The 11th Beyond Borders Kastellorizo International Documentary Festival (23-30 August) will bring 42 films from around the world to the Greek island, with this year’s programme built around the question, “What remains if you remove the obvious?” The festival will once again use documentary cinema to explore the political, social and personal realities shaping the contemporary world, while placing particular emphasis on stories of resilience, memory, identity and human connection.

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Held annually on Kastellorizo, Beyond Borders is organised by the Hellenic History Foundation (IDISME), and has established itself as a meeting point for documentary filmmakers and audiences interested in historical and sociopolitical subjects. This year’s competitive programme will feature films representing 53 countries, through either their production or co-production companies, while more than 40% of the selected titles are directed by women.

The 2026 edition will present 35 Greek, international and world premieres. The programme is divided into the Main Competition, featuring 18 medium-length and feature-length documentaries, including three Greek productions, and the μicro Competition, comprising 23 short documentaries, including five Greek productions and co-productions. Together, the two sections offer a broad geographical and thematic panorama of contemporary documentary filmmaking.

The selection is organised around three broad themes: global sociopolitical upheavals and contemporary conflicts, the climate crisis and environmental responsibility, and intimate human stories. The programme’s films on conflict and displacement include Joo Peter’s Bajau Laut – The Sea Is Our Home, following Malaysia’s stateless Bajau Laut community as it faces evictions and cultural erasure; Didier Cros’s Faces of War, which follows surgeons treating war victims in Lviv; Olga Chernykh’s The Illusion of a Quiet Night, built from footage recorded across Ukraine on one night in July 2025; and David Bingong’s The Travelers, about migrants repeatedly attempting to cross from Morocco into Spain.

Memory, exile and political upheaval feature in Giorgos Iliopoulos’ EXILE(S), Stories of an Island, which explores the changing identity of Imbros; Jihan’s My Father and Qaddafi, telling of a daughter’s search for her disappeared Libyan father; and Past Future Continuous by Morteza Ahmadvand and Firouzeh Khosrovani, about an Iranian exile monitoring her family home through security cameras. Stephen Apkon’s There Is Another Way follows former Israeli and Palestinian enemies committed to non-violence, while Tonislav Hristov’s Truth or Dare examines the destabilising power of fake news.

Environmental questions run through Jens Schanze’s Materia Prima, which connects Bolivia’s lithium boom with its colonial past; İlkay Nişancı’s Slow Death, about the destruction of Turkey’s Elbistan plain by coal mining and power production; Lost for Words by Hannah Papacek-Harper, which explores humanity’s relationship with nature through disappearing words; and Candela Sotos’ Yrupe, linking a search for a lost scientific film with botanical imagery, archives and memory.

The more personal side of the programme includes Loukas Paleokrassas’s Greek documentary Bugboy, about a teenager who finds refuge in the world of insects; Marjolijn Prins’ Fantastique, following a young Guinean acrobat balancing family responsibilities with her own ambitions; Tasos Goletsos’ True To Our Inner Daemon, which probes ecstatic rituals of faith and transformation; and Cathy Dubois’ What Remains of our Mothers’ Loves, a poetic search for identity through the director’s French and Senegalese heritage. Finally, Sinéad O’Shea’s All About the Money tells the unlikely story of a wealthy US heir who attempts to build a communist revolutionary base in rural Massachusetts.

Finally, Switzerland is this year’s Country of Honour, with the Panorama presenting a special tribute to Swiss documentary cinema organised in collaboration with and supported by Swiss Films. The programme includes nine Swiss documentaries by acclaimed filmmakers such as Christian Frei, Jacqueline Zünd and Nicolas Wadimoff, alongside a selection of four short films by students of HEAD - Genève, presented for the first time in collaboration with the school. The festival’s international programme also welcomes Al Jazeera Documentary and Alpha TV as honoured media organisations, Visions du Réel as the honoured festival and HEAD – Genève as the honoured academic institution.

The Beyond Borders Kastellorizo International Documentary Festival is organised by the Hellenic History Foundation (IDISME), under the auspices of the General Secretariat for Greeks Abroad and Public Diplomacy (GGAEDD) of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Its main institutional partner is the Hellenic Film and Audiovisual Center, while the festival is supported by the Hellenic Parliament, the Greek National Tourism Organization (GNTO) and the Latsis Foundation. ERT, ZDF and GGAEDD are the award sponsors.