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KFF2026: ENTANGLEMENTS
As a team of emerging curators and grassroots organisers we’ve put together a festival of experimental and ethnographic film, art and thought by up-and-coming artists, researchers and makers.
This year’s festival will take place at Conway Hall in Central London, span across two days and engage with the theme “ENTANGLEMENTS”. Together, we will explore multispecies encounters and relationships, and complicate the way we understand the keyword “nature”.
ENTANGLEMENTS is a theme we’ve long looked forward to unpacking!
From microbial ecologies to interspecies care – from environmental collapse to queer kinship with plants and animals, KONTEKST Collective wants to showcase critical art that subverts the mechanised, hierarchical, sanitised constraints of our anthropocentric reality.
This year, we received over 250 submissions from across the world!
Our final programme entangles and disentangles relationships across species, the ever-underestimated complexity of our ecosystems, human forms of relational kinship that go under the radar, and global interconnection steeped in politics, technology and violence.
At the forefront of our event is connection, accessibility and a hope that you might leave the venue with a slightly different perspective than you came in with.
EXPLORE
THE FESTIVAL
PROGRAMME
BELOW:
Schedule
18 - 19 July 2026 · Conway Hall, WC1R 4RL, London
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Tickets & Info DeskGrab your tickets, sign up for workshops and start your festival experience here! If at any point you feel unwell or require any kind of support, the welfare team member will be stationed here too.
Community Notice BoardWe will have an allocated "community notice board" at the festival. If you are working on a new project, putting together an exciting event, looking for collaborators, or there is something you simply want others to know about - make sure to bring your posters, business cards, educational brochures, or anything and everything else you'd like to share with other guests and us!
Resource LogWe are curious what other projects, books, films and resources you want to share with us and others that relate to the festival's theme. Scan the QR code in the foyer and add your picks so that we can continue learning about the entanglements in the days and weeks following the festival!
KONTEKST ShopHelp us fundraise for running our platform and get yourself a limited edition KONTEKST t-shirt, tote bag or a sticker! All materials have been sourced ethically and the designs were created especially for this year's festival.
Get Involved with KONTEKST! BoothInterested in the platform that we are building? Been thinking of joining a grassroots art collective? Pop by, ask questions, leave your details and come on board! :)brought by KONTEKST Collective -
TBC - curatorial one-linerFeaturing works by: The Voicing Choir, TBCCome back at 19:00 for a guided exhibition walk and meet the artists!Learn more → -
Quiet Space & ArchivesTake a quiet moment in Conway Hall's Library, and explore some of the books, pamphlets and archival material in the Ethical Society's collection, which has been a home for radicals, political and social reformers and freethinkers since 1886.Please note: The library is on the first floor and is not accessible to wheelchair users. If you'd like to engage with the exhibits, come to the welcome desk and we will bring them down. We can also help accommodate you with an alternative quiet space.
Electronic FloraTBCby Simon Torssell Lerin (he/him) & Bettina Hvidevold Hystad (she/her)Learn more → -
1h screening + 30min discussion & feedbackTBC - curatorial one-linerFeaturing works by Beatriz Urze (they/them), Xena Louise Stockley White (she/her) & Matthew Feurtado (he/him), Shuang Yu (she/her) and Anna Mkrtumyan (she/her)Learn more → -
45-60minAn exploration and sharing of collective knowledge on medicinal and edible plants in the citywith Safiyyah Jackman-Williams (she/they)Learn more → -
45-60minAn experimental participatory choral performance by Voicing Projectwith Voicing Choir, facilitated by Soft Shock CollectiveLearn more → -
45min, drop in anytimeMicrobe Sampling Lab invites visitors to sample surfaces around Conway Hall, capturing unseen microbial communities that surround us.Can't make it? The second workshop starts at 19:00 at the Brockway Room.Come back at 17:30 on Sunday 19th and check in with us on the bacteria cultures!with Yunzhi/Melissa Li (she/her)Learn more → -
45-60minDrawing from Ingrid Pollard's 'Pastoral Interlude, 1988', this workshop seeks to interrogate personhood in the face of land ownership and anarchist techniques to subverting land rights.with Drew Iheoma (they/them)Learn more → -
45-60minEngage with all of your senses in connecting with plants & exploring what it means to be kinwith Safiyyah Jackman-Williams (she/they)Learn more → -
45minTake a relaxed moment in the Main Hall and enjoy the on-screen gaming performance combining live microscopy, video, sound, and game-based storytelling.with Xristina Sarli (they/them)Learn more → -
Conway Hall CafeGrab a snack at the Conway Hall's cafe!
DJ & Social Time at the Main HallEnjoy the music and get to know other festival guests at the Main Hall! DJ set brought by jonga☆sani radio station.DJ set brought by jonga☆sani radio stationExplore jonga☆sani → -
1h screening + 30min discussion & feedbackTBC - curatorial one-linerFeaturing works by: Yuliya Kohal, Chitra Sangtani (she/her), Anouch Basbous (she/her), Guillem Serrahima (he/him) and Chloé Wasp (she/her)Learn more → -
45-60minFlight Patterns engages critically with the 'snapshot' knowledge that birdwatching relies on: taking images, sounds, and videos of birds as prompts to explore issues of racialisation, stereotyping, and knowledge-production.with Pippa Sterk (they/them) · image credit: JY MakLearn more → -
45min, drop in anytimeMicrobe Sampling Lab invites visitors to sample surfaces around Conway Hall, capturing unseen microbial communities that surround us.Come back at 17:30 on Sunday 19th and check in with us on the bacteria cultures!with Yunzhi/Melissa Li (she/her)Learn more →
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1h of artists in the house!Meet the artists and curators behind the KFF2026 exhibition space and hear about the showcase in their own words.More details TBCExplore this year's installations → -
1h screening + 30min discussion & feedbackTBC - curatorial one-linerFeaturing works by: Lian Ryan (she/they), Matthew Pagoaga (he/him), Brina Fekonja (she/her), Sam McNeil (he/him), Emelie Victoria Isaksen (she/they) & Margherita Vita (she/they)Learn more → -
45minDo plants listen to the water underground? In this performance, a soundscape emerges through a mix of live looping sounds from contact mics, and recorded sounds from around Conway Hall.with Prajvi Mandhani (she/her)Learn more →
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Welcome DeskGrab your tickets, sign up for workshops and start your festival experience here! If at any point you feel unwell or require any kind of support, the welfare team member will be stationed here too.Community Notice BoardWe will have an allocated "community notice board" at the festival. If you are working on a new project, putting together an exciting event, looking for collaborators, or there is something you simply want others to know about - make sure to bring your posters, business cards, educational brochures, or anything and everything else you'd like to share with other guests and us!Resource LogWe are curious what other projects, books, films and resources you want to share with us and others that relate to the festival's theme. Scan the QR code in the foyer and add your picks!KONTEKST ShopHelp us fundraise for running our platform and get yourself a limited edition KONTEKST t-shirt, tote bag or a sticker! All materials have been sourced ethically.Get Involved with KONTEKST! BoothInterested in the platform that we are building? Been thinking of joining a grassroots art collective? Pop by, ask questions, leave your details and come on board! :)brought by KONTEKST Collective
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1hA meditative encounter with a seasonal plant of our lands.with Rasheeqa Ahmad (she/her) from Community ApothecaryLearn more → -
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2.5hKONTEKST is publishing our first ever collection of essays! Hear from some of the contributing writers.with KONTEKST Collective and the publication authorsLearn more →
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30minEnd the festival with us by checking in how the bacteria cultures from yesterday's "microbe sampling labs" have grown!with Yunzhi/Melissa Li (she/her) and KONTEKST CollectiveLearn more →
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FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS:
GENERAL:
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KFF (KONTEKST Film Festival) is an grassroots film festival that aims to platform works specifically by first-time, emerging and early-career filmmakers, artists and researchers, and use these works as activations for discussions about contemporary reality.
ETHOS:
KFF’s goal is to disrupt academic exclusivity by presenting critical knowledge through multimodal artistic practices. We want to challenge institutional authority in favour of more horizontal, anti-expert modes of knowledge exchange, and to curate the kinds of festival spaces that function not just as sites of exhibition but also sites for dialogue and open-ended research.
Audience’s interactions with the showcased work, providing feedback on it, and the collective reflections that the work generates will be at the core of the festival experience - which is why in the open call we were particularly interested in receiving submissions from those emerging thinkers and makers who want to make a social impact through their proposed works.
The festival is intended to be a space where new ‘critical friendships’ are formed, so that we can help one another grow long-term.
CONTEXT-FOCUSED CURATION:
The festival is an exercise in applying radical approaches to production rather than just focusing on the content of what we showcase. Lessons from visual anthropology taught us the importance of recognising the context from which one makes sense of the world - we think seeing and watching are political acts.
The festival’s objective is then to platform not just works - but rather works-in-context. We see artworks not only as objects displayed in a gallery but rather as results of social relations which are enmeshed in their processes of creation and circulation.
In other words, as curators, we are interested not only in what the work shows but in what it does in the world – why and how it was made, what impact it seeks to create, and the contexts it emerges from and speaks to.
By doing so we aim to foster alternative understandings of ‘radical art’ centred around the social relations that art activates rather than displaying ‘radical’ art objects in a vacuum.
These were some of the things that we will take into account seriously when programming the festival.
GRASSROOPTS PLATFORM:
KFF is intended to specifically platform those who have previously not had an opportunity to show their works publicly or do not have a substantial history of exhibiting. The idea is to pass the mic to talented critically-minded people who are not platformed by major institutions or have had no previous access to a bigger audience.
We hope that KFF can serve as catalyst for the emerging thinkers and makers for the future developments of their practices, all whilst making us and the festival audience question and re-think how we experience being in the world.
When possible, we want to dedicate the platform to work by thinkers and makers from communities that historically have been anthropology's subjects, but our platform is here for anyone and everyone who uses media to foster a fairer, more open society.
All platformed artists are long-term invited to join our collective and uprise this shared platform with us. By doing so, we want to explore the possibilities of creating spaces collectively and in a horizontal way, rather than ‘giving voice’ to others - the way that many institutions do.
LONG-TERM FOCUS:
Hosting festivals creates high visibility and a momentum for the experimental and open-ended platform we are building long-term, which hopefully gets us one step closer to establishing an accessible and free infrastructure for grassroots art and organising that will last a long time.
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The theme we have chosen for our 3rd film festival is ENTANGLEMENTS.
This year, in the face of the worsening climate emergency and the rise of techno-fascism and extraction, we are looking to platform work that challenges the nature-culture binaries; that shows how humans, animals, plants, technology, and material culture are entangled, shape and impact each other; and that uncovers how exerting control over natural environment is also a way of controlling those who inhabit it.
We will be presenting work that plays with ideas of kinship beyond the human, questions our assumptions about nature, and/or reveals hidden relationships between life, technology and power; and by doing so explore the possibilities of a more-than-human society.
ENTANGLEMENTS tells many stories: stories of fluid boundaries between species, shifting and blurring as they move through the world, making and unmaking each other, transforming and becoming their environments.
We especially want to be able to have conversations around the ethical, aesthetic, philosophical and political implications of these entanglements:
What does it mean to attempt to translate the experience of other species?
What responsibilities do we have towards each other?
How can we interrogate anthropocentric taxonomies, categorisations and enforced binaries?
In what ways does technology influence the how we see our place in the world and connection to what surrounds us?
In what ways can ecology intersect with violence?
How are the discourses around nature be mobilised as tools for discrimination, control, colonisation or genocide?
And most importantly, how can we use film and multimodal artistic interventions as mediums for stretching and expanding towards a perspective that goes beyond the human, and to campaign for climate justice?
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Open call
The works platformed at KFF2026 were all submitted to us through the open call which lasted from February 19th until April 12th 2026.
This time, we received over 250 submissions from more than 50 countries!
Reviewing Process
Each submission was initially screened by 3 members of the programming team on their eligibility across 5 categories:
Engagement — Does the artist demonstrate the want to contribute to the context-focused space we aim to foster or do they just want to maximise reach of their art-object? Have their answers in the application form engaged with the objective of the festival?
Theme — Does the theme of the artwork engage critically with the theme of entanglements?
Emerging — Is this an emerging, first-time or early career filmmaker AND has the artwork not yet been a part of major showcases?
AI use — Does the artwork rely on generative AI without critical engagement of its ethical and ecological dimensions? If the answers in the application form looked like they were AI generated, we asked the artists to re-submit the application.
Representation — Does the artwork take in to account the ethics of representation of human and non-human beings? Does the artwork promote discriminatory views/values or reinforce a point of view that would be oppressive to some?
Eligible submissions will then be reviewed by a diverse panel of volunteer reviewers composed of artists, filmmakers, researchers, and curators with expertise in more-than-human perspectives and interdisciplinary practices. Reviewers will not have access to applicants’ personal information during initial assessment. There were about 8 volunteers reviewing each film submission.
Non-film submissions were not reviewed by the volunteer reviewers — the initial eligibility check and pre-selections were made over the course of 4 full-day meetings of the in-person programming team.
Review criteria of all works focused on conceptual clarity, originality, how the work engaged with the program’s themes — particularly its attention to relationality, non-human collaboration, and approaches that challenge anthropocentric or colonial frameworks; as well as on the work’s potential of generating insightful conversations in the festival environment.
Selection ProcessFilms: After being reviewed by the committee, the films were selected by the KONTEKST programming team drawing on those reviews. The final selection did not depend on the films’ aesthetic quality or production value but rather their critical approach and concept.
Non-films: After the round of pre-selections, the programming group met again 3 times to select the final line-up of works. All activity artists were spoken with during 1h video calls, in order to do a “vibe check” and expand on the ideas presented by them in the application.
Overall:
Our curation process was very though as our focus is not on curating artworks but social relations that these artworks enable. We call this ‘relational curating.’ The final selection was a result of many hours of conversations and mediation, both within the programming team and with the artists themselves.
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The festival, apart from being a powerful standalone event, is also just one out of many exercises that we do as a collective to establish a grassroots platform for art and organising long-term. The festival creates a lot of momentum and connects new audiences (and future comrades) with our project.
We see the festival as a momentary knot of the various paths of life in a shared space rather than a showcase of work, which is why we take aftercare seriously. After the festival takes place, as organisers we stay in touch with the artists and guests. The artists are invited for a debrief workshop where we connect with everyone who we platformed and exchange thoughts on how the event went. Many of our featured artists end up making long-term connections at our events and often work together on other projects after they are featured with us.
We give an option to all of the artists to have their work featured in our open-access online archive to further boost its reach and social impact. All artists are also offered a spotlight page on our website if they would like to.
As an open collective, we welcome those who participated in our events and engaged with our ethos to join us — as long as your goal is to work together towards establishing a free and accessible infrastructure for others to benefit from too, you are welcome on board! Please inquire in person if you are interested.
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KFF is organised by KONTEKST Collective — an open and horizontal group of anthropologists, filmmakers, and artists committed to accessible, community-focused programming.
We are building a grassroots-focused platform from scratch because we think that the current arts and knowledge production landscapes are rigged, and we believe that opportunities to present one’s work should not be gate-kept or fought for with others who don’t have the resources or contacts to get through the glass ceiling.
This is why we hold spaces and create channels for the emerging artists, thinkers and makers to use, and we create accessible events for diverse audiences. ENTANGLEMENTS is curated collaboratively, with decisions made collectively by our group.
We runs a digital platform with an online archive of all work we platform, organise year-round events screenings and workshops, and produce collaborative festivals bridging artistic practice, social research, and public engagement.
KFF2026 is an exercise in the uprising of this grassroots platform. If you’d like to see how you can get involved with co-creating it with us, meet us at the festival and ask ahead.
To get to know more about our values and mission, check out our manifesto.
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More info coming soon!
PRACTICAL:
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In order to ensure the safety of all our guests and to uphold our values of holding an inclusive shared space, we will be collectively developing a safer spaces policy.
Please stay tuned. This part will be filled in with more information in the coming weeks.
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The festival will take place on the 18th and 19th of July, 2026 at Conway Hall, 25 Red Lion Square, WC1R 4RL London.
Festival duration:
Saturday 18th: 13:00-22:30
Sunday 19th: 13:00-18:00
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Tickets are live now and can be purchased via this link.
Saturday 18th July (main festival day) is the only day that is ticketed. The entry on Sunday 19th July is free so you don’t require getting a ticket if you’re coming just for Sunday.
We recommend booking the tickets online in advance to make sure you get a spot at the festival, as our previous events sold out. If we have more free tickets, these will be available at the door on the day of the event.
We have a tiered ticketing system and we kindly ask you to select the most expensive ticket you can comfortably afford. — This is because the higher priced tickets is what makes concessions possible. We are also organising the festival fully voluntarily and we will use the ticket revenue to cover for the costs of printing and venue’s staff.
£22 SUPPORTER — Standard entry + donation. On the door price £23 and up (you can choose the amount you’d like to donate).
£14 STANDARD — General admission. On the door price: £13.
£8 STUDENT — For students in full-time education only. On the door price: £9.
£7 LIVING SUPPORT — For individuals in receipt of Disability Living Allowance, Personal Independence Payments, Universal Credit, or other government-provided living support. On the door price: £8.
(These prices include the £2 venue levy)
It is important for us to ensure that ticket costs do not stop anyone from attending our event. We will have a limited number of complimentary tickets available for those who feel they may struggle to afford a ticket. Please reach out to info@conwayhall.org.uk with a request.
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The full address for the festival venue is: Conway Hall, 25 Red Lion Square, WC1R 4RL London.
Please be aware that the entrance to the venue is from the Red Lion Square side — the door facing Theobalds Road is a fire door that will be closed!
The best ways to get to the festival is:
BY TUBE: The closest tube stations are:
Holborn (Central and Piccadilly lines) - 5min walk
Chancery Lane (Central line) - 9min walk
Russell Square (Piccadilly line) - 13min walk
Tottenham Court Road (Elizabeth, Central and Northern lines) - 14min walk
BY BUS:Buses 19, 38, 55 and 243 stop directly in front of the venue at the Red Lion Street bus stop at Theobalds Road.
Buses 8, 59 and 133 stop at the Holborn station bus stop at High Holborn.
BY BIKE: There are a few bike racks available directly in front of the venue. There are also more bike racks around the area.
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We are collectively developing a photo and video policy to ensure the comfort and safety of our guests.
We will update this section with more information soon.
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Welfare:
We will have designated welfare officers monitoring the venue throughout the festival. Our welfare officers will be there to support you if you feel unwell, if someone makes you uncomfortable or you just need to talk. In case you are unable to locate one of them, please inquire at the tickets/info desk.
Reasonable adjustments for neurodiverse guests:
We will have a dedicated quiet space in Conway Hall’s library. Visitors will be reminded to not make unnecessary noise and be mindful of those who entered this space to take a break from the sensory stimulation.
If the library environment is not sufficient, please let us know at the tickets/info desk and we will assist you with an alternative.
Please note that unfortunately library is not wheelchair accessible. Please see the point below for more information.
Step-free access:
We will have a space allocated for wheelchair users for the events taking place in the Main Hall and accommodate guests on wheelchairs during sign-up workshops.
All the ground-floor rooms of Conway Hall are fully accessible by wheelchair. Main Hall (street access, step-free), Brockway Room (street access, step-free), Bertrand Russell Room (street access, shallow ramp) and Conway Cafe (street access, step-free). There is also an accessible toilet on the ground floor opposite the Brockway Room.
Unfortunately, due to the age and Grade II listing of the building, there is no lift access to rooms above the ground floor, including the library and the balcony seating in the Main Hall. If you’d like to explore the library’s archives and the Electronic Flora installation, please inquire at the tickets/info desk and we will bring these down to you. The library will work as a quiet space during the festival Saturday so in case you are unable to access it, we will either recommend you unwinding at the Red Lion Square located right in front of the venue, or we can accommodate you in the Brockway Room when there are no workshops happening there.
Seating adjustments:
We will have cushions available upon request for guests who might find chair surfaces too hard. Please inquire at the tickets/info desk.
Hard of Hearing:
All of the video work featured at KONTEKST Film Festival 2026 will have closed captions in English.
If you have hearing loss and wear a hearing aid, the Main Hall and Brockway Room have induction loops fitted which feed straight from the PA system or use ambient sound in smaller rooms.
Toilets:
All of the festival toilets will be designated as gender neutral.
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There will food and drinks available at the festival Saturday at the Conway Hall Cafe, inside the venue.
More info coming soon, stay tuned.
