In 2025, I did something I’d been dreaming about for years – I shipped my first iOS app to the App Store. The Queersicht Film Festival app was a labor of love, built from the ground up for Switzerland’s largest queer film festival. Seeing it downloaded and used by real festival-goers was an incredible feeling.
But more than the pride of shipping, what I’m most proud of is how much I learned along the way.
This project pushed me in ways I didn’t expect. I dove deep into SwiftUI, figured out offline-first architecture, built custom animation systems, and learned the hard way about state management and memory optimization. Every challenge taught me something new, and every bug I squashed made me a better developer.
That’s why I’m releasing the complete source code on GitHub – as-is, warts and all.
I remember when I was starting out, looking at open-source projects and wondering how they were built. I’d wish I could see the actual code, not just the polished final product. Now I want to pay that forward.
This codebase could be the foundation for so many different projects.
- Other film festivals or cultural events needing their own companion apps
- Conference organizers wanting to build interactive schedules
- Community groups creating event guides for their members
- Developers looking to learn about offline-first mobile architecture
- Anyone wanting to experiment with SwiftUI animations and custom themes
The app includes everything: the iOS frontend, a PHP backend with RESTful API, an admin panel for content management, and even a mini-game I built from scratch. It’s not perfect – there are things I’d do differently now – but it’s real, working code that solved real problems.
My hope is that this code helps someone else realize their dream app. Maybe you’ve been hesitating to start your own project because you’re not sure where to begin. Maybe you’re stuck on a specific technical challenge and need to see how someone else approached it. Or maybe you just want to explore and learn.
Whatever brings you here, I hope this code serves you well. Fork it, study it, break it, fix it, and make it your own. Build something amazing with it.
And If something cool comes out of it: It would be awesome if you let me know. I am curious what you built with it.
