Diego Armando Aparisio: Queer is what hasn’t arrived yet

Local festivalsfilmslgbtqi+Top News Diego Armando Aparisio: Queer is what hasn’t arrived yet C Diego Aparicio Photo By Yiangos Photography 1536x1024 Relevant News Diego Armando Aparisio: Queer is what hasn’t arrived yet 15 September 2026 Back to the city: 20+1 spots to try this September 15 September 2026 HIO plans new pay scheme for GHS doctors by 2027 15 September 2026 Diana Aza 15 September 2026 FacebookXWhatsAppEmailPrintViber From physics and quantum technologies to cinema — and from a personal search to founding a festival that opened up space for queer voices in Cypriot film. The artistic director of Queer Wave talks to “Ph” about the festival’s evolution, the social pushback it has faced, the need to question our certainties, and a society that, he says, still carries a deep strain of misanthropy. — What exactly do we mean by “queer” today?The concept of queer started out as a derogatory term, meaning “strange” or “odd,” and ended up being reclaimed and appropriated by the very community it was used to insult, so it could be reinterpreted. I don’t want to think of queer as an identity, but as the outcome of so many identities coming together to create something that is specific, yet can’t be fitted into a mould — because everything is different: every person, every lived experience. I find it fascinating to explore and recognise what queer can mean in each different context. There’s always a relativity to the way each community and each society unfolds historically, in different places around the world. That’s built into the definition of the word itself, a priori: what we understand as queer evolves, and has to keep evolving. And there’s something we already know through the lens of intersectionality: even here in Cyprus, a queer person lives their reality differently depending on their social class, on whether they’re of mixed heritage or a person of colour, as it’s called. I’d go as far as to say someone in the north of the island experiences it differently from someone in the south. Looking at it through queer theory — though I don’t like to dwell there — queer has a kind of futurity to it: it’s what hasn’t arrived yet. If normativity is what holds true today, queer sits outside it, and lets us imagine something that doesn’t yet exist, but will. — It’s interesting that your path to cinema started in physics. How did that transition happen?I studied physics in London, did a master’s in quantum technologies, and worked in medical physics. And yet, all the while, a longing and a passion for cinema was growing inside me, nurtured by film festivals. I watched alternative, mostly non-commercial forms of cinema that opened windows onto different realities for me. Sharing those experiences, I began to realise that a lot of what I’d suppressed as a teenager or young adult maybe didn’t need to be suppressed at all. Sexuality goes beyond the heterosexual–homosexual binary. It’s a spectrum, even for people who think they know everything about their own sexuality. I believe it’s something that deserves re-examination, and that redefinition is always possible. These questions drew me further into cinema. Through film, I felt I was coming to understand things — both about myself and about society. In 2017, I applied to join the jury of Giornate degli Autori at the Venice Film Festival. When I was rejected, I finally realised how much it meant to me to be part of that world. I started volunteering at festivals, writing about cinema in London, and interviewing filmmakers. The following year, when I reapplied and got in, something clicked into place. I wanted to discover that world and bring back what I could of it to Cyprus. The fact that certain forms of cinema were missing from the island, combined with my own experience as a queer person, made me want to explore where bringing those two things together might lead. — How much has Queer Wave changed since 2020?For a start, the first edition was held online because of the pandemic. The festival gradually evolved, and so did its programme. Beyond films, since 2021 we’ve had performances too — from drag artists and musicians to visual artists — and that seems to have helped the festival reach and resonate with circles beyond cinema, and with communities close to the queer community even if they don’t necessarily identify as queer themselves. What matters most to me, in terms of the festival’s long-term trajectory and growth, is that this year’s sponsorship allowed us to grow the team and create more professional working conditions. This year we had 250 submissions, so it matters that they’re now seen by more people, not just by me as artistic director. I never wanted to ask people to give their time and energy for free without being fairly paid. It’s a wider problem plaguing culture in Cyprus — and not only here. We didn’t want to be a festival that exploits its people, in any sense of the word. This year, the team is growing in a good way — new energy, new faces, different ideas are coming in. — Has the audience changed?Interest had already started building back in 2020, and gradually an audience formed that was hungry for this kind of programming. I’m seeing more and more young people, especially from Gen Z, engaging with queer issues in a more liberated way, and their presence at the festival reflects that. At the same time, though, we get people up to 70 years old, as well as different social and artistic communities. There are no age limits. Talking about this, I’m reminded of Andreas Karayan, with whom Queer Wave has collaborated on joint projects — this year we’re honouring his work with a dedicated installation and exhibition. — Would you say Queer Wave is more of a cultural-activist event, or a cultural one?It obviously has political dimensions, but that doesn’t necessarily make it an activist undertaking. It’s an action with political impact and significance, but for me, from the start, it was a festival meant to bring to Cyprus a kind of cinema that was missing here. — Why hadn’t it found space in Cyprus before?The festivals that existed at the time, given Cyprus’s scale and relatively small programmes, picked out a handful of films each year with related content. But these films were certainly absent from commercial cinemas — although English-language ones always fared better. If we think of Barry Jenkins’ “Moonlight,” for instance, it played in cinemas because it was an Oscar contender and English-language. It’s a queer film, I love it, but if we step outside the English-language, mainstream forms of production, yes, there was a huge gap, and Cypriot audiences didn’t get the chance to encounter cinematic forms from other parts of the world. — What matters most to you when choosing a film for the programme?This year, through conversations with the pre-selection team, I tried to be less rigid about form. Coherence and authenticity matter, but for me, what matters more is whether a film can move you emotionally, and then leave you with something to think about. In a ten-day festival with 67 films, there also needs to be plurality — the same themes shouldn’t keep repeating, and different realities need to be reflected, from femininities and trans experiences to sapphic and intersectional cinema. I think we’re past the point where queer cinema meant, first and foremost, cis gay men making films. — Have you ever faced backlash?I remember, quite vividly, an MP at the time posting on Facebook that a film festival “normalising deviance” shouldn’t have received funding — and a flood of comments backing him up. More recently, I remember some young men protesting outside the venue, giving Nazi salutes, during the festival. No mob ever actually stormed in, but there has been pushback. — Have you ever self-censored out of fear of backlash?As someone who thinks things through, there are always moments where you pause and ask yourself whether a choice is right, and why. But I don’t feel I’ve ever backed down on a film I believed in. This year, in particular, the programme includes films that could have fallen victim to self-censorship. Among them is Elliot Tuttle’s “Blue Film,” which stirred controversy worldwide and was rejected by several major festivals. It tackles very difficult subjects in a way that I find genuinely honest. I want audiences to watch it and judge it for themselves, rather than dismissing it outright. In that same territory sit literary works like Nabokov’s “Lolita,” a controversial piece of literature. We might admire the form, the craft — but we’ll obviously question the content and the dynamics between the characters. At the same time, the work itself creates the ground for difficult conversations to open up. — How important to you is Queer Wave’s bicommunal character, and the effort to make the festival a meeting point for the two communities?It became clear as early as our online festival in 2020 that offering equal access, even on an online platform, wasn’t straightforward — because of rights that couldn’t be granted for territories outside the control of the Republic of Cyprus. That stirred something in us, and made us think about how important it is for actions like this to encourage reconciliation and connection. And historically, there’s something moving to me in the fact that certain battles had to be fought separately: Alecos Modinos in the areas under the control of the Republic of Cyprus, and Hüseyin Çavuşoğlu in the north, both fighting for the decriminalisation of homosexuality. Coming together through a festival like this mattered both to my own sensibilities and to the community that’s formed around Queer Wave. We’ve given, and keep giving, a platform to Turkish Cypriot artists, filmmakers and musicians — this year, Florenza Deniz İncirli is directing one of the films. I think that should really be a given, more broadly. — What do you see as the biggest institutional gap today when it comes to LGBTQIA+ rights?We know there are gaps, and that exceptions and shortfalls exist in human rights — such as around adoption — while some bills on legal gender recognition, which mainly concern trans people, are still pending. Legally and institutionally, it’s unthinkable that not everyone enjoys the same rights. Of course, we’re seeing regression worldwide, even in countries we used to think were ahead of us on these issues. The notion of democracy as we knew it is being dismantled, and we’re living in cynical times. But beyond the institutional shortfalls, what troubles me more is where we’re heading socially. As far-right sentiment grows, what saddens me more is the misanthropy we carry as a society — and so much else is born from that. There’s a connection between the stripping away of rights, dehumanisation and violence, whether we’re talking about LGBTQIA+ people or the Palestinian people. If we didn’t carry that misanthropy within us, we wouldn’t be able to even conceive of trampling on the rights of any fellow human being, whether Palestinian or LGBTQIA+, and we’d make sure to close the corresponding gaps in our institutions and laws. But this regression across so many areas, and the various waves humanity goes through, have always existed historically. I remember something Judith Butler said this year that stayed with me: whenever we talk about regression, we can draw courage from the fact that a step forward came before it. Without steps in the direction we want, we wouldn’t even be able to talk about a step back. — Are there groups within the LGBTQIA+ community that remain less visible, or face greater obstacles?LGBTQIA+ migrants, people with disabilities, and trans people are, I think, the clearest examples. More broadly, people with disabilities in Cyprus have less visibility than their fellow citizens. And intersex people — who we might assume make up a tiny share of the population — are among us, and their experiences aren’t discussed nearly enough. When we’re talking about surgeries performed at a very young age, which can cause harm ranging from neurological to reproductive damage, these are far too serious to be carried out without the person themselves understanding what’s happening to their own body. Certainly some people in Cyprus have gone through this too — operated on at a young age, by decision of parents and doctors, without even knowing themselves what had happened. Ultimately, it comes back to the same point: everyone has the right to self-determination over their own body and their own desires. — What would you like audiences to walk away with after experiencing Queer Wave?I want people to come, even if they don’t identify as queer themselves — because beyond sharing distinctive works of cinema, or having the queer community feel represented through these films, it’s valuable for our own certainties to be challenged too. Let’s not forget that queer people themselves, before their moment of awakening, go through their own internal struggle and pass through different stages: denial, grief, anger, bargaining, and at some point, acceptance and the understanding that people don’t fit into boxes — that everything exists on a spectrum, whether we’re talking about sexuality, gender identity, disability, or so much else. So I’d like people to leave with a sense of unity and harmonious coexistence, with the feeling that it’s okay not to have all the answers. To arrive with questions, and leave with new ones too. And through that process, I think some answers will come too. The most important thing is that people come, get to know it, and feel it as something warm — because we’re living through difficult times. To feel that togetherness, to feel part of something bigger that doesn’t “swallow them up,” but accepts them as they are and welcomes them in. INFO: Queer Wave 2026 runs at NiMAC from September 18 to 27, with a programme of screenings, performances and side events. More information and the full programme at queerwave.com and on social media @queerwavecyprus. 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