Women Make Waves International Film Festival 2026

We all know how important friends and comrades are to our lives and culture. This is especially true for many queer people, and it is certainly true for Normal Screen. Normal Screen is a Tokyo-based independent film screening project founded in 2015, dedicated to exploring queer cinema and experimental/moving-images from around the world, creating spaces where marginalized voices and bodies can be heard and seen. The project has thrived thanks to the support of friends and the film community, and its network has grown across the globe over the past 11 years. “Normal Screen: My Comrades,” guest-curated by Sho Akita, is a short film program compiled with six short films around the world. The program itself is an acknowledgment of love from filmmakers and artists in the program who generously contributed their works or came to the project through friends. This is a celebration of the connections that have brought us together, thanks to those who came before us.