Dili Film Festival

Now you have DIFF in your pocket!
Use our DIFF app for all information on films (including links to trailers), venues, events and workshops - and create your very own DIFF22 schedule.


Dili International Film Festival (DIFF), is back in 2022 for its fourth edition.
Starting on 29th of September, 2022, DIFF will take place in Timor-Leste - Asia's youngest country's capital Dili to celebrate creativity, together with local filmmakers, communities and movie fanatics.


DIFF invites film makers from across the world and within Timor-Leste to share their visions. Festival Patron and newly elected President of the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste H.E. José Ramos-Horta is looking forward to films from different backgrounds to be shown in his beloved country.

DIFF will host mainly open-air screenings - this way, we can ensure to invite our viewers to come, watch and experience DIFF's hospitality - thanks to our amazing sponsors and partners. In 2022, we are keeping our fingers crossed to invite international guests again.


Our workshops, panel discussions and training sessions for local filmmakers will be catering to a selected audience of young and upcoming Timorese filmmakers, 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 Gonçalo Mereilles as secretary of the association.


The topic for 2022 is: "RESET!"