Imagine 2026: Heads-Ups And Recommendations

The main theme this year is Ghost in the Feed, a look at how, through the ages, we have feared our minds being damaged by new media. From being brainwashed by television, to sharing of videotapes, to the current social media and the slanting of your choices through algorithms, filmmakers through the ages have played with those fears and have warned us of the possibilities. Sections in the program will be showing films new and old, from Videodrome to We’re All Going to the World’s Fair. And yes, the 4K remaster of Mamoru Oshii's 1995 classic cyberpunk anime Ghost in the Shell of course...

Opening the festival this year is Polish director Agnieszka Smoczynska's science fiction thriller Hot Spot, about a detective with an augmented brain who is assigned to solve a murder in a refugee camp. The plot thickens when he encounters a 'çyber witch', someone who manages to alter his perceptions and who is part of a dangerous rebellion. Andrzej Konopka and Noomi Rapace have the leads, and coming from the writer and director of The Lure I expect a lot of good from this.

Our Olga Artemyeva had mixed feelings, but opening films at this festival sometimes tend to turn out to be the winner of the audience award, so let's see...

Another theme this year is Magical Realism in Latin American Cinema. Filmmakers from the region have been preserving myths and culture through fantastic elements in films, and using the narrative freedom to explore emotions and moral questions. Highlights include new 4K screenings of Guillermo Del Toro's Pan's Labyrinth, and the Mexican Embassy presents a new 4K restoration of the first Mexican film to be nominated for the foreign language Oscar, Roberto Gavaldón's Macario from 1960 (shown here).

Guest of honor this year is Kurosawa Kiyoshi, who will be receiving a Career Achievement Award. Several of his films will be shown with aftertalks, as well as his personal favorite The Boston Strangler (the 1968 one by Richard Fleischer).

Want to see Cure, Pulse (Kairo), Creepy or The Samurai and the Prisoner with a Q&A afterwards with the man himself? Amsterdam has you covered! And on Friday the 30th there is a long career talk with him, which I will be attending.

In 2026 it is 100 years ago that legendary filmmaker Roger Corman was born, and to celebrate that, the festival will play several of his films. But what's more special is that on Sunday the 1st of November, his wife and fellow producer Julie Corman will be giving a career talk, speaking about her work as a model, a producer, and the influence she and her husband had on the industry.

It's been twelve years, but finally there is another edition of De Nacht van de Wansmaak, meaning The Night of Bad Taste. Jan Doense and Jan Verheyen will be on stage as Mr. Horror and Max Rockatansky, presenting clips and trailers which are shocking, hilarious, or jawdropping. The only rule is: these are all from films which were actually shown in Dutch cinemas, which is often hard to believe if you see the stunning lack of quality. It's the best night out you can Imagine (see what I did there?) if you don't mind lots of laughter with a big dollop of "WTF?". And look at that poster by Dutch artist Erik Kriek. Isn't it gorgeous?