Asian Avant-Garde Film Festival 2026: Space Enter Shift

M+, Asia’s first global museum of contemporary visual culture in Hong Kong, is pleased to present the third edition of the Asian Avant-Garde Film Festival (AAGFF), supported by CHANEL, M+’s Major Partner. Taking place from May 29 to 31, 2026 at the M+ Moving Image Centre, the festival is an expansive programme of screenings, performances, talks, workshops, VR experiences, and listening sessions. Space Enter Shift explores the concept of space through its cross-disciplinary framework, featuring visionary filmmaker and producer Roger Garcia, visual artists Lamya Gargash, ikkibawiKrrr, Larissa Sansour & Søren Lind, Rirkrit Tiravanija, Xu Bing, and Zheng Mahler, as well as sound artists David Boring, Daham Park, and Vivian Wang.

Space Enter Shift builds on a year-long inquiry on how artists and filmmakers engage with physical, psychological, and machine-generated worlds. Through discursive programmes on power and capital, territorial divisions, surveillance, and increasing fluidity between physical and virtual realities, AAGFF 2026 forges surprising connections between artistic practices and finds new senses of community as a positive condition of a globalised and digital world in the face of ecological and geopolitical crisis. The festival’s signature party In the Zone: A Happening returns for another electrifying edition of experimental music, live performances, and projections. Hong Kong post‑noise band David Boring headlines with tracks from their latest album, Liminal Beings and Their Echoes. The line-up also includes atmospheric DJ sets by Daham Park, performances by dance students, a pulsating set by LifeWielder experimental noise paired with skateboarding by Happy Wheels.

The festival features expansive moving image presentations that utilise composition, perspective, alienation, and abstraction alongside lens and sound technologies. Highlights include a reflection on Hong Kong’s independent film legacy through Roger Garcia: Hong Kong Modern. Xu Bing’s first feature film Dragonfly Eyes (2017), created entirely from public surveillance footage. Rirkrit Tiravanija takes us on a serene journey through rural Chiang Mai in this quietly observational film, Lung Neaw Visits His Neighbours (2011). The collaborative works of Larissa Sansour and Søren Lind: In Vitro (2019) and Familiar Phantoms (2023) weave science fiction, memory, and history into a cinematic language that uncovers how space, time, and colonial histories shape identity. Sansour’s latest work, A Sunken Tale of Losses Delayed (2026), will make its Asia premiere at the Grand Stair, accompanied by an opening narrative performance. Commissioned by M+, Lamya Gargash × Vivian Wang: Tracking Nomadism (2026) is a stunning large-scale presentation that blends Gargash’s evocative architecture photography and Wang’s live score performance to evoke the lingering presences, memories, and aspirations of people who move across time and place.

During the three-day event series, the M+ Moving Image Centre will be transformed into the Festival Lounge, a platform for cinephiles and creatives to connect. The space features free screen-printing workshops and Zheng Mahler’s immersive video and VR work, What is it like to be a (virtual) bat? (2023), from the M+ Collections. Also on display are the installations Who Forgot the Village? (2026) by ikkibawiKrrr, A Case Study of Transference (1993–2018) by Xu Bing, and Rirkrit Tiravanija’s  HONEY IN ROCKS WATER IN STONES (2026), which invites visitors to play ping-pong with friends, family, or even strangers. The Lounge will also host special screenings and conversations with headline guests. Key highlights include a screening and talk on Xu Bing’s You Inhuman Thing (2025–2026), part of his ongoing Art Satellite Project, and Daham Park’s musical journey across Asia.