PIFFF 2026: Poster, Passes and Paris Festival Dates Revealed

The Paris International Fantastic Film Festival is preparing to bring seven days of fantastic cinema to the Max Linder Panorama, from December 8 to 14, 2026. For its 15th edition, PIFFF has unveiled a new poster, announced festival passes and introduced its official 2026 T-shirt. The announcement sets the scene for an anniversary gathering whose film programme, the organisers say, will be revealed in the coming weeks.

Organised by Paris Ciné Fantastique, PIFFF embraces an international selection of features and shorts across horror, science fiction, fantasy and thrillers. The artwork establishes an atmosphere without promising a specific programming theme. For now, the confirmed news concerns the dates, venue, visual identity and ways to attend.

A black sun gives the PIFFF 2026 poster an ominous glow

The supplied poster places a vast black disc above an intensely violet landscape, surrounded by a luminous corona and turbulent clouds. Birds cross the sky while two silhouetted figures hold hands beside the water. Against that almost apocalyptic setting, the festival’s white logo and red eye remain sharply visible, with the December dates picked out in red. The artwork is credited on the poster to Xavier Colou.

Its most intriguing detail is the relationship between the immense celestial event and the small human figures below. Rather than presenting an identifiable monster, the image finds unease in scale, light and the possibility that an ordinary landscape is becoming unfamiliar. That is a reading of the artwork, rather than an announced festival theme, but it neatly evokes fantastic cinema’s capacity to turn recognisable surroundings into something unsettling.

The organisers’ accompanying announcement develops the same black-sun imagery, imagining a dark light falling across the cinema screen. The T-shirt announcement takes a more playful approach, joking about a garment free of split-pea splashes. Together, these details give the launch two complementary tones: cosmic menace in the poster and an irreverent wink in the merchandise presentation, without revealing any of the films still to come.

Festival passes include guaranteed access and a Premium option

Pass sales opened on Thursday, October 22, at 5 p.m. Paris time. According to the official ticket information, every festival pass guarantees admission to all screenings, including those marked sold out, and provides access through the dedicated pass queue. Opening and closing screenings are explicitly included. These benefits make the pass particularly relevant to visitors planning to follow the entire week.

The Premium allocation is limited to 25 passes. Its additional benefit is reserved access to the first row of the mezzanine, an especially concrete distinction for festivalgoers who care about their viewing position. This published allocation should not be confused with the number still available: remaining stock can change. Purchases and current availability should be checked through the official PIFFF pass page at https://www.pifff.fr/pass-fr.

The same page also advertises the 2026 T-shirt for preorder, while the organisers’ announcement says it will be available from the official festival shop in the Max Linder Panorama lobby. Prices, sizing and any collection conditions should be checked at purchase rather than inferred from the announcement.

From its 2011 launch to a lasting home at the Max Linder Panorama

PIFFF began in 2011, with its first four editions held at the Gaumont-Opéra before the fifth moved to the Grand Rex in 2015. The festival settled at the Max Linder Panorama in 2016, also moving into the December period now associated with the event. That trajectory gives the 2026 return an additional historical resonance: it comes ten years after the first edition held at its present venue.

The inaugural international jury included Lucile Hadzihalilovic, Roger Avary, Christophe Gans and Jaume Balagueró. One revealing detail survives in the official 2011 awards record: the jury’s feature-film Golden Eye went to Bellflower, directed by Evan Glodell, while the audience’s feature award went to Masks, directed by Andreas Marschall. From the beginning, the festival recorded distinct responses from filmmakers and spectators.

The audience subsequently became central to the international feature competition. Under the voting system described by PIFFF, spectators score competing films after screenings, and the highest average determines the Golden Eye winner. Audiences therefore participate in the outcome as well as discovering the selection.

Memorable guests and discoveries behind the anniversary

The first Max Linder Panorama edition in 2016 brought Dario Argento to present a restored version of Opera, while Richard Stanley presented Hardware. The same edition awarded its main feature prize to Raw, directed by Julia Ducournau. Those three titles offer a concise historical snapshot of PIFFF’s range, bringing established genre filmmaking, rediscovery and a striking new feature into the same festival.

There was also a development beyond the screenings: 2016 marked PIFFF’s first partnership with the Grand Prix Climax, dedicated to highlighting genre screenwriters and screenplays. The partnership connected the presentation of finished films with support for the writing from which future productions might emerge.

The forthcoming anniversary should nevertheless be approached on the basis of what has actually been announced. These filmmakers and titles belong to PIFFF’s history; they are not confirmed participants in the 2026 edition. The next major step is the programme reveal. Until then, the black-sun poster, pass offer and official T-shirt provide the first tangible elements of the December gathering.

PIFFF 2026 event recap

15th Paris International Fantastic Film Festival
Where : Paris, Max Linder Panorama, 24 boulevard Poissonnière
When : December 8–14, 2026.
What : Seven days devoted to fantastic cinema; the detailed film programme is to be announced.