Small File Media Festival | 2026
October 17 鈥� 18, 2026
The Cinematheque
1131 Howe St., Vancouver
Too Small to Fail!
Online video has a ginormous carbon footprint because of data centres, networks, and our shiny devices. Luckily the Small File Media Festival is back for our seventh year with a call out鈥攁n all-out intervention to save the world, one pixel at a time. And the call was answered! We received over 400 small-scale experiments from all over the world, including narratives, documentaries, confessionals, animations, glitchfests, and sci-fis. Filmmakers, artists, activists, media pirates, and rogue technologists are taking part in a revolutionary mode of creating and consuming moving-image media.
At a mere 1.44 megabytes per second鈥攁 tiny fraction of the bitrate of standard video鈥攕mall files travel lightly and under the radar. When governments snoop and infrastructures collapse, small files will be ready鈥攜ou can send these cuties in an email or a text or even by pigeon. Yet small files bust out big on the user鈥檚 end! We are stunned by the big-screen cinephilia of this year鈥檚 submissions. Using ingenious techniques from 鈥嬧�渙bsolete鈥� cameras to precise camerawork, handmade animation, and pixel-bedazzled compression, small-file makers show that cinema doesn鈥檛 have to be big to be beautiful.
We invite you to celebrate six punk-chic programs of vibe-shifting, aura-casting Small File ecomedia. As ever, in our alluring, lovingly curated programs鈥斺�淲omen Destroying Things鈥�; 鈥嬧�淭he Chaos of Quantity in Two Parts: Alien Capitalism and Telepathic Computation鈥�; 鈥嬧�淪o You Want to Be a Rock鈥�; 鈥嬧�淪uppose a Room鈥�; 鈥嬧�淰oidmaxxing鈥�; and 鈥嬧�淕rave Glitches鈥濃�攚e are stretching the boundaries of cinema across hitherto unvisited cosmologies. Small files are media art鈥檚 sustainable avant-garde!
The 2026 edition of the Small File Media Festival continues our partnership with our future-forward friends at The Hmm (Amsterdam), CONNECT (Science Foundation Ireland Research Centre for Future Networks and Communications at Trinity College Dublin), and The Cinematheque (Vancouver). We鈥檙e grateful to the Canada Council for the Arts, BC Arts Council, City of Vancouver Arts and Culture, and Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
SFMF Series 1: Saturday, October 17 | 7:00 PM
Women Destroying Things & The Chaos of Quantity in Two Parts: Alien Capitalism and Telepathic Computation
SFMF Series 2: Sunday, October 18 | 1:00 PM
So You Want to Be a Rock & Suppose a Room
SFMF Series 3: Sunday, October 18 | 4:00 PM
VOIDMAXXING (Joy That Kills) & Grave Glitches
