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Leiden Essay Film Festival, 19—22 September 2026, at Cinema Kijkhuis and Museum De Lakenhal.

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Opening Event Kevin B. Lee

Special Lecture by Kevin B. Lee Seeing Without Seeing: The Essay Film in the Age of the Invisual

leff's opening lecture asks how the essay film can respond to the invisual — the hidden systems of data, algorithms, and labour that shape how images are produced, processed, seen, and unseen.

Kevin B. Lee
2026 Opening Event Kevin B. Lee leff 2026
Still from the film Special Lecture by Kevin B. Lee Seeing Without Seeing: The Essay Film in the Age of the Invisual by Kevin B. Lee

Happiness

Night after night, an activist in Amsterdam cannot sleep, kept awake by sixteen hours of screen time and an endless barrage of violent images from around the world.

Firat Yücel
Netherlands, Turkey 2025 18' Opening Event Kevin B. Lee leff 2026
Still from the film Happiness by Firat Yücel

A Phone Trip in Dublin

Peer into the lives of tech workers, and their perspectives on big tech and data, through a personal tour of their phones.

Ariane Papillon
France 2025 22' Opening Event Kevin B. Lee leff 2026
Still from the film A Phone Trip in Dublin by Ariane Papillon

Conversation with Screening: On Filming Love

Thread Next of Kin

Love-22-Love

Driven by the desire to defeat his demons, artist Jeroen Kooijmans pays tribute in Love-22-Love to art, his love for his wife, and the dark corners of his psyche. At the lowest point of his life, love serves as a remedy.

Jeroen Kooijmans
Netherlands 2025 84' Conversation with Screening: On Filming Love leff 2026
Still from the film Love-22-Love by Jeroen Kooijmans

Performance

Before Falling Seek the Assistance of Your Cane

A reproduction of an American leaflet is mistakenly taken for a bomb threat at an exhibition by Rabih Mroué. In his lecture-performance, he reflects on the unstable relationship between images, politics and reality.

Rabih Mroué
Germany, Lebanon 2022 50' Performance leff 2026
Still from the film Before Falling Seek the Assistance of Your Cane by Rabih Mroué

Listening to the Archive

Listening to the Archive explores the colonial sound archive as both a record of extraction and a site of renewed listening. Bringing together two distinct approaches—an imageless film composed entirely from archival recordings and a radiophonic work that critically engages with a museum collection—the program considers how acts of listening can challenge inherited narratives, reveal archival absences, and open new ways of encountering colonial histories.

Expedition Content

A relistening and reinterpretation of colonial recordings of New Guinea made in 1961 by Michael Rockefeller, heir to the Standard Oil family.

Ernst Karel and Veronika Kusumaryati
United States 2020 78' Listening to the Archive leff 2026
Still from the film Expedition Content by Ernst Karel and Veronika Kusumaryati

Temporary Stored

An album and radiophonic project that critically engages with the colonial history of sound archives, drawing on recordings from the repatriated collections of the Royal Museum for Central Africa in Tervuren.

Joseph Kamaru
Belgium, Germany 2025 15' Listening to the Archive leff 2026
Still from the film Temporary Stored by Joseph Kamaru

Performance Screening

Misinterpretations of an Outbreak

Expanded cinema work, utilising several filmmaking techniques and narrative tropes to understand Mass Psychogenic Illness (MPI) as a strategy of disruption in the factories of Singapore.

3133 (Eric Lee)
Netherlands 2025 70' Performance Screening leff 2026
Still from the film Misinterpretations of an Outbreak by 3133 (Eric Lee)

Sara Rajaei: In Focus

A Composition in Blue, Red & Other Colours

An image unfurls slowly and enigmatically. So too do childhood memories of women, loss and disappearance, narrated meditatively like a meandering river.

Sara Rajaei
Netherlands 2017 16' Sara Rajaei: In Focus leff 2026
Still from the film A Composition in Blue, Red & Other Colours by Sara Rajaei

City of Poets

A collage of personal archival footage reveals the history of a semi-utopian, metaphorical city, where all the streets are named after poets. When war begins, upheaval leads to confusion and residents find themselves lost amid the memories of the forgotten poets.

Sara Rajaei
Netherlands 2024 21' Sara Rajaei: In Focus leff 2026
Still from the film City of Poets by Sara Rajaei

Yet Another Leap Year

A visual and psychological investigation regarding the shooting down of an airplane in which digital artefacts sourced online by the artist are combined with audio recordings from the control tower and a poignant voice-over.

Sara Rajaei
Netherlands 2022 16' Sara Rajaei: In Focus leff 2026
Still from the film Yet Another Leap Year by Sara Rajaei

Screening with Live Scoring

Thread Classics

Häxan

The evolution of witchcraft through the ages is traced in this proto-essay film made over 100 years ago. Stunning monotone vignettes form a visionary blend of fictionalised documentary and horror film. This silent film will have live sound performed by members of Sticky Buttons Records.

Benjamin Christensen
Sweden, Denmark 1922 105' Screening with Live Scoring leff 2026
Still from the film Häxan by Benjamin Christensen

New Perspectives

Do You Know That I'm With You

A docu-fiction that explores the erasure of female history in the Uyghur region of China through a conversation between the director and Gülem, a forgotten goddess of carpet weaving.

Darya Andijan
Netherlands 2026 24' New Perspectives leff 2026
Still from the film Do You Know That I'm With You by Darya Andijan

FC TECTONICS: Football’s Strategic Play in the Territorialisation of Nation-State Sovereignty

A two-channel investigation into the alternative geopolitical framework constructed by the self-regulatory governing body of international football, the highly disputed FIFA.

Lotte van Hulst
Netherlands 2025 12' New Perspectives leff 2026
Still from the film FC TECTONICS: Football’s Strategic Play in the Territorialisation of Nation-State Sovereignty by Lotte van Hulst

Surge of Transference

A hypnotic essay film examining the arrival of the internet in the small Romanian town of Buhuși. How do the residents navigate the gap between polished online imaginaries and the post-industrial realities of everyday life?

Geo Barcan
Netherlands, Romania 2024 15' New Perspectives leff 2026
Still from the film Surge of Transference by Geo Barcan

The Dance of the Mechanic

A reflection on how early 20th century industrialization and capitalist expansion increased the pressure on sponge divers on the Greek island of Kalymnos to push their bodies to the limit.

Esther van der Heijden
Netherlands 2026 13' New Perspectives leff 2026
Still from the film The Dance of the Mechanic by Esther van der Heijden

The Netherlands’ first festival dedicated entirely to the essay film, at Cinema Kijkhuis and Museum De Lakenhal in Leiden, 19–22 September 2026.

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