Preview of Forecast Festival 2026

July 8, 2026

Marking its 10th anniversary, the Forecast Festival returns to Berlin’s Radialsystem from July 16th to 19th under the theme ‘Where Ideas Find Their Future.’ Across four days, the interdisciplinary program brings together performances, music, screenings, visual art, design, stand-up comedy, workshops and talks, showcasing emerging ideas at the intersection of creative disciplines.

At the heart of the festival is Forecast’s international mentorship program, which pairs 18 nominees with six leading mentors to advance their project proposals through workshops, and showcase them through public presentations during the festival. The mentors for this year’s edition are writer and comedian Vidura Bandara Rajapaksa; performance maker Tom Cassani; artist and filmmaker Keren Cytter; sci-fi artist and body architect Lucy McRae; multimedia artist Almagul Menlibayeva; and composer and sound artist Heinali. Following the festival, each mentor will select one mentee to further assist them in the realization of their project.

Lucy McRae: ‘Delicate Spells of Mind,’ 2022 // Copyright Lucy McRae, photo by May Xiong

On July 16th, the festival kicks off with Lucy McRae’s presentation of her methods of pioneering new aesthetics, stories and ways of being together in the world. The session also features showcases and installations by Lena Becerra, Amy Chiao and Jiaqing Mo. On the same evening, Tom Cassani delivers an interactive psychic reading, exposing the mechanics of illusion and deception, alongside performances by Emilie Largier, Hsiang-Sheng Teng and Chris Yarnell.

Almagul Menlibayeva: ‘Mother Water Gulbibi Balkhash,’ 2024, video still // Courtesy of the artist

Friday features Almagul Menlibayeva’s multimedia installation ‘Water Older Than Sun’—recently exhibited at the 61st Venice Biennale and now part of the Forecast Festival—alongside showcases and installations by Camila Flores-Fernández, Poyuan Juan and Ana Mikadze. In the second part of the evening, Heinali and Andriana-Yaroslava Saienko present ‘Гільдеґарда (Hildegard),’ a unique reimagining of Hildegard von Bingen’s music that combines influences from Ukrainian folk singing with high medieval polyphony and monophony. The session concludes with music and sound performances by Pablo V Cazares, Mariana Carrilho and Anna Ivchenko.

On Saturday, Keren Cytter presents her film trilogy ‘Meltdown,’ followed by screenings and installations by Helen Anna Flanagan, Nadir Sönmez and Mahesh Subramaniam. In the festival’s final mentor presentation, Vidura Bandara Rajapaksa shares a new work in progress, joined by stand-up comedy performances from Brandon Aguirre and Siming Lu Xabiso Vili.

Heinali performs ‘Organa’ at St. Sofia in Kyiv, 2021 // Photo by Alina Garmash and Vitaliy Mariash

The last day of the festival is dedicated to a diverse program of workshops—from intergenerational storytelling for children to building audiovisual instruments and exploring screaming as a collective cathartic force. The workshops, as well as exploratory walks scheduled throughout the festival, are led by fellows of the LINA network and alumni of the Forecast Mentorship program.