Cinema from around the world. Right here in our backyard.
Through films that explore culture, identity, history and the issues shaping our world, MISAFF creates space for stories that deserve to be seen — and conversations worth having.
FROM THE 2026 FESTIVAL
Explore films and events from earlier in MISAFF 2026.
From opening night and filmmaker Q&As to feature films, shorts and the MISAFF Symposium, revisit the stories, filmmakers and conversations that shaped this year’s festival.
Screenings listed below have ended, and tickets are no longer available.
| Film / Event | Filmmaker | Details |
|---|---|---|
| VIP Reception | — | Kick off MISAFF 2026 with the festival's Opening Night VIP reception before the Red Carpet Gala and opening film. View details → |
| Red Carpet Gala | — | MISAFF's Opening Night celebration brings audiences, filmmakers and guests together ahead of the festival's opening screening. View details → |
| Lali | Sarmad Khoosat Director | Newlywed Zeba navigates a marriage strained by jealousy, superstition and rumours of a curse in this darkly comic story steeped in local folklore. View film → |
| Industry Symposium | — | A day of candid conversations with filmmakers, performers and industry decision-makers about making work and getting it in front of audiences. View program → |
| The Gymnasts of Fisherman Colony | Habiba Nosheen Director | Three teenage girls in Pakistan discover new possibilities through gymnastics in an intimate coming-of-age documentary about girlhood, joy and opportunity. View film → |
| Roid | Mejbaur Rahman Sumon Director | In rural Bangladesh, a tenant farmer repeatedly tries to abandon his wife, only for her to mysteriously return in this story of marriage, attachment and defiance. View film → |
| Hanging by a Wire | Mohammed Ali Naqvi Director | Eight passengers, including six schoolboys, become stranded 900 feet above a ravine when a cable car wire snaps in Pakistan's Himalayan foothills. View film → |
| Student Shorts | Various filmmakers | Emerging filmmakers experiment with form, genre and storytelling across stories of identity, grief, connection, animation, documentary, horror and satire. View program → |
| Badnam Basti | Prem Kapoor Director | A bandit-turned-truck driver finds himself drawn to a temple-bred cleaner in this pioneering work of queer Indian cinema, rediscovered decades after its release. View film → |
| Khatte Anar & Launda Naach World Premiere | Adiraj Singh Khatte Anar Ashutosh Upadhyay Launda Naach | Two shorts explore queer identity, violence, tradition and acceptance: one through a deadly time loop, the other through a teenager's passion for traditional dance. View films → |
| Flowers of Acacia | Anmol Sidhu Director | An intimate look at women working as wedding orchestra dancers, whose aspirations collide with the realities of patriarchy and misogyny. View film → |
| The Colour of My Heart | Umar Riaz Director | An intimate portrait of Zia Mohyeddin and his lifelong relationship with Urdu poetry, performance and the cultural legacy he sought to preserve. View film → |
| Lali | Sarmad Khoosat Director | Newlywed Zeba navigates a marriage strained by jealousy, superstition and rumours of a curse in this darkly comic story steeped in local folklore. View film → |
| Marriage Cops |
Cheryl Hess
Shashwati Talukdar Directors |
An all-woman police team in northern India mediates troubled marriages in this observational documentary about marriage, policing and women's rights. View film → |
| International Shorts A | Various filmmakers | A collection of international shorts spanning identity, family, social pressure and unexpected encounters from filmmakers around the world. View program → |
| Canadian Shorts A | Various filmmakers | Canadian storytellers explore family, identity, belonging, grief and social change across a diverse collection of short films. View program → |
| Everybody to Kenmure Street | Felipe Bustos Sierra Director | A documentary about the 2021 Glasgow immigration raid that brought hundreds of neighbours together in an extraordinary act of collective resistance. View film → |
| A Bit of Light Centrepiece & Awards | Ali Asgari Director | After losing his medical practice, an Iranian doctor reaches a breaking point until a final visit with his family begins to challenge his decision. View film → |
| Mera Lyari | Abu Aleeha Director | Two young women in Karachi's Lyari neighbourhood challenge family and social expectations as they pursue their dreams through football. View film → |
| The Things You Kill | Alireza Khatami Director | After his mother's suspicious death, a professor's search for revenge draws him into a tense confrontation with family secrets and inherited violence. View film → |
| Elephants in the Fog Cannes Un Certain Regard Jury Prize | Abinash Bikram Shah Director | In a remote Nepalese village, the matriarch of a Kinnar household searches for a young woman who disappears during a nightly elephant patrol. View film → |
| Universal Language | Matthew Rankin Director | Somewhere between Winnipeg and Tehran, three seemingly separate stories intersect in a warm, surreal comedy about home, belonging and human connection. View film → |
| International Shorts B | Various filmmakers | International filmmakers explore identity, love, displacement, memory and belonging across a wide-ranging collection of short films. View program → |
| Canadian Shorts B | Various filmmakers | A second collection of Canadian shorts showcasing emerging and established storytellers, followed by a filmmaker Q&A. View program → |
| Rehmat | Gurvinder Singh Director | Starring Naseeruddin Shah, three interconnected stories explore loss, displacement, faith and difficult choices across generations in present-day Punjab. View film → |
| Award Winner | Elephants in the Fog | Best Feature and Best Director (Abinash Bikram Shah) |
| Award Winners |
The Dying Sky Everybody to Kenmure Street |
The Dying Sky won Best Student Short Film Everybody to Kenmure Street won Best Documentary Film |
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