12.01.2026
ARTS.FILM unveils its Winter – Spring 2026 program
Image from the film Résilience by Juan David Padilla Vega
New season, new program!
From January to April 2026, ARTS.FILM presents 19 new films, 7 thematic collections, and 3 free films, inviting viewers to slow down, observe, and inhabit images differently.
This winter – spring, films settle in like snow on rooftops: slowly, patiently, in successive layers. The programming favors a cinema that seeks not only to show, but to understand — how we inhabit the world, how we love, what we hold on to, and what protects us.
ARTS.FILM 2026
January: Inhabiting the World
The season opens with the free film Lines by Barbora Sliepková, a sensitive portrait of a contemporary Bratislava in constant flux. Three collections follow: No Planet B, which questions our relationship with life and ecology; Our Collectors’ Collection, where ARTS.FILM takes on the role of a passionate archivist; and At the Origins…, an exploration of beginnings, fragilities, and the first gestures before recognition.
Collection: “No Planet B”
The slogan has gained popularity in recent years through environmental movements and several international political figures. In ATÉR by Marie Fages, an artist’s film in the orbit of Bertrand Mandico or René Laloux’s cinema, a woman living on our “withered planet” embarks on a quest for a supposedly miraculous lunar energy. With our world in danger, the question becomes how we inhabit it. In Arthur Erickson: Beauty Between the Lines, filmmakers Ryan Mah and Danny Berish focus on an architect who champions a philosophy in which buildings must integrate with their natural surroundings. The underlying notion of respect also runs through Yollotl (Cœur): director Fernando Colin Roque delicately celebrates two millennia-old trees, revealing both their strength and fragility.
Collectors’ Collection
ARTS.FILM collects collectors who dedicate themselves to collecting works with the aim of making a collection. Clear? Good! Since you’re paying attention, let’s start by inviting you to discover The Collection That Didn’t Exist (Joachim Olender, 2014). If nothing unsettles you yet: congratulations. Through the journeys of some of the most illustrious collectors, we offer a chance to rediscover the history of modern and conceptual art. Finally, to complete this selection, The Price of Everything (Nathaniel Kahn, 2018) urges you to take a more critical look at this actor in the art market… The judgment is yours!
Collection: At the Origins…
Before Marilyn Monroe, there was Norma Jeane Baker: it was under this name that one of the 20th century’s greatest icons was born. This collection focuses on pre-fame, tracing origins, going back to the beginnings. In the biopic Sleeping With a Tiger, Anja Salomonowitz adapts the challenging journey of Maria Lassnig; in the eponymous Orlando, Joachim Thôme traces the life, work, and path to recognition of this Renaissance composer; in Banksy Most Wanted by Seamus Haley and Aurélia Rouvier, we go back through the years and investigate to uncover the identity of the artist devoted to anonymity…
February: love, share, remember
February celebrates connections in all their forms with the Love, Love, Love collection, before diving back into over forty years of FIFA history through a selection of award-winning works gathered in the FIFA Awards collection.
Collection: Love, Love, Love
Yes, this collection echoes Valentine’s Day; yes, this holiday contributes to overconsumption; yes, in its classic form, it’s a bit cheesy. Now that you’ve judged us (yes, yes, we saw you!), let us try to defend ourselves. In this selection, we celebrate sweetness, tenderness, and love in its broadest sense: from the sisterhood championed by Rosa Bonheur to pre-war friendships, from a child’s love for an absent father to Elvis’s subversive moves that won’t leave you indifferent, these films will make you want to love: whatever the vessel, so long as there’s intoxication! And of course, we couldn’t present this program without a special thought for the artist duo Cozic, composed of Monic Brassard and Yvon Cozic. As the latter recently left us, we pay tribute to this pair of artists in love.
Collection: FIFA Awards
For over 44 years, Le FIFA has offered the very best that films on art have to offer. As our new edition begins on March 12, it’s the perfect opportunity to rediscover on ARTS.FILM some of the winners from previous editions.
March: festival break
ARTS.FILM takes a pause in March to make way for the International Festival of Films on Art, from March 12 to 22 in Montréal and Québec, and online from March 20 to 29.
April: purpose and repair
The program resumes with the free film Elliott Erwitt – Silence Sounds Good by Adriana Lopez Sanfeliu, an intimate and luminous portrait of the photographer. The collections The Meaning of Existence and Art That Saves close the season by exploring the search for meaning and the restorative power of artistic creation.
Collection: The Meaning of Existence
At the risk of disappointing you, we can’t guarantee that this collection will provide a clear answer to the question of life’s meaning. What we can offer, however, are some points for reflection! First, with Sisyphus, a film by Victor Pilon that invites a few Camus-inspired reflections. Next, by listening to the illuminating wisdom of poet Joséphine Bacon in Je m’appelle humain by Kim O’Bomsawin. Finally, by confronting death to shed light on life: this is the essence of Bon voyage, a documentary by Karine Birgé in which the director accompanies her grandmother until she receives medical assistance in dying. And if you’re really looking for a simple answer (!), we suggest tuning in to the mock-serious advice offered by filmmaker Amélie Hardy in the excellent La vie heureuse.
Collection: Art That Saves
When it carries a social, political, cathartic, or therapeutic dimension, art often becomes a source of salvation. In Ouvidorby Matias Borgström, a Brazilian film about an abandoned building inhabited by over 100 artists, creation as a means of bringing people together is celebrated. In Resilience by Juan David Padilla Vega, performance becomes an act of empowerment, while Weree by Tal Amiran tells the story of an undocumented artist who uses his practice as a tool for healing after trauma. Finally, if art is used to overcome social barriers in Des géants dans ma cité by Daniele De Michele, in Bleu Tango by Marion Chuniaud it serves to transcend the limits imposed by social, physical, and psychological frameworks. Discover the power of art in this collection!
A season conceived as a space of refuge, reflection, and resistance, to be discovered on ARTS.FILM starting January 2026.
