Manchester International Festival is back and so is MIF Daily – our curated guide to the festival! We’ll tell you what to read, watch, listen to and do to make the most of MIF25.

MIF Daily is filled with top tips, recommendations and free events to help you navigate the busy festival. Head behind the scenes with interviews, studio visits and editorials, taking you out into the city and far beyond.

Look out for MIF Daily on Factory+ from Tuesday to Sunday throughout the festival.

Come rain or shine, we’ll see you on Festival Square!

Read: What do Women (Footballers) Want?

Have you seen Football City, Art United. yet? Today, we’re diving into What do Women (Footballers) Want? – a new five-channel film by pioneering American artist Suzanne Lacy, developed in collaboration with two icons of the game: Manchester City and Netherlands forward Vivianne Miedema and Angel City Football Club and New Zealand captain Ali Riley.

The film asks how women footballers impact society’s attitudes toward women – and how cultural perceptions and practices shape the way we see players and the sport itself.

Active since the early 1970s, Suzanne Lacy is a leading figure in socially engaged art. Her groundbreaking performances, installations and videos have addressed issues ranging from sexual violence and incarceration to ageing and labour. In 1991, she coined the term 'New Genre Public Art' to define an activist form of art that plays out in public space and comes from direct conversations with communities.

In this new work, Lacy turns her lens on football as a space where gender is expressed and society’s attitudes are reflected. The film interrogates the very architecture of the sport: Who is it built for? Who is excluded? And what might it look like if reimagined entirely from the ground up by women?

Listen: Dream Space with Amir Nizar Zuabi

As THE HERDS races through Copenhagen, we’re listening back to our Dream Space episode with the Artistic Director Amir Nizar Zuabi.

Zuabi – an award-winning Palestinian playwright and director known for Little Amal, the 3.5 metre puppet of a nine-year-old refugee girl – takes us back to 12th-century Baghdad in his dreams guided by host Gemma Cairney.

Do: Homobloc x Homoelectric