2025 Experimental Fiction Film Festival at Cultplex

There’s something out of the ordinary scheduled at Cultplex this summer as the 2025 edition of the Experimental Fiction Film Festival takes over the cinema on Saturday 19 July. Showcasing some of the most exciting independent experimental fiction films from around the world, this curated selection of shorts should entice film fans, academics and filmmakers alike.

Programming of experimental film can often be dominated by abstract work so it’s intriguing to see a festival dedicated to entirely to exploring experimental fiction. The titles selected for the Experimental Fiction Film Festival all incorporate some element of fiction or storytelling, while deviating from traditional narrative and stylistic norms.

The concept leaves a chasm of opportunity for filmmakers to play with, and festival organisers hope that by providing a platform, they can help promote new modes of storytelling and audio-visual communication. Amongst the international selection of films on show across the day, there is everything from animation, to Super 8 and digital filmmaking, exploring family, identity and domesticity, alongside science-fiction worlds, deserted cities and mystical meetings.

To give a quick taste of what to expect: in Matt Benson’s 1980s-set Lennox-Friedkin Tape #004 a scientist documents the trial of an invention that reveals what you see when you die. From Romania, Teona Galgotiu’s I Want to Shatter the Greenhouse features an inheritable disease that turns its victims into a plant. While Alexandra Karelina’s Dva follows a lonely man whose search for a missing dog leads to a parallel world, where the living and the dead are inseparable.

The day-long event at Cultplex is split into three distinct blocks of screenings, culminating in the best of 2025’s 24/7 Filmmaking Competition, the winner of which will be decided by audience vote.