The 13th European Psychoanalytic Film Festival

Bringing together contemporary European filmmakers exploring passion in its myriad forms: in the passionate suffering of mourning, in the passion for truth or in impossible love. It is the intensity and urgency of feeling that unites them all.

Dates: Friday 13th to Sunday 15th November 2026. The weekend will run from 1pm GMT on Friday 13th November with an optional drinks reception on the Friday evening to honour Andrea Sabbadini, a full day Saturday, and until 3pm GMT Sunday.

Location: Royal Society of Medicine, 1 Wimpole Street, London, W1G 0AE

Organiser: Institute of Psychoanalysis – IOPA / British Psychoanalytical Society (incorporating the Institute of Psychoanalysis)

The theme of the festival is PASSION.

Passion disturbs. Complex and compelling, it disrupts reason, unsettles order, and defies containment.

The word ‘passion’ is derived from the Latin root patior, meaning ‘to suffer’ or ‘to undergo.’ Sharing its origin with ‘patient’ and ‘passive,’ it is experienced as an overwhelming force imposed upon us and, seeming to be beyond our control, it is akin to madness. Passion is not defined by its object: its essence is excess.

Like Hope (EPFF11) and Journey (EPFF12), Passion is not a psychoanalytic concept, yet it runs like a red thread through the work of Freud from the seething cauldron of the unconscious to the life and death drives.

In the films we have chosen for the festival, contemporary European filmmakers explore passion in its myriad forms: in the passionate suffering of mourning, in the passion for truth or in impossible love. It is the intensity and urgency of feeling that unites them all.

It was the twin passions for film and psychoanalysis of Andrea Sabbadini (1950-2025) that inspired him to create this biennial event and we celebrate his life and work in the opening afternoon of this, the 13th festival.

Katalin Lanczi & Anne Patterson, Co Directors EPFF13

View the full programme here