There is a trap in responding to the current moment. It can mean being reactive, chasing urgency, letting the news cycle saturate deeper into our lives. It often overpromises. We see this across the cultural sector, where institutions aspire to rise to the occasion, through a theme, a statement, a gesture of solidarity. The risk is a creeping normalization at work, where politics gets absorbed, aestheticized, and made safe through institutional containment. So often, dissent is managed by giving it a room, a time slot, a grant category. This is how demands get filed away after that current moment passes onto the next one, with no material change occurring. A carousel of crisis. belit sağ reminded us last year that "thank you for your solidarity," is an absurd statement. These are words that institutions will never hear, and don't deserve to hear.
We spent the past months thinking toward this year's festival, carrying the resonance of last August's edition––the feeling, tone, provocation of each artists' work, mixing with the humidity, presence, sweat, and energy of every person who came to watch. Together, as artists, audiences, and programmers, we are not responding to the current moment as if it is something outside of us. Rather, we place ourselves inside of the current moment, with the understanding that we carry agency and responsibility as much as we carry grief and despair in shaping it together.
DIFFUSION is a spatial and temporal choreography. It starts from the open call––free to submit, open to durations and forms that fall under a vague and imperfect notion of non-fiction. That open call is circulated somewhat discreetly online, like an invitation into your home. You want to invite everyone, while knowing the tiny apartment you pay too much rent for has a fixed amount of space. That open call moves along, friends share it with friends. After we watched the 365 submissions, it felt like this passing along of the invitation continues to morph, constantly growing, bringing new names, approaches and voices into the mix. We learn so much watching these projects and are grateful to everyone who took the time to send them to us. The full roll call of submissions comes to bear on our understanding of what is urgent and cultivates the sense of a wider community of artists out there inhabiting this moment and acting within it.
DIFFUSION, as such, does not have a theme. It would be impossible to assign one, in advance or in retrospect. Rather, it has these artists' works. These pieces announced themselves, in one way or another, as resonant to the reality of early August 2026 in Tkaronto, under colonial rule and environmental devastation. To the live-streamed genocide of Palestinians, which continues with impunity. To the ongoing Israeli-American war on Iran, and to the terror and occupation wrought on Lebanon. To a world of rampant fascism, nationalism, racism, and the dispossession of Indigenous peoples and their land. To the violence inflicted on queer and trans bodies, on desire, on sex and on pleasure. Certain films had gravity that pulled them towards each other, in feeling, tone, shape. Others sought out friction, with the audience, and the works around them. It was our job to step far enough back to sense these interactions happening and to let multiple arrangements come together in alternating moments of porous opening and/or undeniable clarity. The intervals between the films create camaraderie and conflict, extending out to years past, and to the years ahead.
This year we are thrilled to present 33 artists across seven programs. We'll have indoor screenings at CineCycle and Gallery 44, and outdoor screenings in the lush 401 Richmond courtyard at dusk every evening. Francisca Duran will host an all ages direct animation workshop. Local and international artists will be here in person to present their films: Lesley Loksi Chan, Dextra Darling, Nada El-Omari, Kalil Haddad, Timothy Yanick Hunter, Alex Lo, Sonya Mwambu, Evelyn Pakinewatik, Zelikha Zohra Shoja, and Sahar Te. We are honoured to have Parine Jaddo with us in person to present her incredible films from the late 1990s and early 2000s for the first time ever in Canada. We are grateful to Nadia Shihab for bringing Parine's films to us.
DIFFUSION is free to attend. The artists are paid. All donations collected are forwarded to Toronto Indigenous Harm Reduction and No Arms in the Arts. The food is free. The refreshments are beside the food. We are funded by the project grants we receive, when we receive them. We scale the event accordingly. DIFFUSION is a party and it is a wake. If you are reading this, consider it an invitation to make this moment together.
––DIFFUSION 2026: Faraz Anoushahpour, Scott Miller Berry, Ryan Ferko, Almudena Escobar López
