For fifteen days in November, Larissa turns into a film town. The 18th Larissa International Film Festival runs from 16 to 30 November 2026. It is organised by the non-profit company Artfools and co-funded by the «Thessaly» Programme of the EU's NSRF 2021–2027.
Five short-film competitions
The core of the festival is short film, in five competition sections: International, Greek, Animation, Climate Change, and «Lumina», an international competition for films made with artificial intelligence.
Smaragdis, Loules and the young
This year's honoured Greek director is Giannis Smaragdis. He will attend the screening of his film «Kapodistrias» and talk with the audience about the film and about cinema and history.
The «Young Filmmakers» tribute screens two award-winning films: «Bitskomber» by Aristotelis Maragkos and «Mikres Anases» («Small Breaths») by Amerissa Basta.
Closest to our own work is the section «Thessaly: Place – People», with a tribute to documentary director Vasilis Loules. His films will be screened and he will attend in person. It is the part of the festival about the people, memories and places of the region, the same things we record here.
Ireland and the Balkans
This year there is a separate section on Irish cinema, with guests from Irish and Greek-Irish film events. For the first time the festival also works with festivals from the Balkans, which bring award-winning films and the people who made them to Larissa.
Talks, workshops and students
In the «Climate Change» section, Giorgos Avgeropoulos's documentary «Mankind's Folly» has its first screening, and the «Women's Emancipation» section shows «Arkoudotrypa» by Chrysianna Papadaki and Stergios Dinopoulos.
For those who want to go deeper there is a one-day event, «Decoding the Image into Meaning», on what a «real» image means in the age of AI, and three workshops: documentary with Evangelos Krikonis, AI, cinema and copyright with Anastasis Patouris, and animation with Konstantinos Vachlas. The festival closes with the Student Film Festival, with films by pupils from schools all over Greece.
Practical
Entry to all screenings and events is free. The full programme, with venues and times, is published on the festival's website, iffl.gr. If you are after a particular screening, such as «Kapodistrias» with Smaragdis in the hall, check the day and time there.
