir. Isao Fujisawa / 1974 / Japan / 85 mins

Isao Fujisawa’s Bye Bye Love was considered to be lost until 2018, when a film negative was discovered hidden in a warehouse. A newly restored print presented in collaboration with Queer East and Normal Cinema Club offers a rare chance to experience this radical and stray piece of queer cinema in its 50th anniversary year.

Romantic love and desire transcends gender, sexuality and the physical body in Fujisawa’s mesmerizingly doomed summer road trip through Japan, reflecting on the dissipating promise of the 60’s counterculture and free love. Achieving increasingly radical strides against traditionalist notions heteronormative relationships (both platonic and otherwise),  Fujisawa’s explicit portrayal of gender fluidity and the complexity of experiences beyond the binary makes for a seductive, ill-fated ‘love on the run’ adventure.

Bye Bye Love will be preceded by a short film curated by Normal Cinema Club, and a pre-recorded intro from director Isao Fujisawa.

Age suitability: 18+

Presented in collaboration with Queer East and Normal Cinema Club

Screened in partnership with QFT

Dir. Lola Arias / 2024 / Argentina, Germany, Switzerland / 82 mins

Directed by acclaimed Argentinian artist, writer and theatre maker Lola Arias, whose work typically plays with the overlap between reality and fiction, REAS is one of the most inventive and surprising queer films you’ll see this year.

Yoseli has a tattoo of the Eiffel Tower on her back and has always wanted to travel, but was arrested at the airport for drug trafficking. Nacho is a trans man who was caught swindling and started a rock band in jail. 

What started as a drama workshop for the incarcerated as a way of reimagining their futures, transforms into a multi-genre hybrid-performance film, using song and dance as a means of liberation from past trauma and a vehicle for radical change in the lives of those on screen.

Shot by Arias on location in a disenfranchised Buenos Aires prison, REAS embodies a collective work that transcends the restrictions of any one genre, allowing its subjects to re-interpret their past as fiction and inventing, through fantasy, a possible future for themselves together. Funny, awkwardly charming and raw, REAS is a cathartic reframing of queer solidarity, kinship and mutual emancipation. 

Age suitability: 16+

Screened in partnership with QFT

Dir. Tzeli Hadjidimitriou / 2023 / Greece / 77 mins

Since the 1970s, lesbians from all over the world have been drawn to the Greek island of Lesvos. Finding paradise in the small village of Eressos, the birthplace of Sappho, they carve out their own utopia. But while the lesbian-run bars, restaurants and hotels offer an economic boost to the village, tensions simmer with local residents.

Filmmaker Tzeli Hadjidimitriou—a native and lesbian herself—is caught in the middle and  chronicles both the vibrant 40+ year history of lesbian community on the island and the conflict (and eventual resolution) between the native Lesbian islanders and the newly settled women.

Using archival films and photographs as well as personal testimonies from both the natives and the lesbians who come to live and love on the island, Hadjidimitriou brings a personal and lyrical touch to this insightful and frequently moving documentary that offers a very real exploration of the joys and challenges of community making and place sharing.  

Age suitability: 16+

Screened in partnership with QFT

In the spririt of Disco Dykes, the stunning new audio work by Stacey Gregg opening at Outburst this year, let’s dance old school style!

Since the 70s and 80s, lesbian discos in Belfast have typically been self organised within community and often hosted in cafes, community halls
and sometimes unlikely spaces. To celebrate the launch of Disco Dykes, we bring back the grassroots lesbian disco experience for one night only
featuring sapphic DJs past and present.

BYO drinks and flirt like you mean it!

Age suitability: Strictly 18+

Part of a Belfast 2024 commission by Outburst Arts, for the Are You on the Bus? project in partnership with Kabosh and Paperxclips

It might seem like the most normcore thing in the world but parenthood is queer as f**k.

From the gloriously tired and tested mind of comedian and cabaret artist Gemma Hutton, mOTHER is a show that’s been four years in the making, which is how long it takes when you’re a busy AlphaDyke Ma navigating the school run dressed like a hitman with sick fade.

Taking in queer community research and interviews, mOTHER is a glorious mash-up of theatre, sardonic comedy and personal storytelling that explores kinship, care and convention and the systems we have to navigate to find our tribes. And box wine.

Commissioned by Outburst and based on a short video work developed during the Covid lockdowns, mOTHER reflects on the queerness of the working-class mothering she experienced herself and the kind of motherhood she’s now experiencing with her own daughter. As warm, intimate and moving as it is sharp and hilarious in its observations, mOTHER in a one-woman show that is as profoundly relatable as it is personal.

Content Information: References to sexual violence, mental health, addiction and loss. Contains some non-compulsory audience participation.

Age suitability: 18+

Duration: Approx. 70 mins

Commissioned by Outburst Arts with support from Arts Council of Northern Ireland Commissioning Fund

Homemade Undercuts is a candid, tender and intimate new body of photographic work from Ellen Blair, celebrating hair as a canvas for queer expression and a potent symbol of kinship and queer care.

Across generations, styles, cuts, shaves, tints and experiments have been a vital part of how queer people have formed and subverted cultural, political and gender identities, in celebration and defiance, revealing our queer selves to each other and to the wider world.
Especially for those who don’t align with the gender binary at a time when gender-affirming healthcare can involve waiting times of up to four years, a haircut can take on an even deeper significance while waiting for that crucial appointment. So cuts and styles done at home, in the homes of friends or in caring community-led spaces are commonplace and become a joyful revolutionary act of solidarity.

Homemade Undercuts celebrates queer community born from a desire to create ourselves in our own image and on our own terms. A tribute to the enduring spirit of queer kinship, the show also includes work by local poets and writers, Suzanne Magee, Heather Fleming, Mícheál McCann, Benjamin Lindsay, Eva Eisherwood-Wallace, Fern Fitzpatrick & Alice Linehan.

Special launch preview: Thursday 14th November, with FREE haircuts by Fern (Paper Clips) in the gallery from 16:00 – 21:00 on a first-come-first-served basis. Join us at 18:30 for the official opening.

Age Suitability: 14+

Free admission (no registration required)

Supported by Belfast 2024.

Exhibition in partnership with PS2.

Acclaimed storyteller and homoseanchaí Richard O’Leary returns to Outburst with a brilliant new 30-minute Irish language storytelling performance, with opening support from Rainbow Reels, the LGBTQIA+ Community Trad Music Group

Please note that English translation will not be provided for Richard’s performance.

Scéal na rún oifigiúil agus faoin ngrá faoi cheilt san Ard Oifig an Phoist i mBaile Átha Cliath. Scéal faoi shuimeanna móra airgid, rianta páipéir agus ghlaonna gutháin. Bhí mé ann agus tá an fhianaise fhisiciúil agam le taispeáint daoibh. Scéal dochreidte, cosúil le síscéal Éireannach ach is fíorscéal atá ann. Is homoseanchaí é Risteard Ó Laoghaire a bhí le feiceáil sa Druthaib’s Ball leis an Array Collective a bhuaigh Duais Turner i 2021. Is é cruthaitheoir na seónna aonair scéalaíochta There’s a Bishop in my Bedroom agus Border Fairies.

A tale of official secrets and hidden love in the General Post Office in Dublin. A tale of vast sums of money, paper trails and telephone calls. Richard O’Leary was there and has the physical evidence to show you. An incredible story, like an Irish fairy tale but this one is true…

Richard’s previous storytelling work includes Array Collective’s The Druthaib’s Ball, their Turner Prize winning work in 2021, and the solo storytelling shows There’s a Bishop in my Bedroom and Border Fairies.

Age Suitability: 14+

Duration: 60 mins (including music)

In partnership with Cultúrlann McAdam Ó Fiaich

Making space for artists to try out new ideas at the festival is one of our Very Favourite Things. And the Brewing showcase is just that, with five piping-hot artists showcasing short extracts from new works-in-progress across theatre, performance, sound and storytelling. 

Each performance lasts between 10-20 minutes, with all artists coming together at the end for an informal chat and feedback session with our audience. The emphasis of Brewing is support and queer critique, creating space for queer artists to get constructive feedback while still making a work, or exploring responses to a certain element of the work. So the audience is as much a part of the event as the artists (participation is not essential, you can just watch.) There will be a short break between each performance.

A relaxed and popular event each year, Brewing is always full of surprises and brilliant ideas, highlighting the depth and creativity of new and established queer talent in the North and beyond. This year we are excited to make space for:

Caitlin Magnall-Kearns  / body fine : Two women, one fat, one formerly fat, attempt to navigate their relationship with each other and with their own bodies in a world desperate for them to shrink.

Christopher McAuley /  Itch : A tender, autobiographical exploration of life with a chronic skin condition

Husk Bennett / (QU) [AV] {OUR}* : An experimental audio visual project that renegotiates ongoing strands of research into contemporary outputs of labour, value and nostalgia.

Rory Jones / Shuttlecock : Commander Linus Faldo has lost contact with Earth, amongst other things. A sci-fi comedy of revelations that are as much about pasts as the future.

Sian Ní Mhuirí /  ÉIRIC (BLOOD FINE) :The Sons of Tuireann is an ancient, Bardic tale about the first murder ever committed in Ireland, and the blood fine (or Éiric) that was set by Lugh Lámhfhada as reparation for it. 

Content Information: As the works are still in development, up-to-date content info will be available here closer to the event. 

Age Guidance: 16+

Duration: 120 mins

Outburst’s in-house journal of new queer writing is back!

We invite you to join us as we celebrate the launch of catflap #4, our annual publication of smart queer writing with a disco heart.
With stunning design from long-time catflap collaborators Other Office, issue four is brimming with new essays, poetry and conversations, edited by poet Mícheál McCann.

This year, we’re excited to launch alongside another publication, photographer Ellen Blair’s Homemade Undercuts: Hair, Identity and Community, a photobook of work from her festval exhibition of the same name (see exhibition page for details).

We’ll be taking over the Black Box for an evening of poetry, readings and performances from contributors and guests across both publications, taking in artists from Belfast, France, Finland, Lebanon and more.

Publications will be on sale on the night and throughout the festival.

Age suitability:  Strictly 18+

Duration: 120 mins

Performances in partnership with British Council, Festival Transform! & Finnish Institute UK + Ireland.

The 4th annual Outburst Queer Art Market is back in town for one day and one day only!

Over the last 4 years, our market has continued to grow, with a record number of sellers and loads of you descending to find treasures out the back of the Sunflower Bar. This year, we’re expanding beyond the beer garden into the Brink! Belfast Stories site (right across the road from Sunflower) to take over a little section of Union Street – bringing together the largest line-up yet of artists selling their work.

The Outburst Queer Art Market hosts some of the best in established and emerging queer makers, photographers, painters, sculptures, knitters, crafters and everything in between.

Whether you’re treating yourself or others in the run up to winter Hell-o-days, make sure to shake out the sofa for change as this is a mostly cash-only event. 

The Outburst Queer Art Market is outside, so be sure to wrap up warm and grab a hot drink from Official Queer Caffeine Enablers Happy Out Coffee on site.

Age suitability: Suitable for all ages

Duration: 4 hours, drop in and out