From June 4 to 7, Warsaw's Kinoteka cinema, inside the Palace of Culture and Science, belonged to a community that treats Bitcoin not as a stock quote but as a culture. Bitcoin FilmFest 2026 drew more than 400 people in total — over 150 to the film festival itself and around 250 to the co-located MoneroKon conference. The audience came from 15 countries, and roughly one in four attendees was with us for the first time.
This was not a conference with a film block bolted on. It was a festival: 16 finished films on screen plus another 8 productions in progress shown as previews, along with panels, workshops, concerts, yoga, a Bitcoin Walk through Warsaw, and evenings that ran long past the closing credits.
🏆 Golden Rabbits: a double win for "Bitcoin Castle"
The weekend's headline result: the German dark comedy Bitcoin Castle (orig. Bitcoin Schloss), directed by Bruno Schiebel, took two Golden Rabbits — the jury's Best Movie award and the Audience Choice award, voted via the IndeeHub platform. The film about a prepper counting down to a crisis in a remote French château had the room in stitches and was one of the festival's most talked-about titles.
The Golden Rabbit for Best Short went to MaxisClub — an animated series deeply rooted in the Bitcoin ecosystem, whose creator, Redy, had previously designed T-shirts and posters for past editions of the festival. This time she collected a statuette of her own.
🤖 The AI contest: a first prize and a pool for the future
The contest for AI-assisted films — Future of Money, Money of the Future — is an experiment that is only just getting up to speed. This year a main prize was awarded: 1.5 million satoshi went to a creator working under the name Naritamoto, a filmmaker from the UK who has been experimenting with AI video since the early days. The audience chose the winner from a selection of shorts. The rest of the pool (the total was 2.5 million satoshi) rolls over to next year — in the hope that a fast-maturing AI ecosystem will bring more and better entries.
🎥 Premieres and guests from around the world
The American thriller Self Custody, about a father fighting to recall the password to a wallet worth millions, had its European premiere. Adrian Grenier did not attend in person, but the film's creator, Garrett Patten, sent a video message to the audience. Hummingbird — The Bitcoin Jungle Story was premiered in person by Paul Keating, who flew all the way from Costa Rica to present his documentary about a Lightning-powered economy on the Pacific coast.
Guests came to Warsaw from India, Thailand, Australia and New Zealand, among others — including Paco de la India, who led the morning yoga sessions, Setu of Bitshala in Goa, Jimmy and Phi of Bitcoin Chiang Mai, and the Australian filmmaker Ox Power. Other creators who couldn't make it addressed the room in video messages.
🔐 Synergy with MoneroKon
This year's novelty was the co-location with MoneroKon — a conference devoted to privacy and financial technologies. The result exceeded expectations: it was a genuinely good synergy between a privacy-tech conference and a festival of Bitcoin culture. MoneroKon attendees watched the films, while the festival audience dropped into the technical panels next door. The encounter left a keepsake: a group photo in privacy masks that every attendee received on arrival.
🎨 Not only film
The festival is increasingly a space for all kinds of creators, not only filmmakers. Painters, graphic artists and makers showed their work in the Palace of Culture — from watercolor portraits to 3D prints, posters, T-shirts and ceramics. The strongest panel, "Making art in the fiat world", gathered artists talking about how to create independently and how art brings us closer to independence from the system. A separate debate, with screenwriter Wiktor Piątkowski of Bahama Films, looked at film as a tool — of education, but also of propaganda.
❤️ Grassroots, intimate, with heart
Bitcoin FilmFest is maturing. People now know what to expect, the festival is building a reputation and growing — but slowly and deliberately, because its value lies in staying intimate. Behind the scenes, as every year, 15 volunteers kept it running, most of them returning year after year, supported by the Lesefe community and Students for Liberty. Special thanks go to the friends who back the festival year in, year out: the Polish Bitcoin Association, Bitcoin VN, Quark, Bitcoin District, Angor, GhostSwap, IndeeHub and Trezor.
The organizers don't hide that, even with partners' help, the budget didn't quite add up — the festival is built largely on the organizers' own money and on the hearts of people who want this culture to exist. The tickets, prizes and statuettes given away mean the books still don't balance. It's also an invitation: to support the next edition, and to help create it.
📅 See you in 2027
From the stage came the announcement: the fifth edition of Bitcoin FilmFest will take place in Warsaw on June 24–27, 2027. Few small events can boast such continuity. Early-bird tickets are already available, and the organizers encourage readers to think beyond just attending — many of them are creators who could join as filmmakers, artists or volunteers.
"I never know how to feel after the festival — tired, exhausted, already missing this vibe and these people, or unable to wait for next year. It's all at once. This is the highlight of the year for me and for 200 other people," sums up Tomek Kołodziejczuk, the festival's co-founder.
