Ethno ☰ hauntology vol. 1 Athens 2026

Ethno☰hauntology vol. 1 arrives in Athens as a hybrid festival of cinema, visual art and live practice, exploring how ghosts of the past continue to shape the present. Rooted in a manifesto first published in Fantasma Material in December 2024, the project proposes a methodology that uses film and artistic practice as tools for rethinking time, space and social reality. Its first Athenian edition unfolds as a living laboratory, where this approach is tested through screenings, exhibitions and participatory events.

From 22 to 28 January, the cinema NEWMAN hosts a week of screenings featuring thirty one films from Latin America. Poetic documentaries, experimental works, genre cinema and hybrid films reflect on colonial legacies, migration, political unrest and popular narratives that still haunt contemporary societies. Most screenings are Greek premieres and are followed by online discussions with filmmakers or researchers, extending the experience beyond the screen.

Running in parallel, from 21 to 27 January, a large scale art exhibition takes over the Municipal Market of Kypseli, centred on the immersive installation Pabellón de Melancólicos. Drawing connections between Greece and Latin America, the exhibition creates a space where inherited memories, mourning processes and imagined futures coexist, inviting visitors to navigate a landscape where linear time dissolves and collective identities are reexamined.

Alongside the screenings and exhibition, Ethno☰hauntology vol. 1 expands through talks, workshops, performances and sound based presentations, shaping the festival into an open meeting ground for artists, researchers and audiences. The full programme will be announced soon.