Leiden Essay
Film Festival

Stay tuned for updates on the dates and the programme of the upcoming festival. We hope to see you in September 2026.

Thank you for visiting our website. The first edition of the Leiden Essay Film Festival held in September 2025 was a tremendous success. More than 1200 visitors attended and we received countless enthusiastic responses. Since then we have regularly been notified about new essay films and visitors keep asking us when the next edition of the festival will take place. We’ll be able to share more information about this soon.

Preemptive Listening

directed by Aura Satz (Spain, 2024)

Sans Soleil

directed by Chris Marker (France, 1983 Argos film, all rights reserved)

Free to Choose

directed by Bahar Noorizadeh (UK, 2023)

An Asian Ghost Story

directed by Bo Wang (Hong Kong, 2023)

Home Invasion

directed by Graeme Arnfield (US, 2024)

Henry Fonda for President

directed by Alexander Horwath (US, 2024)

Perpetual Radiance

directed by Michela Meliddo (Italy, 2024)

The Southern Thruway

directed by Susanna Tomassini (Italy, 2023 )

The Natural History of Destruction

directed by Sergei Loznitsa (Poland, 2022)

To the Earthen Red

directed by Nika Pećarina (Netherlands, 2022)

Twenty-Four Cinematic Points of View of a Factory Gate in China

directed by Ho Rui An (China, 2023)

My Want of You Partakes of Me

directed by Sasha Litvintseva and Beny Wagner (UK, 2024)

Letters from Panduranga

directed by Nguyễn Trinh Thi (Vietnam, 2015)

In Praise of Slowness

directed by Hicham Gardaf (UK/Italy, 2024)

A Letter from Yene

directed by Manthia Diawara (Senegal, 2022)