October 7, 2026
The Architecture & Design Film Festival Enters a New Chapter
For 18 years, the Architecture & Design Film Festival (ADFF) has used films to look beyond buildings and into the people, ideas, conflicts, and aspirations that shape the built environment. What began in New York has grown into an expanding international platform, from Vancouver to Mumbai, bringing architecture and design into conversation with questions of climate, politics, history, gender, landscape, and everyday life.
The 2026–27 season continues that evolution with a program that moves across remarkably diverse territories: Barbara Buser’s radical approach to saving buildings from demolition through reuse; bauhaus forever., a cinematic meditation on the afterlife of the Bauhaus and the pressures placed on its legacy; COPAN, which turns Oscar Niemeyer’s São Paulo landmark into a microcosm of Brazilian society and politics; Googie, which revisits the exuberant architecture of postwar America; and Out of the Picture, which examines the systematic erasure of women from architectural history, a necessary film for everyone to watch. The festival also looks toward the future through The World Around’s A Garden in the Desert and How to Plant a Lake, following young climate leaders developing solutions rooted in local knowledge, ecology, and collective action.
ADFF opens this year at The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) with the world premiere of MUNDO FRÁGIL, Ila Bêka and Louise Lemoine’s portrait of 2026 Pritzker Prize winner Smiljan Radić, before continuing at Village East by Angelika. Alongside its new collaboration with MoMA, the festival is deepening relationships with The World Around and METROPOLIS, among many more public and private organizations, expanding its reach while creating new connections between film, architecture, design, and the wider cultural conversation.
METROPOLIS spoke with ADFF founder Kyle Bergman about the festival’s evolution, its growing network of collaborations, and why film remains such a powerful way to understand not only the spaces we design, but the societies we build within them.
ADFF is entering its 18th year and has expanded into many cities. What are you expecting from ADFF 2026 New York, and what feels fundamentally different about the festival compared with a few years ago?
Kyle Bergman: This season, we will launch ADFF at MoMA with the world premiere of MUNDO FRÁGIL, about this year’s Pritzker Prize winner, Smiljan Radić. We have collaborated with many of MoMA curators over the years, including Paola Antonelli, Sean Anderson, Juliet Kinchin, and Martino Stierli. We presented a screening of Mau, first-ever feature-length documentary about the design visionary Bruce Mau, in the museum’s Titus Theater 2 in 2022. This will be our first Opening Night in the larger Titus Theater 1, which is very exciting, and also important to mention that ADFF:NY this season is presented by Eventscape.
What feels different is the growing opportunity to bring ADFF programming to new places and audiences throughout the year. The pandemic pushed us online, but over the last few years we’ve been expanding. We are adding Detroit this season and exploring three other cities for spring 2027 that we can’t announce yet, but stay tuned. Each new location brings us closer to our goal of making the world a better-designed place, all while entertaining and engaging. Last season, more than 25,000 people attended ADFF screenings, talks, and parties across all cities. This year we expect even more.
In the 2026/27 season, we are presenting a slightly smaller selection of films. This year we had just as many submissions, but we set a high bar for the festival. We are very proud of the 12 film programs we are showcasing and the conversations they will inspire.
What does it mean for ADFF to collaborate this year with institutions and platforms such as MoMA, The World Around, and METROPOLIS?
KB: Collaboration is part of ADFF’s DNA. These relationships bring different perspectives to the festival and create opportunities to connect films with larger conversations about design and how we live.
Working with MoMA is especially meaningful because of its history and influence on architecture, design, and culture. The World Around brings Beatrice Galilee’s curatorial vision and a compelling view of the ideas shaping design today. The World Around has an amazing program called The Young Climate Prize. This year, we will present three short films about last year’s Young Climate Prize winners, followed by a conversation moderated by Beatrice. It is an opportunity to hear from young people who are turning their concern for the planet into action.
We began working with METROPOLIS in 2016 and have enjoyed a strong relationship ever since. This year, we are showing a short film produced by METROPOLIS from their Natural Habitat series about nARCHITECTS alongside the feature Máximapark. The longstanding commitment to sustainability shared by METROPOLIS, The World Around and our other partners such as Eventscape, Zahner, TURF, Fisher & Paykel, GROHE and many more, connects closely with the questions we want ADFF to explore: how we design, how we use resources, and how we live together on this planet.
What is something particularly special about presenting the film in New York in comparison to other cities?
KB: New York is home for me and for ADFF, so launching each season here has a special energy. It is exciting to bring the films to the community where the festival has grown and to see familiar faces alongside people discovering ADFF for the first time.
At the same time, every city has its own character. I still travel to all of our festivals, which lets me see how different audiences respond to the films and engage with one another. A conversation can take a different direction from one city to the next, and that is part of what makes this festival so unique every time we present films.
Seeing these design communities gather each year gives me hope and enthusiasm for the power of design. New York starts that conversation each season, and the other cities keep expanding it; the party never stops.
To explore the full scope of this year’s festival, visit: adffny26.eventive.org/welcome
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