The INSTAR Film Festival is an annual event organized by the Hannah Arendt Institute of Artivism (INSTAR). It is a film showcase that supports international independent production, especially from countries where freedom of expression and creation are threatened. The festival favors audiovisuals with risky aesthetic and thematic proposals, as well as hybrid pieces that explore new paths in filmmaking. It is a safe space for dialogue and exchange for filmmakers who produce their work in authoritarian contexts, or who have been forced to live and work in the diaspora. Since its origins, the event has paid special attention to the independent Cuban film movement.

Starting with its fourth edition, held in December 2023, the festival adopted a transnational structure, with simultaneous activities in multiple venues around the world. To date, the festival has organized screenings in Barcelona, Berkeley, Buenos Aires, Mexico City, Havana, Madrid, Miami, Munich, New York, Paris and São Paulo. In its main competition section, a prestigious international jury awards the Nicolás Guillén Landrián Prize to the work that best reflects and explores, through audiovisual language, a taboo subject of its corresponding society.

In addition to this competitive section, the festival organizes parallel screenings, retrospectives, workshops, debates, master classes and exhibitions of expanded cinema, as well as the presentation of the P.M. Awards: INSTAR's fund that supports independent Cuban audiovisual production. Among the most relevant guests of previous editions are Alejandro Fadel, Joana Pimenta, Adirley Queirós, Milo Rau, Alonso Ruizpalacios and Ishtar Yasin.

La primera edición del festival tuvo lugar en La Habana durante diciembre de 2019 y fue dirigida por la actriz y escritora Lynn Cruz, a partir de una idea original de Tania Bruguera, artista cubana y fundadora de INSTAR. Luego del hiato que provocó la pandemia, volvió a finales de 2021 en modalidad online con la curaduría de José Luis Aparicio, quien se desempeña desde entonces como director artístico del evento. La tercera edición, desarrollada durante julio de 2022 en la Documenta Fifteen de Kassel, Alemania, consistió en la exhibición “Tierra sin imágenes”, la que se convertiría en la mayor retrospectiva de cine cubano alternativo realizada hasta la fecha.