Dili International Film Festival

Dili International Film Festival (DIFF), is back in 2021 for its third edition. Over three long weekends in October 2021, DIFF will take place in Timor-Leste's capital Dili to celebrate creativity, together with local filmmakers, communities and movie fanatics in Timor-Leste. DIFF invites film makers from across the world and within Timor-Leste to share their visions. Festival Patron José Ramos-Horta is looking forward to films from different backgrounds to be shown in his beloved country. As in 2020, DIFF will host mainly open-air screenings, at our popular Beachside Cinema for the international films and with mobile screening unit “Cinema Lorosa’e” for local communities at different locations in Dili and the surrounding areas, screening films adapted to Tetun. Our workshops, panel discussions and training sessions for local filmmakers and will be catering to a selected audience, partly using interactive online tools. DIFF is a Timorese registered association, with a board of local and international film and cultural folks who turned their shared passion for cinema and storytelling and their love for the country of Timor-Leste to running an annual film festival focussing the spotlight on Dili. The Festival is founded by Michael Smith, entrepreneur, adventurer, founder of Screens Without Borders and Timor-Leste’s Cinema Loro sa’e, together with Festival Director Lena Lenzen of award-winning Dili based Pixelasia Productions. The board includes a broad range of skills, with Lena Lenzen as Festival Director, Michael Smith as President and Chair, renowned musician Melly Fernandes, lead of the band Galaxy as Cultural Officer, LGBTI activist Natalino Guterres as Inclusivity Adviser, international TV journalists Ann Turner and Wayne Lovell as judges, Angelo Alves as cinema officer and Goncalo Mereilles as secretary of the association.