Kathmandu International Mountain Film Festival (KIMFF) returns with its 22nd edition, showcasing diverse stories under the festival tagline ‘Fractured Voices, Reclaiming Narratives’. From May 28 to June 2, the festival will simultaneously screen over 65 films from 30 countries at QFX Chhaya Centre, Astrek Park, and GAA Hall in Thamel.

The event will open with the Nepal Premiere of ‘Between The Mountain and The Sky’, a film by Jeremy Power Regimbal that follows CNN hero Maggie Doyne as she cares for Nepali orphans in the face of personal challenges.

Also marking the 70 years of Nepal-China friendship, KIMFF has a special section of Xizang Panorama that will screen films from the Tibet region of China that reflect similarities between the two countries despite differences in language and culture.

The festival’s competition jury includes film and television directors Nabin Subba (Nepal), Martin Hasenöhrl (Austria), Yingqi Chen (China), journalism and communications professor Xun Zhan (China), and film programmer Jinna Lee (Korea).

The jury will decide the Best Film in the international categories of feature fiction (4 shortlists), feature documentary (14 shortlists), short fiction (11 shortlists), and short documentary (13 shortlists). As for the Nepal Panorama section, the jury will decide on the best documentary (6 shortlists) and the best fiction (11 shortlists).

KIMFF is hosting its inaugural Kathmandu Doc Lab, the first of its kind this year. Dedicated to fostering local talents from the South Asian region, this lab will take place from May 24 to 28. The selected nine South Asian projects will be mentored by Pakistani-Canadian filmmaker Anam Abbas, Bhutanese filmmaker Arun Bhattarai, and Indian filmmaker Rintu Thomas.

Four exhibitions will be held as satellite events at Kala Salon, Chhaya Centre in Thamel, as part of the four-day festival. These include a VR Installation of ‘Maya: The Birth of a Superhero’, the ‘Top 12 Kimff 2025 poster designs’, the ‘Breaking Code Red—Dignity without Danger Display’, and ‘Kangchenjunga—The Five Pillars and the Five Treasures’.

Tickets are Rs150 for the general public and Rs100 for students.