For two decades, the Iris Prize film festival has been bringing exciting and impactful LGBTQ+ stories from around the world to the Welsh capital, and in 2026, the festival will celebrate its 20th anniversary with one of its most jam-packed lineups to date.
The Iris Prize was started in 2007 by Welshman Berwyn Rowlands as a personal passion project, with a secondary ambition of altering perceptions of how Wales is viewed by the wider world. (As Berwyn himself put it, ‘Why couldn’t Wales be home to one of the world’s premier short film festivals, which happens to be lesbian and gay?’).
Since then, the festival has grown in scope and ambition and is now one of Cardiff’s biggest annual events, bringing movie lovers – gay and straight alike – to the Welsh capital for a week of fun. The festival features dozens of LGBTQ+ shorts, feature films, Q&As, dinners and parties, running across a full seven days in October. The winner of the festival’s top prize receives £40,000 worth of funding for a new project, which makes the Iris Prize the largest short film prize in the world.
The shortlist of filmmakers in the running for the 20th edition of the prize has now been released ahead of the festival in mid-October, with 35 short films from 22 countries – in 14 different languages and formats – all in contention for the top award. Films range in tone and genre from sci-fi stories about space travellers navigating intergalactic perils (Mishaps in Spacetime) to dark comedies about Yorkshire coal miners losing their trousers (Every Time I See A Cock I Go Funny).
The week-long line up will also feature screenings of the shorts battling it out in the Best British Short category (sponsored by Film4), plus sixteen feature length films, the most to be screened in a single edition of the festival.
Special events to mark Iris’ 20th anniversary include a gala dinner on the Saturday night of the festival, celebrating the films, people, and passion that have played an integral part in making Iris what it is today. This will culminate in the screening of a new documentary, Does She Have Wings, charting the festival’s history. There will also be a performance on Friday lunchtime from English soul singer, and Iris Prize patron, Heather Small.
Fittingly, given the big anniversary year, the festival will also be returning to Cineworld Cardiff, the centrally-located venue where the first ever Iris Prize festival took place. Along with screenings, the cinema’s bar areas will host some of the award ceremonies, while additional screenings during the festival will take place at Chapter Arts Centre in the Cardiff suburb of Canton.
Speaking about the 2026 edition of the festival, Iris Prize Festival Director Berwyn Rowlands said, ‘Take a week off and spend it with Iris in Cineworld – there I've said it! We have an amazing programme of feature films and short films, together with talks, plus question-and-answer sessions with visiting filmmakers, who will be joining us from as far afield as Brazil, Mexico, USA, Europe and the UK.’
The Iris Prize is a film festival for cinema lovers from all backgrounds. Tickets for the event, which runs from 12-18 October, are on sale now via the official Iris Prize website, with passes for the entire week, the weekend, or a single day available, as well as tickets to individual films and events. A copy of the festival’s full programme is also available to view on the website.
Discover more film-focused festivals happening in Wales throughout the year.