Safflicks Pride Film Fest is Going to Los Angeles!
We said the Safflicks Pride Film Festival was returning for 2026. We didn’t say it was staying in the UK.
We’re very excited to announce a new addition to this year’s Pride programme as Safflicks heads to Los Angeles for a special Sapphic Cinema Night at The Black Cat in Silver Lake on Tuesday 30 June.
The event will bring our five-film Pride programme to LA for one final celebration of sapphic cinema as Pride Month draws to a close.
It is also a pretty exciting milestone for Safflicks. Our festival has grown from its roots in the UK, through virtual screenings that have enabled us to reach audiences around the world, but taking a curated Safflicks programme to Los Angeles gives us another opportunity to put these independent films directly in front of the community they were made for.
From Shrewsbury to London to Los Angeles
June is turning into quite a month for our filmmakers.
The Safflicks Pride Film Festival launches at LFEST: Back to Basecamp from 5 to 7 June, returning our cinema programme to the festival where so much of our history began.
From 8 to 21 June, audiences further afield can watch the festival virtually through Lesflicks, while on 9 June we’re heading to London for an invitation-only screening and networking event for LGBTQ+ employee network Chairs and committee members, hosted by Universal Music Group UK in collaboration with the British LGBT Awards, InvestingIN LGBTQ+ and InterMediaUK.
And now we’re adding another stop.
On 30 June, we’re crossing the Atlantic and taking Safflicks to Los Angeles.
The LA screening is being organised with Twisted Valley Films and will take place at The Black Cat, 3909 Sunset Boulevard, Los Angeles, an iconic LGBTQ+ venue in Silver Lake.
Five sapphic shorts on the big screen
LA audiences will get to see the complete five-film Safflicks Pride Film Festival programme, bringing together comedy, drama and documentary from independent filmmakers in the UK and USA.
Lez Be Honest turns coming out into complete chaos when Eleanor prepares to introduce girlfriend Scarlett to her lesbian parents.
Playground follows Grace and Jas as an uncomfortable social encounter forces them to question whether their undefined relationship might mean more than either has been willing to admit.
In Trapped, longtime neighbours Gina and Alexa become stuck together in a stalled lift, where secrets, suppressed emotions and unexpected attraction begin to surface.
What Friends Are For follows queer bisexual Eden, who turns to lesbian best friend Grace for help after being diagnosed with vaginismus while dating a cis man for the first time, challenging some familiar assumptions about sex and intimacy along the way.
And documentary Why We Pride takes us behind Southend Pride, celebrating the people creating LGBTQ+ visibility, belonging and community at a local level.
Five films, five very different stories and a snapshot of just how varied sapphic storytelling can be.
More than a screening
We love showing films, obviously, but one of the most important parts of taking Safflicks into physical spaces is what happens around the screen.
So this isn’t simply a case of watching the films and going home.
Doors open at 8pm, with guests welcomed with a complimentary drink before the films begin promptly at 8.30pm.
After the approximately 60-minute screening, Lesflicks and Safflicks founder Naomi Bennett will moderate a Q&A with filmmakers, giving audiences the opportunity to hear more about the stories they’ve just watched and the people who created them.
We’ll then keep the space open so everyone can stay, have a drink, meet the filmmakers and each other, and continue the conversations started by the films.
Food and drinks will also be available to purchase throughout the evening.
For us, that community element matters. Safflicks exists to create more opportunities for sapphic films to be seen, but also to create spaces where audiences, filmmakers and the wider LGBTQ+ community can connect around them.
Taking sapphic films to sapphic audiences
Independent sapphic films don’t always have an obvious route to their audience.
A film can have a successful festival run and still never reach many of the lesbian, bisexual and queer women who would actually love to see it.
That is one of the things we’re trying to challenge with Safflicks.
Rather than thinking of a festival as one screening in one location, we want to explore how collaboration can help films travel further. This year’s Pride programme will be seen at a lesbian festival, online through a dedicated sapphic streaming platform, at an LGBTQ+ corporate networking event and now by an audience on the other side of the Atlantic.
Different spaces. Different audiences. The same five brilliant independent films.
It also feels particularly appropriate to finish Pride Month in Los Angeles, bringing filmmakers and audiences together in a venue with its own place in LGBTQ+ history.
If you’re in LA, come and join us.
There will be films. There will be filmmakers. There will be a complimentary drink.
And there will definitely be lesbians.
Sapphic Cinema Night: Safflicks Pride Film Festival
Tuesday 30 June 2026
8pm–10.30pm
The Black Cat, Silver Lake
3909 Sunset Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90029
Doors open at 8pm, with the screening beginning promptly at 8.30pm.
Tickets are available now via Eventbrite.
Come and help us close Pride Month with sapphic stories, community and conversation.
See you in LA!
