The European Film Festival is coming back to Islamabad this month, marking its fifth edition in Pakistan since the event first launched in 2021. This time, organisers are widening the map beyond the usual big cities, and Islamabad audiences will once again be first in line to catch the latest lineup of features and shorts from across the European Union.
Summary
The European Film Festival Islamabad leg opens this month at the Pakistan National Council of the Arts, the venue that has hosted every edition of the festival so far. Entry is free, as it has been in previous years, and the programme mixes feature films, short films, and side events such as panel talks and filmmaker mixers. Organisers say this year’s edition is also stepping outside the capital-and-metro circuit that defined earlier runs.
Background
The European Film Festival first arrived in Pakistan in December 2021, when the EU Delegation held a single screening at the PNCA in Islamabad before moving on to Faisalabad, Peshawar, Karachi, and Lahore. It has grown every year since. The second edition in 2023 reached five cities, including Multan and Gilgit. The third, in 2024, added Gujrat to the rotation. By its fourth edition in November 2025, the festival had settled into a three-city format covering Islamabad, Karachi, and Lahore, with 19 feature films and 10 shorts drawn from EU member states.
This year’s fifth edition follows that same growth pattern. Dawn’s Images magazine reported that the festival is expanding its footprint again, this time bringing screenings to cities that have not hosted the EUFF before, alongside its usual Islamabad leg. The festival is organised by the Delegation of the European Union to Pakistan and curated by Olomopolo Media, the same production house that has run the event since its earlier editions.
Details
Islamabad has been the traditional opening city for the European Film Festival in almost every edition, and that pattern looks set to continue this year. The PNCA has served as the main venue each time, offering a large auditorium for feature screenings alongside smaller spaces for shorts, installations, and reading corners for younger visitors.
Past Islamabad legs have followed a familiar rhythm: two days of back-to-back screenings, a handful of full-length features from different EU countries, a set of short films addressing themes like climate change, gender, and family, and at least one children’s film to draw in younger audiences. A social dance or dramatic reading typically closes out each day, and a Filmmakers Mixer gives local directors, actors, and producers a chance to meet EU cultural officers and visiting delegates.
Registration has not been required in past editions, and tickets remain free for all screenings. Audiences have included students, diplomats, working filmmakers, and families, based on turnout reported at the fourth edition in November 2025, which organisers described as drawing thousands of visitors over two days.
Quotes
EU officials have consistently framed the festival as a cultural bridge rather than a simple film screening. At the 2024 edition, then-Ambassador Dr Riina Kionka said the EU backs filmmaking as more than an art form, calling it a tool to bring people together around shared social issues. That framing has carried into subsequent editions under the EU Delegation to Pakistan, which continues to describe the festival as a way to build dialogue through storytelling rather than diplomacy alone.
The current EU Ambassador to Pakistan, Raimundas Karoblis, took up his post in September 2025, replacing Kionka after her multi-year tenure. His office has continued the Delegation’s cultural programming, including the EUFF, as part of its broader engagement strategy with Pakistani audiences and institutions.
Impact
For Islamabad’s film-going public, the festival fills a gap that local cinemas rarely cover: arthouse and festival-circuit European films that don’t usually get a commercial release in Pakistan. Titles screened in past editions have touched on mountaineering, immigration, disability, and war, subjects that sit outside the mainstream multiplex lineup.
The festival also gives Pakistani filmmakers, students, and industry professionals direct access to EU cultural attachés and visiting European film professionals, something that matters for a local industry still building international ties. It’s a small piece of a much bigger EU-Pakistan relationship, one that’s mostly built around trade preferences like GSP+ status, but cultural events like this are among the few parts of that relationship most people actually get to see or attend.
Conclusion
If this year’s pattern holds, Islamabad will once again open the festival before it travels on to other cities. What’s different this year is the reported push into new towns that haven’t hosted a EUFF screening before, a sign that organisers are looking to grow the festival’s reach beyond Pakistan’s traditional cultural centres. Full schedules and film lineups are typically confirmed and released through the EU Delegation to Pakistan’s official channels shortly before the Islamabad leg opens, so film-goers are best served checking those platforms directly for exact dates and screening times.
FAQs
What are the top 3 European film festivals?
Cannes Film Festival in France, the Venice International Film Festival in Italy, and the Berlin International Film Festival (known as the Berlinale) in Germany are widely regarded as Europe’s three most prestigious film events, often grouped together as part of the unofficial “Big Three” of world cinema. Cannes is best known for its competitive Palme d’Or and red-carpet glamour, Venice holds the title of the oldest film festival in the world, having started in 1932, and the Berlinale is known for its politically engaged programming and its Golden Bear award. All three attract major studio premieres as well as independent and arthouse cinema, and winning at any of them can significantly boost a film’s international distribution prospects. It’s worth noting that Pakistan’s own European Film Festival is a separate, smaller-scale cultural outreach event organised by the EU Delegation rather than a competitive festival in this same category.
What festivals are celebrated in Pakistan in 2026 ?
Pakistan’s 2026 cultural calendar includes a mix of film, arts, and heritage events spread across the year. Alongside the European Film Festival’s fifth edition, the country has hosted the Women International Film Festival’s 10th anniversary edition in Islamabad in February, the inaugural Karachi Film Festival in late January, and various editions of the Lahore Biennale and Gandhara Independent Film Festival. Regional and religious festivals such as Basant-adjacent spring events, Eid celebrations, and provincial cultural melas also continue to draw large audiences throughout the year. Film festivals in particular have grown noticeably in number over the past few years, as both local organisers and foreign cultural missions put more effort into building up Pakistan’s independent film scene.
Who is the current EU ambassador to Pakistan?
Raimundas Karoblis is the current Ambassador of the European Union to Pakistan. He presented his credentials in September 2025, replacing outgoing envoy Dr Riina Kionka, who had served in the role for several years. Karoblis previously served as the EU’s Ambassador to Tajikistan between 2022 and 2025 and held senior diplomatic posts in Lithuania’s foreign service, including Deputy Minister for EU affairs and Lithuania’s Permanent Representative to the European Union. He holds a law degree from Vilnius University and speaks Lithuanian, English, French, and Russian. Since taking up his post in Islamabad, he has continued the Delegation’s cultural diplomacy work, including its support for the European Film Festival in Pakistan.
