The world’s only film festival dedicated to mushrooms and molds – The Fungi Film Fest (FFF) – has announced the premiere dates and 20-film program for its 2024 incarnation. This year the FFF will feature works representing 17 countries, including Argentina, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, Poland, India, Netherlands, Spain, United Kingdom, and USA. With a total run time of over 2.5 hours, this niche festival’s fifth year offers another visually stunning example of why mycology (the science of mushrooms, molds, yeast, and lichens) has rapidly increased its popularity in recent years.
The 2024 FFF covers a range of genres, with film lengths of 2 to 30 minutes. Experimental, comedy, abstract, documentary, and animated films are all there. Some pieces are visually striking odes to these strange underground organisms, as seen in the 11 minutes of felted stop motion in Amanita (Alexa Angeles and Carolina Revilla, Mexico), the unsettling alternate realities of Batrachia (Lorenzo Silano, Italy), the hilarious caricatures of Mushlings (Magdalena Berezowska, Poland), or in the narrative twists in the AI-fueled mockumentary How to Film a Mushroom (Lucas Gortemaker, Netherlands). More conventionally, the Fest’s documentaries cover topics like fungal conservation (Flora, Fauna, Funga by Sam Sheline) and the documentation of traditional knowledge around fungi in India (The Mushroom Keepers by Naveed Mulki).
The 2024 FFF kicks off with live screenings at the historic Cinema 21 theater in Portland, Oregon (616 NW 21st Ave). The premiere showing is on Thursday, December 12 at 7pm PST, during which the Fest’s award winners will be announced. A second live showing will take place at Cinema 21 on Sunday, December 15 at 3:30pm.
After the Fest’s launch, the whole program will be viewable on demand via Vimeo from December 13, 2024 until January 13, 2025.
Tickets for the FFF’s in-person showings are available at cinema21.com/movie/2024-fungi-film-fest.
About the Fungi Film Fest:
The Fungi Film Fest is the world’s only film festival dedicated to the beauty, otherworldliness, and human influences of mushrooms, lichens, and micro fungi. Films are submitted by people around the world, with the only requirement for entry being that the film features fungi in some way. Each year brings a different mix of films.