Physical Cinema Festival 2026

 

This year, we are stepping outside. Quite literally.

 

For the first time, the Physical Cinema Festival launched an open call. Film artists from across the globe sent in work bursting with imagination, movement, and a broad variety of approaches to what cinema can be. We present a program that refuses to sit still. Some works unfold inside the cinema, others appear as installations spread across Reykjavík’s city center. Cinema, it turns out, likes fresh air.

 

At Bíó Paradís – March 26, 27 & 28

 

The program features three distinct screenings at Bíó Paradís:

 

Listening Cinema - cinema where the ear leads and the eye followsMusic takes the lead role. Collaboration between filmmakers, musicians and composers like Nico Muhly, Isabelle Lewis and Francesco Fabris to name a few. Artists collaborate to create short films where sound drives the narrative and image follows its rhythm. Hence the name: Listening Cinema.

 

The Open Call Selection

We present a vibrant collection of short art films from around the world. The selection includes interdisciplinary works, unexpected forms, and artists crossing borders between dance, visual art, performance, and film, all in motion.

 

Pioneer Women in Film and Video Art (1940s–1980s)

This screening includes a curated selection from the San Francisco Dance Film Festival celebrating trailblazing women in film art and video art. In addition we add in a PCF selection of women film artists today. These works remind us that experimentation has deep roots, and that many women have reshaped the language of cinema throughout history.

 

Beyond the Cinema

 

Physical Cinema extends beyond Bíó Paradís.

 

From March 19–29, an exhibition is presented at Marvaða, a women-run arts space dedicated to music, featuring artists living in Iceland surrounded with film art by pioneering women filmmakers from around the world.

 

The festival spreads outdoors and includes works presented publicly throughout Reykjavík and extends to Hafnarfjörður. Close to our venue Bíó Paradís All Eyes, by Peder Bjurman, is projected onto selected buildings. The projections continue at Héraðsdómur Íslands, Reykjavík City Hall and Tjarnarbíó. On Skólavörðustígur, the rainbow street, 12 Tónar music shop and at Hafnartorg Gallery video works will be presented on public screens, extending cinema into public space.

 

The full map of works and locations will be available on our website.

 

Physical Cinema Festival 2026 invites the viewer to move with it, between screenings, between spaces, between sound and image. Take a walk between events at Bíó Paradís. There’s no entrance fee for the city installations.