FIMFA Lx26
International Festival of Puppetry and Animated Forms
7 to 31 May 2026 - Lisbon
Poetic inventions in a world in turmoil. Visual universes that defy gravity. Giant puppets, dances with skeletons, great dramaturgy, new magic, new circus, time manipulation, over 500 mousetraps shape a city, a minigolf with mechanisms, objects that move us, and so much more...
Coming this May, the 26th edition of FIMFA, where the impossible becomes reality!
"Puppetry possesses a unique plasticity: it is bound neither by modesty nor by the fundamental laws of anatomy. It allows us to invent new ways of being and of desiring." - Johanny Bert
A Tarumba - Teatro de Marionetas produces in Lisbon, from 7 to 31 May, the 26th edition of FIMFA Lx - International Festival of Puppetry and Animated Forms, with artistic direction by Luís Vieira and Rute Ribeiro.
Opening up space, reinventing, or illuminating: these are some of the words that will guide the 26th edition of FIMFA Lx. Established as a national and international benchmark, the festival annually showcases the very best in contemporary puppetry, while honouring traditional techniques and their transmission. Each year, it transforms into a true performance platform for puppetry arts, featuring renowned artists alongside emerging creators with innovative projects, in addition to parallel activities.
The Festival enters its 26th edition and a new cycle! Against a backdrop of global instability, where international tensions heighten uncertainty and extremist discourse divides us, these creations act as beacons in the darkness. FIMFA aims to preserve its role as a dialogue between memory and the future, because here, puppetry knows no bounds.
FIMFA transcends and merges artistic boundaries, offering a moment of reflection and celebration through images, bodies, shadows, light, sound, poetic mechanisms, and all manner of objects or materials that come to life in multiple ways. In other words, puppetry as a mean of seeing and thinking the world with another gaze!
The festival spans twenty-five days with a programme designed for all ages, featuring indoor, street, and short forms performances that place Lisbon at the international center of puppetry and animated forms. More than twenty projects and around one hundred performances by renowned companies and creators, as well as emerging talents, mostly Portuguese premieres, from twelve countries: Belgium, Brazil, Czechia, Slovenia, Spain, the United States, Finland, France, Norway, Portugal, the United Kingdom, and Sweden. In addition to the presentation of shows, a number of parallel activities are developed, which include workshops, films and meetings with artists, among others.
FIMFA Lx is an artistic project, open to new tendencies, of international dimension presenting an artistic and technical high-level programme, with a very contemporary point of view. A multidisciplinary project committed since 2001 to the promotion, dissemination, knowledge and visibility of Puppetry and Animated Forms.
Welcome to FIMFA!
