First Programme Release for Tampere Film Festival 2026: Faith

Tampere Film Festival will take place for the 56th time on 4–8 March 2026. The first programme announced for next spring is the screening series Faith, which explores themes of faith both critically and with a sense of hope.

The Faith programme features both documentary and fiction short films ranging from the 1960s to the present day. The selection is built around the idea of the universal human need to attach to or believe in something – even in an era that is particularly individualistic in the Western world. The series has been curated by Riina Mikkonen of Tampere Film Festival.

– Individual rights and the freedom to express oneself are considered among the highest values in secularised Western societies. At the same time, while we demand independence and self-sufficiency from ourselves, spirituality has begun to interest secularised people in new ways. The sense of security provided by spiritual communities or the worldview offered by religion may appeal to those exhausted by limitless freedom of choice, Mikkonen explains.

The programme consists of three short-film screenings that examine Christianity sharply, yet with respect and open curiosity. Christianity serves as the lens for this exploration because its role in our society is particularly ambivalent:

– In secularised Finland, people tend to think that religion does not influence our rational society, let alone democratic decision-making, Mikkonen notes.

The first screening includes, among others, recent fiction films such as Joaquín León’s La sangre (The Blood) (Spain, 2025), which playfully brings Catholic saint culture into the social-media era, and Drew Lint’s Place d’Armes (Canada, 2024), which examines a gay man’s relationship with the Church.

The second screening consists of critically minded documentaries. Representing older material is the Finnish documentary Armon vuonna (Finland, 1965), directed by Lasse Naukkarinen, which considers religion as a social phenomenon. Izidor Bistrović’s documentary Hvala ti majko (Thank You Mother) (Croatia, 2025) portrays a young director and his family’s differing relationships with God. The dominant position of Christianity in Swiss society is critiqued in Always Wanted to Be God, Never Wanted to Do Good (Switzerland, 2025) by Noa Epars and Marvin Merkel.

The third screening is composed of fiction films linked by a searching or hopeful approach to faith and spirituality. The screening includes, for example, short films Minä olen ihminen sinun jumalasi (I Am the Human Thy God) (Finland, 2019, dir. Risto-Pekka Blom), Sans Dieu (Italy, 2024, dir. Alessandro Rocca), and Vox Humana (Philippines, USA, Singapore, 2024, dir. Don Josephus Raphael Eblahan).

Alongside the Faith programme, a discussion event delving deeper into the theme will be organised in collaboration with the Democracy Research Network at Tampere University. Detailed content and schedules for the screenings and the discussion event will be published on 10 February with the full programme announcement.

Serial Card Sales Begin

With the first programme release, Tampere Film Festival launches its Christmas campaign, during which Serial Cards for the 2026 festival will be sold at discounted Early Bird prices. Early Bird prices are available from 2 December 2025 to 6 January 2026 in the festival’s online shop.

Short film competitions are also central to the festival, and the competition selections for the 2026 edition will be announced at the end of January. The full festival programme will be published and individual tickets will go on sale on 10 February 2026.

Read more about the Serial Card Sale on the Tickets page:

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