ADFF:STIR Mumbai Returns in 2026 With an Expanded Vision

Pentad Pavilion by UHA

Mumbai (Maharashtra) [India], January 7: 

Following a successful South Asian debut in 2025, Architecture & Design Film Festival (ADFF) returns to Mumbai with its second edition, ADFF:STIR Mumbai 2026, reaffirming its position as a cultural programme that extends far beyond the cinematic screen. The festival will take place at the National Centre for the Performing Arts (NCPA) from January 9 to 11, 2026, with a special premiere screening on January 8.

Founded in 2009 by New York–based architect and film enthusiast Kyle Bergman, ADFF has grown into the world’s largest film festival dedicated to architecture and design. Since its inaugural edition in Waitsfield, Vermont, the festival has consistently explored the intersection of architecture, design, cinema and artistic storytelling—celebrating how narrative and worldbuilding shape the spaces we inhabit.

Co-organised by STIR, the Mumbai edition expands significantly in its sophomore year. The festival continues to embrace a vibrant, participatory and cross-disciplinary spirit, structured around four dynamic pillars: Films, the ~log(ue) Programme, the Pavilion Park, and Special Projects—each designed to foster meaningful engagement among creatives, practitioners and audiences.

A Festival That Builds Cultural Exchange

As an award-winning global media house and curatorial agency, STIR views ADFF:STIR Mumbai as a critical platform for cultural dissemination and interdisciplinary collaboration across South Asia and beyond. The 2026 edition introduces a broader, more diverse roster of programming, inviting internationally recognised voices to engage with Mumbai as both subject and stage.

According to Amit Gupta, festival director of ADFF:STIR Mumbai, the second edition builds on the momentum of 2025 by deepening global dialogue while remaining rooted in the city’s lived realities. The programme explores Mumbai’s energy and contradictions—its frolic and its fault lines—through cinema, spatial interventions and public discourse.

Films at the Core

At its heart, ADFF:STIR Mumbai remains a film festival. The curated selection presents documentaries, docu-fiction, speculative futures and experimental formats that examine the built world and its relationship with people and the planet. The films foreground diverse perspectives, including voices from the Global South, women and queer filmmakers, and narratives addressing climate, identity and everyday urban life.

Key films include Changing Lanes, Identity: A Czech Graphic Design Love Story, We The Others, Eames: The Architect and the Painter, and Frank Gehry: Building Justice. The festival also features immersive 3D screenings such as Anselm and Pina by Wim Wenders, alongside Berlin Philharmonic in 3D and a portrait of Louis Kahn’s Salk Institute from the Cathedrals of Culture series.

Pavilion Park: Architecture as Experience

One of the festival’s most anticipated elements, the Jaquar Pavilion Park, transforms the NCPA lawns into an open-air exhibition of temporary architectural installations. Curated by Aric Chen, the 2026 Pavilion Park is themed Mumbai Transcripts, drawing inspiration from Bernard Tschumi’s The Manhattan Transcripts.

Ten selected practices will realise pavilions that choreograph space, movement and event—inviting audiences to become active participants rather than passive observers. Supported by Jaquar, the Pavilion Park extends the festival’s ethos beyond the screen into lived, spatial experience, while embracing circular design principles of reuse and relocation.

~log(ue): Conversations That Collide

The ~log(ue) Programme, supported by JSW Group, continues its innovative approach to public discourse by blending talks, performances, workshops and debates. With patronage from Sangita Jindal and Tarini Jindal Handa, the programme brings together influential figures from architecture, art, design, fashion, film and culture to explore how creative disciplines intersect and evolve.

A Living, Expanding Cultural Platform

Complemented by immersive installations, culinary collaborations, LIVinSET—an experiential product gallery—and curated pop-ups, ADFF: STIR Mumbai 2026 positions itself as a living cultural ecosystem rather than a conventional festival.

With strong institutional, cultural and hospitality partnerships—including Trident Hotels—the second edition reinforces ADFF: STIR Mumbai’s ambition: to create a plural, global and deeply engaging platform where architecture, design and cinema converge.

If you object to the content of this press release, please notify us at pr.error.rectification@gmail.com. We will respond and rectify the situation within 24 hours.