Images Festival Announces 39th Edition: Metabolizing Moving Images

Film still from trailer, courtesy of Yuula Benivolski

Images Festival 39th Edition
Metabolizing Moving Images

Images Festival announces its 39th edition taking place April 9 – 13, 2026 in Toronto, Canada. Tickets for all budget and festival passes go on sale March 6 via imagesfestival.com

Anchored by the question “What does a moving image require of a body?”, this year’s curatorial focus, Metabolizing Moving Images, examines how moving images are absorbed, processed, and lived through. The programs invite audiences to consider, within the broader cultural, ecological, political and spiritual systems we inhabit, how moving images shape and act upon the body—as nourishment, as stimulation, or as toxin.

The 39th edition is curated by Programming Director Jaclyn Quaresma alongside Curators-in-Residence Katie Lawson, Kiera Boult, Alper Turan and the 2026 Images Festival Emerging Curator Ghislan Sutherland-Timm. Images Festival’s Curators-in-Residence offer a distinct approach in responding to the festival’s overarching theme. This year, Images selected Alper Turan from the inaugural public open call for Curators-in-Residence.

Over five days, the festival presents 45 films, two exhibitions, three performances, artist talks, workshops, and celebratory gatherings. Screenings take place at Innis Town Hall and at CineCycle with additional programs at Vtape, Le Labo, Charles Street Video, A Space Gallery and TIFF Lightbox.

The festival is bookended by two programs featuring Fan Wu and Serena Lee. Opening night at Innis Town Hall features ELIXIR FRAME, including the film Cursive by Serena Lee and performance-oration Spiritual Metabolism: Theses on Transmutation by Fan Wu. Expanding on the festival’s theme, the opening night program considers how moving images might sustain and transform the body. Serena and Fan will close the festival with the program Dance&Alchemy, a workshop presented in collaboration with Dancemakers, and includes qigong, taijiquan, parable, calligraphy, poetry, and somatic translation.

Highlights of the 2026 edition include:

The world premiere of Karthik Pandian’s Surrendur
My Father’s Imagination II by Eshan Rafi
The exhibition Return of the Bright Night by Sophie Sabet
SAVAC’s Monitor 16, curated by Sameena Siddiqui and Vicky Moufawad-Paul. The Toronto premiere of SAVAC’s Monitor 16 is presented in partnership with Images Festival.
Refusing (Reproductive) Labour: Ecological Solidarities, a screening of shorts curated by Katie Lawson featuring Anouk Verviers, Oona Taper, and Stéphanie Lagarde.
Unstill Image, a screening of short films curated by Alper Turan featuring Arief Budiman, Clint Enns, Çiçek Kahraman, Elisabeth Subrin, Sofia Dona, and Zeynep Dadak.
We’re here to please you, Baby, a short film program curated by Kiki (Kiera Boult) featuring Deirdre Logue, E. Jane, Renèe Helèna Browne, and Zhongyao Wang.
TIFF pre-opener: Light Noise Smoke: The Films of Tomonari Nishikawa, curated by Chris Kennedy.

The festival invites the audience to gather through a series of exhibitions, talks, performances and screenings from artists and filmmakers that consider the process, and systems under or in refusal of metabolic conditions. These showcases feature the works from artists and filmmakers: Serena Lee; Christina Battle; Kym McDaniel; Theo Cuthand; Sabīne Šnē; Naomi Rincón-Gallardo; Zeynep Dadak and Çiçek Kahraman; Sofia Dona; Arief Budiman; Elisabeth Subrin; Clint Enns; Richard Ibghy & Marilou Lemmens; Carlo Nasisse; Brandon Poole; Quenton Miller; Karthik Pandian; Stéphanie Lagarde; Oona Taper; Anouk Verviers; Radin Khodadadi; Elena Calvo Polo; Defne Kirmizi; Félix Caraballo Michaela Michalak; Patricio Escartín; Tianhui Wu; Chloë Gordon; Diana Esther; Fox Maxy; Cassie Packham; Dayna McLeod; Jake Starr; Mikiki Marion Balac; Renèe Helèna Browne; Deirdre Logue; Zhongyao Wang; E. Jane; Rana Nazzal Hamadeh; Nour Bishouty; Tripty Tamang Pakhrin; Ankur Yadav; Kevin Lee Burton; Beny Kristia; Mahishaa; Chantal Partamian.

As a part of the festival, we are pleased to offer a selection of accessible programs, which is highlighted on our website. Assistive listening devices are available on a first-come, first-served basis for all in-person screenings.

Opening and closing receptions are sponsored by Burdock Brewery, Paradise Grapevine, and Issho Bakery. Audiences can enjoy a special Images Festival Limoncello-gin spritz at our official after screenings spot, Pamenar, throughout the festival.

Every year, Images Festival commissions an artist to create a trailer for the festival, which is screened prior to all in-cinema programs and available on the Images Festival website 24/7. The 39th edition trailer was created by artist and filmmaker Yuula Benivolski.

For the full calendar of programs and events as well as accessibility information, please visit imagesfestival.com

About Images Festival

Images Festival is a non-profit, artist-led festival dedicated to experimental film, media arts, contemporary art, and the spaces in which these forms coexist. Images’ programming interrogates the conditions of contemporary moving image culture, and provides a platform for artists, filmmakers, curators, and other practitioners to engage with experimental practices in both form and content.

Press

For media-specific inquiries regarding Images Festival, please contact Camille Rojas: camille@imagesfestival.com