The Architecture & Design Film Festival (ADFF) returns to Toronto this fall with an exciting new lineup of films panel conversations and design-forward experiences at the TIFF Lightbox from November 12-15 2025. Presented by Eventscape this year’s program features 14 international films that explore how design shapes our cities our values and our future.
“Each year we seek out films that entertain educate and spark community” says ADFF Founder and Director Kyle Bergman AIA. “This year’s selections are packed with stories of people using design as a force for good—whether that means confronting environmental extremes rethinking city streets or celebrating unsung creative pioneers.”
Opening Night
ADFF: Toronto 2025 opens with the Canadian premiere of Identity: A Czech Graphic Design Love Story—a playful and poignant exploration of national identity told through the lens of graphic design. The screening will be followed by a Q&A with the film’s narrator Nicholas D. Lowry President and Principal Auctioneer of Swann Auction Galleries and beloved Antiques Roadshow appraiser.
Film Highlights
In addition to the opening night feature this year’s selection offers a compelling mix of stories that span continents and design disciplines:
- Miralles (Spain) – A lyrical non-linear exploration of Enric Miralles the Catalan master architect gone too soon.
- Kensington Market: Heart of the City (Canada) – Through the eyes of the neighborhood’s vibrant personalities the film reveals a community fighting not just for affordability but for the soul of the place they have helped define.
- Changing Lanes (USA) – After a hit-and-run death in Brooklyn a grassroots campaign fights to convert a deadly road into a safer one with protected bike lanes.
- Building on the Edge (USA) – Architecture students design and deliver buildings for Antarctica confronting extreme environments with idealism and grit.
- Prickly Mountain and My Design Build Life (USA) – A joyful homage to Vermont’s experimental design-build community told from within.
- The Space Architect (USA) – A moving tribute to NASA architect Constance Adams whose life’s work bridged planetary design and climate hope.
- Tracing Light (Germany) – A poetic meditation on light as both a scientific mystery and the essence of architecture.
- At the Garden’s Pace (Netherlands) – A slow-build documentary set in a conifer garden where bold architecture grows gently into its landscape.
- Living in a Piece of Furniture (Netherlands) – An intimate look at Gerrit Rietveld’s radical homes and the influence of his lesser-known muse and creative partner Truus Schröder.
- Lewerentz Divine Darkness (Sweden) – A poetic excavation of Sigurd Lewerentz’s haunting Scandinavian architecture.
- We The Others (Italy/Brazil) – A portrait of Estudio Campana whose design work fuses craft sustainability and the vibrancy of Brazilian culture.
- Søren Pihlmann: Make Materials Matter (Denmark) follows Danish architect Søren Pihlmann as he reimagines architecture through material reuse offering a poetic practical response to the global construction industry’s waste and carbon footprint.
For more information about the films click here. To purchase tickets visit https://adfilmfest.com/adff-toronto/
Special Screening Event
- The Big Brutal Quiz will be a screening and interactive event to deepen the dialogue around design and its social impact. Hosted by Dutch filmmaker and architect Jord den Hollander this playful fast-paced trivia night will explore Brutalism’s outsized influence on cinema and pop culture.
Panel Conversations & Guests
Several films will be followed by panel discussions co-presented with the Toronto Society of Architects featuring filmmakers architects designers urbanists and critics in conversation about the ideas and issues raised onscreen.
ADFF 2025/26 Season
The Architecture & Design Film Festival: Toronto is part of an international circuit of screenings. Please join us!
ADFF: NYC – October 14-18 2025
ADFF: LA – October 22-27 2025
ADFF: Vancouver – November 5-9 2025
ADFF: Mumbai – January 8-11 2026
ADFF: Humanity in Architecture at Grace Farms – January 30-31 2026
ADFF: Chicago – February 18-21 2026
Event Venue & Nearby Stays
TIFF Lightbox, 350 King St W, Toronto, ON M5V 3X5, Canada
