After sorting through a huge pile of 2,300 entries, we’ve curated a selection of 75 outstanding new films from 29 countries. These films range from humorous and dramatic to bizarre, subtle, frightening, and autobiographical. What they all share is our belief that they represent the best of the best. These 8 international competition programmes showcase a variety of techniques, genres, and styles. This is your annual glimpse into the vibrant world of international indie animation.
This programme, the Abstract Showcase, represents our yearly exploration of abstract and experimental animation. It features 14 short films where animators use a wide range of techniques, from hand-drawn “musical scores” to high-definition computer-assisted imagery. Each film reflects a deep passion for animated movement and showcases the artist’s skill in using colour and crafting non-narrative visuals to captivate the screen.
LIAF is one of the very few animation festivals in the world to devote an entire programme to abstract and experimental animation. We do this because we believe that the tenets that underpin great abstract animation go to the very heart of what it is to create beautiful, frame by frame animated imagery; a form of animated artmaking with a history that reaches back to the earliest days of animation. Also – we do it because we love abstract animation!!
Several filmmakers will be in attendance to introduce their films at the start of the screening.
Tickets coming soon!
Witch Piss – Vera Sebert, Austria/Germany
Melting bodies and fractured anatomy dissolve into a nightmarish collision of animation and found footage. As flesh loses its boundaries, body horror mutates into a fluid confrontation between image, medium, and viewer.
2026 9’45 min
Next Step – Tamás Patrovits, Hungary
Countless original risograph prints improvised to the rhythm of the scores of the Hungarian percussion group, Amadinda.
2025 5’05 min
Element #02 – Yuki Kimura, Japan
Following glowing, constantly moving objects with our eyes brings an instinctive joy.
2026 3’25 min
Impromptu – Steve Subotnick, USA
Proving less is more, an utterly fascinating film made entirely on five wooden boards.
2025 6’10 min
Emotion Hazard 1 – Zixuan Zhou, USA
Exploring the theme of anxiety through a purely compositional approach, serving as a visual interpretation of abstract emotions based on the concept of ‘visualising music’.
2025 3’45 min
Cyclotron – Brian Gibson, USA
A four-and-a-half-minute particle accelerator: colour, shapes, and sounds animated as out-of-phase loops that collide, stretch, and reverse in time.
2026 4’25 min
Subharmonics – Marcell Mostoha, Denmark/Hungary
Blooming glimpses of the ever-changing; repetitions that form a circle; keys that can best be found in the depths of the unconscious.
2026 4’55 min
Symbionts – Quirijn Dees, Switzerland
A beguiling, molten descent into a visceral organic cycle of interaction within an unfamiliar ecosystem.
2025 9’30 min
Pictures For Piano (1) – Diek Grobler, South Africa
An abstract interpretation of Chopin’s Etude Opus 10 no. 12, made by instinctively improvising imagery onto a pinscreen.
2025 3’00 min
From Something to Nothing – Michael Heindl, Austria
An immersive, audiovisual collage built from more than 3,000 photos of tree bark, moss and organic detail, gathered before the forest was logged. As the images form an experimental patchwork, viewers connect with a living world whose raw material has since vanished.
2026 6’45 min
Tintinnabulation I – Wiesława Ruta, Poland
Colour, light and shape clash and collide in mesmerising ways to the pulsating music of Anton Pearson.
2026 6’50 min
Dance Of Creation – Natalia Ryss, Israel
A vibrant and vivacious world is brought into being in a joyful dance before our very eyes channelling the aesthetics of Neoplasticism.
2025 3’15 min
Métavers II – Pulsation – Marie Delagrave, Canada
Sequences generated by a moving virtual camera are layered and blended, creating a unique graphic universe, amplified by the rhythmic electronic music of Eric Delagrave.
2025 3’20 min
Wandering Dot and the Blank Square Page Universe – Ieva Lība Ratniece, Belgium/Latvia
An immersive visual poem about a journey within a blank page – prompting the question, is a blank page ever really empty?
2025 5’15 min
Our Funding Partners
With Special Thanks to The Elf Factory, official sponsor of LIAF 2026.
With Special Thanks to the Arts Council England
Event supported by Film Hub London, managed by Film London. Proud to be a partner of the BFI Film Audience Network, funded by the National Lottery.
Venue
Opened in March 2022, The Garden Cinema screens repertory seasons and new releases from around the world. Being truly independent, they choose films that are worth seeing, films you’d be happy to see more than once. Films of all genres that are true to life, well made, that left us feeling better or wiser for having seen them. For more information about The Garden Cinema and how to get there, find out more.
Online, The Garden Cinema
