Here’s what to expect at the Alliance Francaise’s 13-hour celebration of comics in Chennai

For one night this October, Tintin and Snowy will find themselves in the company of Suppandi and Tenali Raman in Chennai. Speech bubbles will creep across walls, familiar comic-book characters will appear larger than life, and stories usually contained within neat rectangular panels will spill into music, theatre, dance, and performance. 

Alliance Francaise of Madras’ (AFM) annual all-night arts festival, La Nuit Blanche, returns for its fourth edition on October 10, this time turning its attention to the world of comics. Titled La Nuit de la Bande Dessinée (The Night of Comics) the festival brings French and Indian comic traditions together across 13 hours of performance. 

“This is the fourth edition. The event has gained a lot of popularity in the city so audience expect a certain standard. Patricia (former director of AFM) contributed to it until the day she left, and we are not leaving any story unturned. We want to put our best effort to see that things are as enjoyable as preceding years,” says TK Durgaprasad, president, AFM. 

The six spaces at AFM will take on different facets of the comic-book world, with more than 30 events unfolding across the afternoon, evening, and into the early hours of October 11. 

The festival takes its cue from the Franco-Belgian tradition of bande dessinée (which translates to comic or draw strip), which has produced some of the world’s most recognisable characters like Tintin, Asterix, The Smurfs, and more. But the night will not remain confined to the French clan. Indian comics like Birbal, Tenali Raman, and Suppandi, and indigenous visual storytelling traditions will share the frame, as the AFM campus transforms into a celebration of sequential art and the many directions in which it can travel.

“There is an overlap between French learning and comic reading. That is the area we wanted to look at. We wanted the theme comics because comics always attract youth,” says Durgaprasad. 

The auditorium will host theatre, readings, and music. The programming will begin with Matinee Show Maamé, an afternoon of short comedies by English and French theatre group Theatre Arlequin.

Among the highlights is Detectives! Desire! Death rays! Draw!, a bilingual live reading of Tamil pulp fiction by Blaft Publications’ founders Rashmi RD and Nirmal Rajagopalan bringing the stories to voice while watercolour artist Shyam Sankar illustrates them in real time. Pianist Adam Greig will pair a live performance with a display of classic French etchings and caricatures in Hearing the Frame. 

The library will be the more hands-on corner of the festival, with the focus shifting to how stories are drawn, read and pieced together. Khushi Bansal of Bengaluru’s Museum of Art & Photography will present their show A Moving Line: A History of Sequential Storytelling in India, while visitors can try their hand at making comics through Bhavya Desai’s Life in Basic Shapes workshop and an illustration workshop by M Karthikeyan. Comic-themed quizzes, puzzles and a dramatic reading of Asterix and Cleopatra will add to the mix.

In the atrium, comics make way for Tamil Nadu’s performance traditions, with devarattam by Kalaimamani Kumararaman’s troupe; kailasa vadhyam by Aadhimudhalon Sivaboothaganangal, a leather puppet show by Kalaivanar Tholpavai Koothu Kalaikuzhu, and a drum circle led by Master Sha of Drumania Drum Circle. The Tamil Jazz Collective will bring a contemporary note to the space with its Carnatic jazz performance.

At ESPACE24, the exhibition Drawn to India looks beyond the familiar comic book to trace India’s long history of visual storytelling. Presented in collaboration with Villa Swagatam and the French Institute in India, the exhibition travels from temple walls and painted scrolls to comics, graphic novels and webcomics, placing contemporary sequential art within a much older tradition of telling stories through images. The exhibition will remain on view until October 23. The space will also screen five French films with English subtitles through the night.

For a musical evening, head to the terrace, which will host live performances through the night. The line-up moves from a student-led acappella performance by Cleftomaniacs, to jazz and blues by KIN Band. For those staying until the early hours, there are free shuttle minivans with limited drop-offs towards Thiruvanmiyur and Koyambedu.

With workshops, exhibitions, screenings, games, theatre, dance and music spread across the campus, La Nuit Blanche has grown into an important fixture in Chennai’s cultural calendar, bringing together audiences and art forms that might not otherwise share the same space.

La Nuit Blanche 2026 will be held on October 10 from 2pm to October 11, 3am at Alliance Française of Madras. Entry is free and open to all. For the full schedule and details about events, log on to afmadras on Instagram.