Ahead of GAZE International LGBTQIA Film Festival 2026, Khushi Jain sits down with programmer James Hudson to discuss the art of curating shorts, championing underrepresented voices, and creating space for queer cinema that surprises, challenges and delights.
I first came across James Hudson’s work at last year’s edition of GAZE, in a shorts strand titled ‘Our Messy People’. Not only was the strand excellently curated but it was obvious that a lot of love and thought had gone into conceptualising it, love for the films, their makers and the people watching them. James joined GAZE around 6 years ago through a programming internship. He had been working at the box office in the Light House, asking Charlene Lydon, who was then Head of Programming at the cinema (and is now Festival Programmer for the Galway Film Fleadh), all kinds of questions about her role. His application for the internship was a success because he’d mentioned ‘screening fees’ in the write-up. From an intern, James became a programming assistant, assistant programmer (yes, they are different) and finally, programmer. He is also the founder and director of TITE, Trans Image/Trans Experience, Ireland first festival of trans and non-binary cinema.
For the forthcoming 2026 GAZE International LGBTQIA Film Festival, James has been responsible for putting together the entirety of the shorts programme. When I met him on Saturday for this interview, he had arrived before time and was reading Niamh Ní Mhaoileoin’s Ordinary Saints. Over its bright green cover and a glass of peach ice tea, we talked about the process of programming Irish shorts, pushing boundaries, and a strand at this year’s festival that is especially for James’ friend Alice at GCN. Our conversation started with a discussion on linguistics, with James telling me that he hadn’t study Irish in school because he’d spent many years of his childhood in France.
Has your interest in linguistics ever translated into your reading of films?
I grew up watching world cinema from a young age because of my mother, so I was very comfortable with films in languages that I didn't speak and subtitles. You may not be able to recognise the words that people are saying, but if you are flexible about language, it makes it easier to absorb tone, performance, and cultural and contextual differences. Maybe not in the academic sense but linguistics has helped me to open myself up to letting the filmmakers deliver what that they feel is right instead of projecting what I think a good film looks like, based on mostly US-UK cinemas. I try to be very mindful of how many productions from these two countries are in the programme at GAZE.
Since we are talking about languages and films from different cultures, could you tell me about curating New Irish Shorts for GAZE? They are, of course, new and Irish, but what else?
That strand is really interesting because it gets the biggest audience in the shorts programme. People are more familiar with the filmmakers, some of whom are funded by Screen Ireland or Focus Shorts. You have no idea who the people coming to the other strands might be, but here, you are more than likely to meet a filmmaker’s mum. These people have a completely different relationship to cinema. So, I always try to create a block that is welcoming and approachable. But once you're in there, I also want to challenge you, just a little bit. For example, this year we have Elisa Beri Borrelli’s placeholder about being trans and a migrant in Dublin, and the documentary Queen Lizzie by David McDonagh, wherein the protagonist, a lesbian traveller, herself says that this is a film trying to reflect on the good and the bad. One of my favourites is Paul Webster’s Marguerite, in which the main character is a right-wing pundit who reunites with her estranged lesbian daughter. These aren’t films that will let you feel comfortable with where things are in Ireland, but they’re also fun and engaging, and have great performances.
That’s the Irish side of things. How do you organise and thematise the rest of it?
Like all other programmers, I have my own biases; I love genre shorts, horror, sci-fi and fantasy. I especially love messy, weird and feel-bad films. It’s great to have one short block in the programme that is very much just my thing (this year it’s ‘Under My Skin’). But, you know, this isn't the James Film Festival. So, I try to imagine the type of audience that I am not, to imagine a cis person, person of colour, working class person or disabled person watch a particular film. I don't think it's worth sacrificing the comfort and inclusion of one kind of audience because a film is mostly good. It is less about what is thrown out than about what is kept in. Which are the films that I would really want to show to specific people in my life? Maybe a film didn't make me giggle, but I know it will make my besties laugh. That’s how I wind up with the very different strands. The ‘Close Contact’ block came about because I saw lots of films with pissed-off female protagonists and said to myself, wouldn't the lesbians in my life love this? Wouldn’t Alice [Linehan, previously programmer at GAZE, now editor at Gay Community News] love this? And the answer was yes.
Ah. So, the insane lesbian cat women are for Alice at GCN. Other than these strands, the festival as a whole also has five categories: Beguile Me!, Move Me!, Push Me!, Thrill Me!, and Watch Me!. What is the story behind them?
The new festival director, Sam Ahern, wanted to foreground these in the programme this year. They are there to help audiences identify things that they know they will like. The programme is also about finding the best spot for the films. I developed the categories with Sam, who curated the features. We wanted the shorts and features to work together.
On that note, can you say a little about the pre-feature shorts?
I wanted to put as many short films in the festival as I could! The short before Iván and Hadoum is Rebecca Ozer’s Tumtum, which is about a queer, non-binary Jewish person struggling with their faith. It just happened that this short was not right for any of the blocks but here was an opportunity to show it. Pre-feature shorts are a chance to exhibit short films without them necessarily making sense in a particular strand. Every film is, after all, bringing its own thing. The pairing of shorts and features is largely determined by length and genre. I will not put a 20-minute short with a 2-hour long feature, nor a comedy with a thriller. I don’t want the audience to have a bad time, to develop an adversarial relationship with a film. With Stop! That! Train! we’ve paired Andrea Foley’s documentary Cork is Burning; both are fun films about drag. And the short is mostly in Irish. Pre-features are also pushing boundaries. While I am at GAZE, every film gets to push the boundaries!
You’ve been at GAZE almost 6 years now. How do you think the festival has changed?
It has definitely become more expansive and inclusive, both in terms of the films in the programme and the screening partners. We are more sensitive to representations now, beyond the obvious markers. It’s important to look past what's on the screen to the filmmakers and crew, and to make the festival accessible for them as well. This means emphasising work from low-income, marginalised and self-funded creatives. I am learning more about what filmmaking really means to them. I hope the shorts section is a wonderful mix of beautifully polished and silly, insane energy films. Bee Mulvihill’s animation PHOBOSPLUNKER is a perfect example of the latter, as is Conor Toner’s Little Miss Fortune. This is what queer Irish filmmaking looks like. It's important to show all aspects of queer connection, outside of just romance and sex.
And the audiences?
I am excited to have more south Asian films in the festival, which reflects part of the new audience. The ‘Testing Limits’ strand is bookended by two Indian films, Iniyvan Elumalai’s Pakka and Saurav Mahind’s Upon Starvation. They're completely different representations of what it means to be a gay South Asian man. It’s the same with the New Brazilian Shorts; the shorts are so different, testimony to the complicatedness of queerness. Brazilian cinema is having a moment and I have even noted non-Brazilian Dublin audiences opening up to these films. I did not want to shape and fit them into something that they are not, hence the separate strand. I want to meet the films where they are.
James is currently taking beginner’s Irish classes. He will be in and around the Light House at the end of the month for this year’s edition of GAZE. I am sure he won’t mind if you went up and said hi.
