Samizdat Eastern European Film Festival

Samizdat Eastern European Film Festival Scotland's first festival of cinema from Eastern Europe, Central Asia, and the Caucasus (12-16 Sep)

Our 2026 Programme is LIVE 💥This year we’re turning five, and we’ve got a whole lot of cinema planned to celebrate. From...
09/09/2026

Our 2026 Programme is LIVE 💥

This year we’re turning five, and we’ve got a whole lot of cinema planned to celebrate.

From cult classics to contemporary discoveries, animated oddities to intimate documentaries, our 2026 Glasgow programme is here and tickets are available now!

Expect Béla Tarr on 35mm, the return of our much-loved Animations of the Eastern Bloc, a spotlight on Contemporary Ukrainian Cinema, and our annual Shorts Competition featuring filmmakers from Poland to Kyrgyzstan.

We’re also marking five years of Samizdat with a special 5th Anniversary Shorts Collection, digging into cinema and memory with Re-membering the Archive, and getting romantic with this year’s genre strand: 💘 LOVE STORIES: Eastern European & Caucasian Romance.

Explore the programme and start snapping up those tickets. Find everything you need at the link in our bio.

👁️ Glasgow: 6th–11th October at GFT and The Pyramid at Anderston
👁️ Cromarty: 13th–16th October at Cromarty Cinema
👁️ Edinburgh: 22nd—25th October at Filmhouse
👁️ Dunfermline: 30th October at Peacock Cinema Dunfermline (Carnegie Hall)
👁️ Aberdeen: 7th November at The Belmont Cinema (Aberdeen Art Gallery)

The programme for Cromarty, Edinburgh, Dunfermline and Aberdeen will be announced soon, watch this space.

Thank you to Sasha Staicu for our beautiful poster as always.

Supported by Film Hub Scotland, part of the BFI’s Film Audience Network, and funded by Screen Scotland and National Lottery funding from the BFI.

Screen Scotland BFI Film Hub Scotland

07/09/2026

🎈 SAMIZDAT TURNS FIVE! 🎈

This year we celebrate five years of Samizdat Eastern European Film Festival, bringing an ever-eclectic mix of some of the most exciting, powerful, thoughtful, weird and wonderful filmmaking from Eastern Europe, Central Asia and the Caucasus to audiences across Scotland.

This year’s programme features:
💥 Our beloved Animations of the Eastern Bloc
🎞️ 35mm Béla Tarr screening
🇺🇦 Contemporary Ukrainian Cinema Strand
🏆 Competition Shorts from Poland to Kyrgyzstan
🎈A special 5th Anniversary Collection of Shorts
📽️ Documentary strand Re-membering the Archive
💘 + we return with our special genre strand. This year’s theme… Love Stories: Eastern European and Caucasian Romance.

We’ve also got some exclusive intros and Q&A’s with directors as well as special screenings curated with our friends Polish Film Club Borscht and Scottish Documentary Institute.

We’ll be kicking off birthday celebrations in Glasgow with screenings at GFT and the Pyramid then making our way through Scotland with gems from Eastern Europe, Central Asia, and the Caucasus:

👁️ Glasgow: 6th–11th October at GFT The Pyramid at Anderston
👁️ Cromarty: 13th–16th October at Cromarty Cinema
👁️ Edinburgh: 22nd—25th October at Filmhouse
👁️ Dunfermline: 30th October at Peacock Cinema (Carnegie Hall)
👁️ Aberdeen: 7th November The Belmont Cinema (Aberdeen Art Gallery)

Tickets will be available soon, watch this space.

Supported by Film Hub Scotland, part of the BFI’s Film Audience Network, and funded by Screen Scotland and National Lottery funding from the BFI.

Screen Scotland BFI Film Hub Scotland

17/04/2026

📢 Samizdat is turning 5 this autumn — and we want YOUR short films!

📍Named after the practice of clandestine dissemination of censored and forbidden texts in communist states, Samizdat is Scotland’s only film festival dedicated to the cinemas of Eastern Europe, Central Asia and the Caucasus.

❤️ We particularly welcome indigenous cinema, activist work, and submissions from Ukrainian filmmakers.

📽️ Films should be released after January 2023 and not previously screened in Scotland. For full rules and terms, visit our FilmFreeway (link in bio).

🎬 Submission deadlines:
Early Bird (£5) — 15th May, 2026
Main Deadline (£10) — 3rd July, 2026
Late Deadline (£15) — 23rd July, 2026

If the fees are prohibitive, please get in touch!

🍿 All selected films receive a £50 screening fee (or equivalent in local currency), with a £200 Audience Award for the 2026 winner.

👁️ Thank you to Sabina Bakaeva (), Michael Borodin () and Sasha Kulak (), and Natalia Boorsma (), whose previous submissions feature in the reel!

Address

The Pyramid At Anderston, 759 Argyle Street
Glasgow
G38DS

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