Emami Art Experimental Film Festival 2026

Details

The fifth edition of the Emami Art Experimental Film Festival (EAEFF) will take place from 22 to 27 September 2026 at the Ground Floor Galleries of Emami Art, Kolkata. Now in its fifth year, EAEFF is a platform dedicated to experimental film, video, and artists’ moving image works, bringing together filmmakers, artists, curators, scholars, and audiences through screenings, exhibitions, workshops, masterclasses, and public conversations.

The 2026 edition marks the festival’s most expansive programme to date. The open call received 1,657 submissions from 102 countries. The selection committee chose the Indian and international selections, with the jury selecting the award winners from the Indian section. Alongside this, the festival presents:
Four invited international programmes
An expanded cinema exhibition of artists’ moving-image works
A Students’ Experimental Cinema section
Programmes such as workshops, masterclasses and talks.

Since its inception in 2022, EAEFF has grown from a regionally focused initiative into a platform for curating and building discourse around alternative and experimental practices in the moving image.

Over its previous four editions, the festival has developed collaborations with institutions and organisations including the Sharjah Art Foundation, KADIST, Goethe-Institut / Max Mueller Bhavan, WNDX (Canada), Nanolab (Australia), the Embassy of Switzerland to India and Bhutan, Canada Council for the Arts, Coventry Biennial, German Short Film Association, The Swedish Arts Grants Committee, Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada and the Satyajit Ray Film and Television Institute. Festival programmes have subsequently travelled to the Kochi-Muziris Biennale, KADIST.tv, WNDX Moving Image Festival and the Jaipur Centre for Art. The fifth edition extends this history of programming into the gallery space for the first time, bringing moving-image work into an exhibition context alongside the festival’s screening programme.

Building on this history of international exchange, the fifth edition brings together four invited programmes.
Light Cone, Paris presents a selection from its collection, guest-curated by Director Emmanuel Lefrant, alongside a screening of his films.
Kyoto Art Center presents works by five Japanese artists, with a reciprocal programme of Indian work travelling to Kyoto in 2027.
School’s Out Forever: No More Teachers’ Dirty Looks guest-curated by artist and University of Pittsburgh faculty member Tony Balko, presents work from the city’s experimental film community.
Circuit, New Zealand, presents a screening programme that examines the institutional history of CIRCUIT.

For the first time, EAEFF presents an Expanded Cinema Exhibition of artists’ moving-image practices, bringing together installation works in Gallery 1. A new program, Students’ Experimental Cinema section features Moving Image as Research from the candidates of the PhD programme CREAM (Centre for Research and Education in Arts and Media]), University of Westminster, NSCAD University, the University of Colorado Boulder, Satyajit Ray Film and Television Institute (SRFTI) and the University of Pittsburgh, curated and coordinated with artist and University of Pittsburgh faculty member Tony Balko.

The 2026 jury comprises Srikanth Srinivasan, Kamila Kuc, Mark Williams and Emmanuel Lefrant, who will select two INR 50,000 awards from the Indian Official Selection.
The festival’s public programme includes workshops, a masterclass, panel discussions, roundtables, bringing together filmmakers, artists, curators, scholars around experimental moving-image practice.