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The UK premiere of La Bola Negra ushers in a new era for the London Festival of Queer Culture in Spanish

















October 6, 2026

➜ The festival expands to almost a month, bringing together cinema, literature, music, performance, research and queer memory from 2 to 26 November

➜ London will welcome Sara Torres, Pol Guasch, Hidrogenesse, Valeriano López, Patricia Langa, Julio Ruiz and a new generation of international queer creators

➜ This year’s programme explores dissent through the work of Federico García Lorca, trans histories, lesbian lives during Spain’s Second Republic, and queer archives from Spain and Latin America

➜ The sixth edition will close with an English-language reading of Lorca’s Sonetos del amor oscuro, marking the 90th anniversary of his assassination

➜ Since its launch in 2021, the festival has become “a living archive of Spanish-speaking queer memory”, says its director, Jorge Gárriz

The London Festival of Queer Culture in Spanish (FCQEL) returns for its sixth edition from 2 to 26 November 2026, with its most ambitious programme to date. Organised by Romancero Books, the festival will bring almost a month of cinema, literature, music, performance, research and queer thought in Spanish, Catalan, Galician and Basque to the British capital. Once again, memory, identity and sexual dissidence will be at the heart of its programme.

The festival will open on Monday 2 November with the UK premiere of La Bola Negra, directed by Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi. The screening, organised in partnership with Altitude Films, will take place at Rio Cinema at 7pm. The film interweaves the lives of three men from different eras, connected by desire, sexuality, pain and inheritance, and draws on one of Federico García Lorca’s unfinished plays. Its queer genealogy makes it a natural fit for the festival. Following its Best Director award at Cannes and Audience Awards in Sydney, Toronto and San Sebastián, the film has already attracted more than two million cinema-goers in Spain and has been selected to represent the country in the race for the 2027 Oscars.

The official opening will follow on Tuesday 3 November at the residence of the Spanish Ambassador in London. Artist Patricia Langa will present Tribute to Lorca, a performance combining dance, flamenco, poetry and lip-sync. Through her character Conchita, Langa pays tribute to Federico García Lorca on the 90th anniversary of his assassination, exploring his death as an act of violence whose memory remains painfully relevant today, while reaffirming the enduring significance of his legacy.

Between contemporary creation and queer memory
One of this year’s central strands brings together some of the most distinctive voices in contemporary queer culture in Spanish. On Friday 6 November, writer and poet Sara Torres will present her novel The Seduction at The Common Press Bookshop, in conversation with Jorge Gárriz. Published by Atria/Primero Sueño Press, the novel explores desire between women through a relationship shaped by intimacy and ambiguity.

Music takes centre stage on Saturday 7 November, when Hidrogenesse, one of the defining acts in Spanish electronic and independent pop, perform at The Divine. Carlos Ballesteros and Genís Segarra, who have been making music together since 1997, will perform a Spanish-language set spanning different stages of their career, offering London audiences a rare chance to experience one of the most distinctive and enduring acts in Spanish-language pop.

The following day, the same venue will host Las almejas que hablan, a dance-theatre work by Carmen Rojas and Karelis Zambrano. Blending movement, theatre, dance and audiovisual elements, the piece challenges heteronormativity and reclaims the body as a space of freedom. First performed in 2024 and recognised at the 38th Madrid Choreographic Competition, it draws on cuir camp and lesbian camp to imagine, through humour and irreverence, alternative ways of experiencing gender, sexuality and kinship.

Literature returns to the fore on 13 November, with a joint presentation of Elogio del cruising by Antonio Aguilar and El Círculo Sáfico. Lesbianismo y bisexualidad en el Madrid de principios del siglo XX by Paula Villanueva. Aguilar’s book traces cruising and homoerotic desire in contemporary Spanish poetry, while Villanueva’s study reconstructs the history of Madrid’s so-called Círculo Sáfico, bringing to light the lives and work of figures including Elena Fortún, Rosa Chacel, Victoria Kent, Carmen Conde and Victorina Durán.

The programme also offers two contemporary perspectives on queer bodies and lived experience. On 14 November, Diamond Dust, written by Pau Coya and performed by Bertie Taylor-Smith and Pedro Leandro, examines the visibility and credibility afforded to LGBTQ+ victims through a real case that took place in Madrid in 2021.

Throughout the festival, the podcast Niños Gratis will also be available, with Nacho M. Segarra and Joan Porcel discussing Self Porn and La Carn in relation to queer masculinities, online pornography, bodies, the internet and the changing nature of desire under digital capitalism.

The stories left out of the archives

Historical memory remains another key strand of FCQEL’s programme. On 11 November, the panel Uncovering Trans Histories, organised in partnership with the LGBTQI+ group of SRUK/CERU, will bring together researchers from Spain and the UK to explore trans histories across the Iberian Peninsula and Latin America, from the early modern period to the twentieth century. Participants will include Mónica Morado, Pablo Ferrer Cobelo, Alba M. Gálvez and Patricio Simonetto. Their research spans gender practices in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Spain, ballroom culture, drag king practices, and trans and travesti histories in Latin America.

The recovery of lesbian histories will also feature prominently. On 20 November, Isabella Lorusso will present Lesbian Leaders in ’30s Republican Spain – Mujeres Libres y feministas, a study based on oral testimonies from women involved in the labour, anarchist and feminist movements of the 1930s, including the lesbian poet Lucía Sánchez Saornil.

The same day will feature Será inmortal: Latin American Shorts on Queer Memories and Archives, a short-film programme curated by Cinema Mentire, bringing together works from Argentina, Chile, Cuba, Mexico, Puerto Rico and Uruguay. Through archival material, testimonies, rituals, persecution and acts of resistance, the films explore how queer communities have survived different forms of repression, and how cinema can serve as an alternative archive for preserving their memories.

Lorca at the heart of cinema, performance and poetry

Federico García Lorca’s legacy runs throughout this year’s programme, which coincides with the 90th anniversary of his assassination. The festival will revisit his work from perspectives that move beyond his institutionalised image, reclaiming the poet’s homosexuality and spirit of dissent.

On 21 November, following a screening of En el camino by David Pablos at Rio Cinema — a film recognised in the Orizzonti section of the Venice Film Festival — The Divine will host a double bill exploring the body, memory and inheritance. Dancer Julio Ruiz will also present Un tiro te peguen, followed by a conversation with Jorge Gárriz about his book and artistic career.

On Sunday 22 November, the spotlight turns to Valeriano López and Juana la Lorca, an unclassifiable film that moves between comedy, musical, performance and mockumentary. Its protagonist, Juan Moreno, a Roma drag artist from Granada’s Sacromonte neighbourhood, creates the character Juana la Lorca after a dream involving the poet. Through irreverence and humour, the film reclaims Lorca’s homosexual and rebellious side while questioning the stereotypes and cultural industry that have grown up around his image.

The tribute will culminate on 26 November with an English-language reading of Sonetos del amor oscuro at Gay’s the Word. The event will feature poets including Leo Boix, Adriann Ramirez and Peter Scalpello, alongside other participants. Written between 1935 and 1936, the eleven sonnets form one of the most intensely homoerotic bodies of work in Lorca’s poetry. Their publication history also reflects the difficulties surrounding the open acknowledgement of the homosexual dimension of his legacy.

The closing day will also feature an event by Niños Gratis, with Nacho M. Segarra and Joan Porcel exploring Self Porn and La Carn.

A festival that has grown with its community

The sixth edition of FCQEL continues a journey that began in 2021, marked by a steady expansion in both its programme and its audiences. Initially conceived as a space dedicated to queer culture in Spanish, the festival has since embraced literature, cinema, theatre, music, performance, podcasts, academic research and debates on historical memory. It has become a meeting point for artists, researchers and audiences connected to Spanish-speaking cultures and the diaspora in the UK.

Previous editions have welcomed a wide range of guests, including Camila Sosa, Eva Baltasar, Luisgé Martín, Pol Guasch, Christo Casas, Ariel Florencia Richards, Paco Bezerra, Elizabeth Duval, Paco y Manolo, Carlos Barea, Eddi Circa and Fernando López Rodríguez, alongside several of the artists featured in this year’s programme.

For festival director Jorge Gárriz, this evolution reflects a purpose that extends beyond cultural programming:

“In every edition, we have programmed voices silenced by Francoist censorship, traditional historiography or simple oblivion — from Lorca to Ocaña, from Ángeles Vicente and her book Zezé to the lesbians of the Second Republic — building a living archive of Spanish-speaking queer memory.”

In 2026, that commitment takes shape in a programme spanning almost a month, connecting contemporary creation with historical memory, Spain with Latin America, research with popular culture, and literature with the live arts. Rather than confining itself to a particular discipline or genre, FCQEL continues to use queerness as a lens through which to examine how desire, bodies, identity and memory have been represented, concealed and reclaimed.

From 2 to 26 November, London will once again become a space for recovering overlooked stories, bringing communities together and opening up new ways of thinking about queer culture in Spanish.


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Press management and inquiries for cultural projects | English/Español. 

I can write news, bios and any other text you might need; create your press kit and direct your work to specific media and publications.
I also contribute writing for METAL Magazine, Vein Magazine, Fucking Young!, SIX Revista, La Opinión de Málaga, Loud & Queer, MOR.BO, 
elDiario.es & other publications mainly as music writer. 

If you think we can work together, or you need help announcing and launching your project you can get in touch below:


ANTONIO RODRÍGUEZ MOLINA (he/him) based in Spain. Cultural and communications manager (EN/ES)