M+’s Asian Avant-Garde Film Festival: Space Enter Shift, featuring pioneering Asian artists across film, music, and performance
M+’s Asian Avant-Garde Film Festival: Space Enter Shift, featuring pioneering Asian artists across film, music, and performance
Supported by CHANEL, the festival will be held from 29 to 31 May 2026 and focuses on the theme of space
M+, Asia’s global museum of contemporary visual culture in the West Kowloon Cultural District (WestK) 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 29 to 31 May 2026 at the M+ Moving Image Centre, the festival is an expansive programme of screenings, performances, talks, workshops, VR experiences, and listening sessions.
AAGFF 2026 explores the concept of space through its cross-disciplinary framework, featuring pioneer filmmaker 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, the theme of this edition, builds on a year-long inquiry begun in autumn 2025 through three chapters of Avant-Garde Now, which examined 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.
Space Enter Shift features expansive moving image presentations that utilise composition, perspective, alienation, and abstraction alongside lens and sound technologies. These works enable audiences to visualise space across various scales—from the intimacy of a bedroom to the vastness of the cosmos. Traversing pristine landscapes, dense concrete architectures, and the in-between spaces of exile, dreams, and virtual reality, the festival offers a visceral experience of this complex and multifaceted concept.
Highlights of the AAGFF 2026 are as follows:
The programme features two titles by pioneering filmmaker Roger Garcia, part of the Asian Avant-Garde Film Collection, to reflect on Hong Kong’s independent film legacy. Garcia is the founder of the independent collective Modern Films Production since the early 1980s and is known for experimental and essay films that expanded Hong Kong’s moving image culture.
Commissioned by M+, this collaboration is a stunning large-scale presentation blending Lamya Gargash’s evocative architecture photography and Vivian Wang’s live score performance to evoke the lingering presences, memories, and aspirations of people who move across time and place.
- Larissa Sansour & Søren Lind: In Vitro (2019) and Familiar Phantoms (2023), and the Asian premiere of Sansour’s A Sunken Tale of Losses Delayed (2026)
The collaborative works of Larissa Sansour and Søren Lind 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 a brief opening narrative performance.
- Rirkrit Tiravanija: Lung Neaw Visits His Neighbours (2011)
Rirkrit Tiravanija takes us on a serene journey through rural Chiang Mai in this quietly observational film, which follows the daily life of Neaw, a retired rice farmer. As Neaw crosses open fields and interacts with villagers, a local sage, and the elephant king, his routine fosters reflections on equality, opportunity, self-determination, and democracy.
- Xu Bing: Dragonfly Eyes (2017)
Created entirely from public surveillance footage, Xu Bing’s first feature film is a poignant love story with no actors or cameramen. Blurring the boundaries between public and private, truth and fiction, the montage raises questions about spectatorship and technology in contemporary society.
AAGFF hosts another electrifying edition of the festival’s signature party, A Happening, featuring a night 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 (2026). The line-up also includes atmospheric DJ sets by Korean sound artist and curator Daham Park, performances by dance students, a pulsating showcase by LifeWielder, experimental noise paired with skateboarding by Happy Wheels, and ambient animation by Zheng Mahler.
This panel brings together leading artists to share global perspectives on space as a conceptual framework, exploring themes of power, capital, technology, and alternative forms of communal living.
Festival Lounge: a platform for gatherings, workshops, VR experiences, installations, screenings, and artist conversations
During the three-day event series, the M+ Moving Image Centre will be transformed into the Festival Lounge, a hub 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 Festival 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 the presentation of Zheng Mahler’s M+ web commission work, The Twenty-Three Thousand Sexes of Schizophyllum Commune and Other Stories (2026).
Suhanya Raffel, Museum Director, M+, says, ‘We are pleased to present the third edition of the Asian Avant-Garde Film Festival, which brings together film enthusiasts and those encountering avant-garde cinema for the first time. Since its inception, the festival has evolved into an important platform for exchange between artists and audiences, fostering dialogue grounded in curiosity and a shared pioneering spirit. It reflects M+’s commitment to supporting experimental and forward‑looking moving image practices across Asia through sustained research and cross‑regional engagement, extending the impact of these practices beyond the region.’
Silke Schmickl, CHANEL Senior Curator, Head of Moving Image, M+, says, ‘This year’s AAGFF builds on our year-long exploration of space through the Avant-Garde Now programme, bringing those ideas into a shared, live environment. The festival combines film, performance, sound, and discourse in ways that reflect the experimental nature of contemporary moving image practices. We consider space in its many forms—from the physical and psychological to the spatial and cosmological—to ask how artists use space as a medium and how it shapes, limits, or transforms our daily lives. We are excited by the range of voices and approaches the festival represents, and it is encouraging to see filmmakers recognise M+ as a place to present substantive research and ambitious new work.’
Ticketing arrangements
- Festival pass
Festival Pass holders will have access to all ticketed AAGFF programmes with priority admission ahead of individual ticket holders. M+ Members and Patrons can enjoy a twenty per cent discount. Availability is limited.
- Festival Pass: HKD 750
- Concessionary tickets*: HKD 600
- Day Pass
Day Pass holders will have access to all ticketed AAGFF programmes on the chosen day. M+ Members and Patrons can enjoy a twenty per cent discount. Availability is limited.
- Day Pass: HKD 250
- Concessionary tickets*: HKD 200
- Single Ticket
Single tickets will be available for all House 1 and Grand Stair programmes. M+ Members and Patrons can enjoy a twenty per cent discount.
- Single ticket: HKD 85
- Concessionary tickets*: HKD 68
All Festival Pass, Day Pass, and ticket holders aged 18 or above enjoy free access to the AAGFF party, In the Zone: A Happening, on Saturday, 30 May 2026 at the M+ Horizon Terrace.
*Concession tickets are available for full-time students, children ages seven to eleven, senior citizens ages sixty and above, persons with disabilities and one companion, and Comprehensive Social Security Assistance (CSSA) recipients.
For more programme information, please visit the AAGFF website.
About M+
M+ is Asia’s global museum of contemporary visual culture. Located in Hong Kong’s West Kowloon Cultural District (WestK), it is dedicated to collecting, exhibiting, and interpreting visual art, design and architecture, moving image, and Hong Kong visual culture of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. The landmark M+ building on Hong Kong’s Victoria Harbourfront was designed by the world-renowned architectural firm Herzog & de Meuron in partnership with TFP Farrells and Arup. It spans a total floor area of 65,000 square metres, featuring thirty-three galleries alongside a Learning Hub, Moving Image Centre, Research Centre, and Roof Garden, among other event and programming spaces. The M+ Facade is one of the largest LED screens in the world, showcasing commissioned artworks on the Hong Kong skyline every evening. The museum stewards a multidisciplinary permanent collection that includes objects from regions across Asia and beyond. A highlight is the M+ Sigg Collection, one of the world’s most comprehensive collections of Chinese contemporary art. Today, M+ is a nexus for researching and presenting contemporary visual culture, inspiring thought and curiosity.
About the West Kowloon Cultural District (WestK)
WestK is one of the largest and most ambitious cultural hubs in the world and Hong Kong’s new cultural tourism landmark, spanning forty hectares alongside Victoria Harbour. WestK comprises a mix of landmark arts and cultural facilities, including world-class museums M+ and the Hong Kong Palace Museum, intricately designed performing arts venues the Xiqu Centre and Freespace, the eleven-hectare Art Park with a waterfront promenade, and the upcoming WestK Performing Arts Centre.
Hosting over 1,000 exhibitions, performances, programmes, and events each year, WestK provides a vital platform for both emerging and established artists. WestK welcomes more than ten million visitors each year, evolving as the international cultural brand of Hong Kong and strengthening the city’s strategic role as an East-meets-West centre for international cultural exchange.
About the CHANEL Culture Fund
The CHANEL Culture Fund fosters a vibrant network of creators and innovators to advance the ideas that shape culture worldwide. Core programmes include CHANEL’s Art Partners, institutions whose leaders are supported in the development of groundbreaking, long-term initiatives that bring transformation to the cultural landscape. The CHANEL Next Prize celebrates artists and accelerates their future successes through access to resources and mentorship. And the podcast CHANEL Connects amplifies the voices of thought leaders across disciplines, generations, and geographies—tackling the defining issues of our time.
From driving artistic innovation with technology at CalArts in Southern California to catalysing creative freedom at scale at Hamburger Bahnhof in Berlin, from championing game-changing artists at the Venice Biennale to celebrating the brightest directors at the British Film Institute, the CHANEL Culture Fund extends a century of commitment to the arts and champions creative audacity for a better future.