Stories. Cinema. Ideas.
A festival where the page meets the screen. Anchored between the letters of Kottayam and the backwaters of Kumarakom — books, films, folk arts and the future of the Malayalam imagination, across one unforgettable week.
A pure literary festival can stay niche. KLF widens the circle — writer and filmmaker, actor and director, journalist and thinker — a cultural gathering for both the serious reader and the wider audience that loves a good story.
Writers, poets, publishers and translators — the living heart of Malayalam letters.
Filmmakers, actors, screenwriters, producers and critics — page to screen and back.
Politics, society, technology, Kerala, India — and the futures we are writing now.
Music, visual arts, theatre, food and heritage — the folk life of the backwaters.
The season lives in two places at once — the slow, water-bound culture of Kumarakom and the publishing city of Kottayam, a short journey apart.
Book and movie conversations under open skies, folk performances and traditional artforms staged in the village and along the backwaters — the festival's soul, lived at water level.
Kerala's city of letters and journalism becomes the festival's screen. A movie festival unfolds across partner theatres — premieres, retrospectives, masterclasses and screenings, page turning into picture.
Sessions built to put the novelist beside the director, the historian beside the screenwriter — a sample of what the first season is being shaped around.
…and premieres, masterclasses, folk performances and screenings across both towns.
The first season opens a lasting cultural platform — an architecture of formats that can grow year on year, and connect naturally with a wider film and storytelling ecosystem.
Delegates, writers, filmmakers, publishers, press and partners — tell us how you'd like to be part of KLF 2026. We'll be in touch as the programme and passes are announced.