Sharjah International Narrator Forum 2026

Turn Tales of Friends, with Finland as guest of honour, into a forum where Gulf and Nordic storytelling meet.

A fisherman's knot tying the Gulf to the Baltic. Cream, birch and dusty blue replaced last year's red and gold across a main stage, a storytelling majlis, a dhow and sea zone and the forum's first cinema hall.

120 narrators and researchers from 30 countries over five days, opened in the presence of the Ruler of Sharjah. Al Rawy, directed by Youssef Akef, premiered as the forum's opening film.

The 2026 edition followed a strong 2025 forum, and the first risk was a repeat. The theme, Tales of Friends, also asked for two cultures in one room: Emirati oral tradition and Finland, the guest of honour, with its own national epic and archive of folk tales. Each had to keep its own voice, and neither could end up as decoration for the other.

The fisherman's knot gave the forum one image for both: two ropes, one from the Gulf and one from the Baltic, tied together. The palette moved to cream paper, birch wood and dusty blue, with aurora green kept for light and glass. The venue ran as a route of rooms: the main stage, a storytelling majlis where students sat in a circle around the narrator, a dhow on a sea of blue light, an aurora-lit welcome desk, book signing, and a cinema hall screening classic films about friendship.

For the Sharjah Institute for Heritage, the forum read as a new edition from the first room. The cinema hall, a first for the forum, brought in younger visitors and families. Directed as Creative Director and Event Director, the work covered the idea and the visual language, the build of every zone and the run of the five days. Al Rawy, the short film directed by Youssef Akef and written by H.E. Aisha Rashid Al-Hissan Al-Shamsi, premiered as the forum's opening film.