Film Festivals in November

The Ljubljana International Film Festival, LIFFe, has been staged by the national cultural center Cankarjev dom since 1990 and is Slovenia's premier film event: eleven program sections led by the Perspectives competition for emerging directors, screened across nine venues from Cankarjev dom's Linhart and Kosovel halls to Kinodvor, the Slovenian Cinematheque, and Kino Siska, with satellite screenings in Maribor, Novo Mesto, and Celje. The 37th edition runs November 11-22, 2026. It is the arthouse counterpoint to the capital's compact walkability, a festival you can cross entirely on foot between screenings.

Mar del Plata is the only film festival in Latin America holding FIAPF's top competitive classification, the same category as Cannes, Venice, and Berlin, and it has run since 1954, the oldest of its class in the Americas. It is also the accessible one: competition screenings sell to actual cinephiles rather than badge hierarchies, prices are Argentine, and the whole thing unspools in a faded-grand seaside resort city just before beach season. Backed by INCAA, the national film institute, it is the premiere pipeline for Latin American cinema, which means you watch next year's arthouse discoveries months early, by the ocean.

The Thessaloniki International Film Festival is the oldest film festival in the Balkans, running since 1960 when it began as Greek Film Week, and it stages its editions from a headquarters at 10 Aristotelous Square on the city's long waterfront. The 67th edition runs November 5-15, 2026, pairing international competition premieres with the Agora industry market, and the same organization runs a documentary festival each March, so the city carries film culture in two seasons. November in Thessaloniki means festival screenings by the bay, Byzantine churches between venues, and a cafe scene that treats cinema arguments as civic sport.

Cork International Film Festival is the oldest film festival in Ireland, and it has kept a reputation for discovery rather than red carpets. Founded in 1956, it takes over the cinemas and venues of Cork city for eleven days each November, screening international features, Irish premieres and documentaries alongside one of the most respected short-film programs in Europe, an Oscar-qualifying strand that filmmakers target from around the world. The scale suits the city: independent, walkable and serious about film without the crush of the biggest festivals, so audiences and visiting directors actually mix. Held in the dark of November, it turns Cork into a film town for a fortnight, with screenings, talks and events spread across a compact center. For anyone who cares about cinema and wants a festival where the program, not the celebrity, is the point, Cork is the Irish one to attend.

Every November Taipei becomes the capital of Chinese-language cinema for the Golden Horse Film Festival and its awards, the most prestigious in the Chinese-speaking world. The Golden Horse Awards, first given in 1962, are the region's equivalent of the Oscars, and because Taiwan judges films from across the Chinese-language world on merit rather than politics, they have long honored bold work from the mainland, Hong Kong, Malaysia and Singapore as readily as from Taiwan itself. The festival wrapped around the awards fills the city's cinemas for a fortnight with premieres, restored classics, international competition titles and appearances by the directors and stars, and tickets to the popular screenings go fast. For a film traveler it is a chance to watch the year's most talked-about Chinese-language films with a knowledgeable Taipei audience, in a city where the festival has real cultural weight. The 2026 edition runs from 6 to 22 November.

The Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival, POFF, turns the dark of the northern November into one of Europe's most serious film events. It is the only A-list festival in the Baltics and Nordics, one of around fifteen worldwide accredited by FIAPF alongside Cannes, Venice and Berlin, and across sixteen days it screens some 250 features and 300 shorts to about 90,000 admissions. The pull is the combination of scale and setting: a genuine industry festival with competitions and premieres, held in a compact medieval city where snow is likely and the whole thing feels intimate rather than red-carpet distant. Sub-festivals for shorts, children's films and animation run alongside the main program.

The Tokyo International Film Festival is the only Japanese festival accredited by FIAPF, the body that ranks the world's major competitive film festivals, and it sits second in Asia only to Shanghai in scale. It gives festival-goers something the bigger European festivals rarely do: a genuine, deep pipeline into Japanese and wider Asian cinema, screened in a city with the infrastructure and film culture to support it properly, alongside a real shot at premieres and industry access through its affiliated content market. For a traveler who wants to combine a major film festival with a first (or repeat) trip to Tokyo, it is a rare case where the destination and the event are equally the draw.

EnergaCAMERIMAGE is the world's leading festival devoted to the art of cinematography, the one week a year when the people who light and frame films, rather than direct or star in them, take the spotlight. Founded in 1993 and running in Torun since 2019, it draws the top directors of photography and the directors who work with them to compete for the Golden Frog, with the industry's camera and lens makers, ARRI, Panavision, Zeiss, in tow. For a film lover it is a rare chance to watch the year's most beautifully shot work in a UNESCO-listed Gothic city, sit in on masterclasses and seminars with master cinematographers, and feel a festival built around craft rather than red-carpet celebrity. The 34th edition runs 7 to 14 November 2026.