Cinéstesia’s screening programme is expanding with archival screenings presented in collaboration with Kino Regina’s summer programme. Be sure to save the date for the Cinéstesia – International Seminar on Film and Visual Art on 25–26 August, taking place at EMMA and Cinema Orion. We have also unveiled Cinéstesia’s visual identity, designed by Espoo Ciné’s graphic designer Susan Seppälä. More programme announcements will follow later this summer! The Cinéstesia screenings and seminar are part of the 37th Espoo Ciné International Film Festival, taking place from 21 to 30 August 2026.
Cinéstesia Archival Screenings at Kino Regina
The archival screenings presented at Kino Regina during Espoo Ciné have been curated by Cinéstesia’s guest curator, Erika Balsom. On 26 August, Kino Regina will screen rarely seen films by Jean Matthee, who was active in the London Film-makers’ Co-operative during the 1980s. Drawing on the female iconography of classical Hollywood cinema—from Marilyn Monroe to the melodramatic heroines of Douglas Sirk—these works transform familiar images into new feminist spectacles. The screening on 28 August features two key works from Isaac Julien’s early career, Territories (1984) and Looking for Langston (1989), both produced within the Sankofa Film and Video Collective. The third screening, taking place on 29 August, pays tribute to the history of experimental film festivals and to the Belgian EXPRMNTL festival, whose 1967 edition achieved near-legendary status.
Please note that tickets for Cinéstesia’s screenings at Kino Regina must be purchased directly through Kino Regina’s ticket sales The rest of the Espoo Ciné programme will be announced on 30 July, and individual ticket sales will begin on 4 August.
Cinéstesia – International Seminar on Film and Visual Art
The programme also includes the Cinéstesia Seminar, taking place on 25–26 August and bringing together professionals from the fields of film and visual art. The first day of the seminar, Tuesday 25 August, will be held at Espoo Museum for Modern Art EMMA, while the second day, 26 August, will take place at Cinema Orion.
The programme will feature artist talks by Cinéstesia’s main guests, Ben Rivers and Nour Ouayda, as well as a keynote lecture by visiting curator Erika Balsom (King’s College London). The seminar will also include panel discussions on a wide range of topics such as the role of the moving image in the contemporary art world, the distribution of artists’ films, and the resurgence of analogue film laboratories.
The full seminar programme and schedule will be announced at the end of July.
We have opened professional accreditation for Espoo Ciné, which also grants access to the seminar, as well as to Espoo Ciné’s other film screenings and accompanying events, including Cinéstesia screenings. The only exception is screenings at Kino Regina, for which tickets can be purchased through Kino Regina’s ticket shop. Apply for accreditation here >>>
Visual identity
Cinéstesia's visual identity was born from the same impulse that shapes the initiative as a whole, a commitment to the visual artists and filmmakers who construct, assemble, and think through moving images.
While Cinéstesia handwritten logotype unpredictability evocates a form always in the process of finding itself, it moves freely across the composition: warm, alive, and unmistakably human. And the rest of the composition channels the energy of light through a projector onto a screen, a reaction emerging as acid yellow, punctuating the design through vivid figures and backgrounds. And the typography, generous and unhurried, breathes at the same pace as the creative processes it reflects.
I was aiming for the visual identity to feel like a conversation between analogue labs and image-editing processes, the pioneers of all the handwritten love letters and early digital codes. What interested me most was leaving room for human error, finding something new in the good old, analogue finger prints against super polished digital imagery. Chemical reactions, physical accidents, and brutalist scribbled daydreams shaped the core of the project. And the white spaces reclaim their value as a meaningful void, inviting the viewer into acts of reimagining.
Susse Seppälä – Graphic Designer
Our Partners
Cinéstesia’s main partner is the Saastamoinen Foundation. Other confirmed partners include EMMA – Espoo Museum of Modern Art, the Finnish Film Foundation, AV-arkki – Centre for Finnish Media Art, the Arts Promotion Centre Finland, the Nordic Culture Point, Svenska Kulturfonden, the Finnish Benelux Institute, the Academy of Fine Arts at the University of the Arts Helsinki, Frame Contemporary Art Finland, Cinema Orion, and Forum Box.
The Cinéstesia steering group consists of Hanna Maria Anttila, Mika Taanila, and Milja Viita.
Cinéstesia is produced by producer Diego Ginartes Rodríguez and Tytti Rantanen, Executive Director of Espoo Ciné.