The Asian Avant-Garde Film Festival (AAGFF) is far more than a rare chance to experience super-edgy, niche experimental cinema in a specialist screening room. From dense academic talks to the chance to print your own lithograph posters, earlier editions of M+ Cinema’s annual celebration of all things grainy, left-field and non-narrative have succeeded in wooing (and wowing) learned cinephiles and curious sceptics alike.
As well as visiting filmmakers, the third annual event, running from 29 May to 31 May, welcomes an impressive line-up of guests from complimentary creative disciplines — including visual and sound art — united in a collective exploration of the guiding theme Space Enter Shift.
Expect many of the most electrifying moments to happen away from the dark of the cinema, with panel talks, music, VR experiences and screen-printing workshops daily at the festival lounge. A scene of lively debate and awkward networking, the temporary hub also serves as an exhibition space, showcasing site-specific works by Xu Bing, Rirkrit Tiravanija, ikkibawiKrrr and Hong Kong artistic duo Zheng Mahler.
Eclectic names
Among the visiting talents to know are Chinese visual artist Xu Bing, who will present Dragonfly Eyes, an ambitious and fanciful project constructed entirely from public surveillance footage. Stitched together to tell a fictional love story, it simultaneously probes the lines between public and private, and truth and fiction.
The partnership of Palestinian filmmaker Larissa Sansour and Danish director Søren Lind will be celebrated with two programmes. The first pairs In Vitro (2019), a black-and-white sci-fi film set after global ecological collapse, premiered at the Venice Biennale; and the experimental personal documentary Familiar Phantoms (2023). Sansour’s new work A Sunken Tale of Losses Delayed (2026) will also receive an Asia premiere at the Grand Stair.
Japanese experimental filmmaker Takashi Ito’s will also be in town to present two programmes, with Early Works, 1980–1995 exploring his formative forays, plus a presentation of his second feature-length film, a study of the subconscious entitled Distant Voices (2024).
Inspired by Italiano Calvino’s seminal novella Invisible Cities, Roger Garcia draws strings between his birthplace of Hong Kong and his home in New York with HKNY (1992), screened alongside his seminal self-producted debut New Maps of the City Part One: Notes for Films (1981) in a joint programme entitled Hong Kong Modern
Ears and eyes
After a long day cramped in the cinema, both the Friday and Saturday nights offer passholders a chance to step into the light with live multimedia performances. On Friday, the expansive Grand Stair venue will host the premiere of Tracking Nomadism (2026), a collaborative work commissioned by AAGFF, pairing Emirati photographer Lamya Gargash’s globe-hopping pieces with a live score by Singaporean sound artist Vivian Wang present.
Set against the backdrop of Victoria Harbour on the rooftop Horizon Terrace, Saturday’s In the Zone: A Happening suggests a less formal, gig-like atmosphere, beginning with an atmosphere DJ set from Korean sound artist Daham Park. Next, Hong Kong noise-punk mavens David Boring will perform a site-specific live set, focused on the radically reinvented material from recently released second album Liminal Beings and Their Echoes.
Asian Avant-Garde Film Festival runs from 29–31 May 2026. View the whole programme and book tickets here.