The INSTAR Film Festival is an annual event organized by the Hannah Arendt Institute of Artivism (INSTAR), a collective founded and directed by Cuban artist Tania Bruguera. It is a film exhibition that supports independent production on an international scale, especially in countries where freedom of expression and creation is threatened. The festival favors audiovisuals with daring aesthetic and thematic approaches, as well as hybrid pieces that explore new paths in filmmaking.

The first edition of the festival took place in Havana in December 2019 and was directed by actress and writer Lynn Cruz. After the hiatus caused by the pandemic, the event resumed at the end of 2021. On that occasion, it was hosted online, on the Festhome platform, and curated by José Luis Aparicio, who has been in charge of the project ever since. The third edition, held in July of 2022 at Documenta Fifteen in Kassel, Germany, featured the exhibition "Tierra sin imágenes" / "Land without images”, which would become the largest retrospective of alternative Cuban cinema to date.

In addition to screenings, the festival organizes workshops, debates, masterclasses, and exhibitions of expanded cinema, as well as the presentation of the P.M. Awards, INSTAR's fund to support the production of independent Cuban cinema. Among the most relevant guests from previous editions are filmmakers Milo Rau, Ishtar Yasin, Alonso Ruizpalacios, Alejandro Fadel, Heidi Hassan, Alejandro Brugués, and Miguel Coyula.