Founded in 2015 and having made its name as Iceland’s small but mighty arthouse cinema festival in just ten years, the Stockfish Film & Industry Festival (19–29 March 2026) is returning once again to its home base in Reykjavik’s Bíó Paradís for its 11th edition. Alongside ten days of film screenings, Stockfish will serve as a meeting point for collaboration between the national, Nordic and international film industries.

While the festival’s Icelandic selections are primarily focused on short films, Stockfish will also screen Hlynur Pálmason’s Joan of Arc, a companion film to his Cannes-premiered movie The Love That Remains. Joan of Arc world-premiered in San Sebastián last autumn, and viewers will recognise the titular figure from sequences in The Love That Remains. The film sees three siblings shooting arrows and playing around a figure-slash-effigy dressed as a medieval knight, capturing the seasons as they pass.

Meanwhile, the festival’s documentary selection is curated by Icelandic filmmaker Yrsa Roca Fannberg (The Ground Beneath Our Feet) and includes David Bim’s Cuba-set To the West, in Zapata and Olha Zhurba’s wartime Ukrainian documentary Songs of Slow Burning Earth.

This year, Stockfish is featuring Ireland as its country of focus and will screen films including LUX Audience Award nominee Christy by Brendan Canty and Ready or Not by Claire Frances Byrne. The programme will also foreground several recent Palestinian titles, including Oscar entry Palestine 36 by Annemarie Jacir, Locarno competitor With Hasan in Gaza by Jamal Al-Kafari and Venice Grand Jury Prize-winner The Voice of Hind Rajab by Kaouther Ben Hania.

Stockfish Industry Days will run throughout the entire festival, hosting panel discussions on the state of the Icelandic and North Atlantic film industries, as well as a showcase of new Nordic work-in-progress projects scheduled for the second weekend. The first weekend of industry programming will include The Whale, a screenwriting lab now in its third year, geared towards emerging and mid-career screenwriters.

One of Stockfish’s unique programmes is the Physical Cinema Festival (PCF), which has unspooled within the wider Stockfish Festival since 2019. PCF plays with film’s intersection with music, sound art, performance, installation and more. This year, the works assembled by way of a local open call will be showcased in a conventional screening setting in Bíó Paradís, in a curated setting at Marvaða - a women-run arts space dedicated to music - and all around the Icelandic capital in various open-air locations and contexts.