With its second edition, ADFF: STIR Mumbai expanded the programme into a broader cultural experience beyond cinema
Launched in 2009 by New York-based architect and film enthusiast Kyle Bergman, ADFF held its first official edition in Waitsfield, Vermont, and has since become the world’s largest film festival dedicated to architecture and design that celebrates the intersection of architecture, design and artistic storytelling. The event bridges cinema and other creative worlds, highlighting the intrinsic role of storytelling and worldbuilding in both. The spirit of the festival—vibrant, participatory and cross-disciplinary—remains unchanged, with this edition expanding in scale, ambition and impact. Four dynamic pillars—the Films, ~log(ue) Programme, the Pavilion Park and Special Projects—guide the international event, fostering a space for meaningful engagement amongst the wider creative community and enthusiasts alike.
As the festival’s co-organizers, STIR—an award-winning global media house and curatorial agency—hopes to expand on its pivotal role of cultural dissemination by fostering collaborations within the creative industries in South Asia and beyond. ADFF:STIR Mumbai edition ii invited several notable names to build on the spirit of exchange and a multivalent roster of programming, bigger and more diverse in scale, offering something for everyone in the audience. Expanding on the vision of the event as a fertile ground for interdisciplinary contamination, Aric Chen, director of the Zaha Hadid Foundation, curated the Pavilion Park, presented by Jaquar, under the theme Mumbai Transcripts. It encouraged participation and engagement from creatives from the region and beyond. This year’s ~log(ue) Programme, supported by JSW and the patronage of Mrs Sangita Jindal and Tarini Jindal Handa, staged creative encounters between the public and influential creatives. Vitally, interventions that aim to engage audiences in innovative formats add to the dynamic nature of the festival.
Bigger and more diverse in scale in its sophomore year, STIR presented LIVinSET, an immersive product gallery envisioned as a film set where varied aspects of life unfold performatively; culinary experiences that bridge the art of gastronomy with design to foster a sense of community and culture; and a dedicated POP-UP inspired by the museum shops for visitors to take a tangible form of the festival back with them, featuring books, merchandise and more.
Gaggenau hosted an exclusive culinary experience one evening, parallel to a multifaceted programme unfolding across the three days of the festival at LIVinSET.
“ADFF:STIR 2025 marked the beginning of something truly special for the country’s creative ecosystem, and for 2026, we’re poised to go bigger, bolder and more experimental. The first edition revealed gaps in how our communities perceive and connect across creative disciplines, and it began to bridge them—building a plural platform where film, architecture, design, the arts, their makers and their audiences could meet, much like what we strive for at STIR. The 2026 edition carries this ambition forward, more global and more intersectional, engaging with Mumbai through a lens that is both critical and deeply personal, celebrating the city’s frolic and its faultlines through the language of cinema.” – Amit Gupta, festival director; founder & editor-in-chief, STIR.