Barcelona’s soccer players packed out Spain’s FIFA World Cup winning team. Now Catalonia, the northeast region of Spain counting on Barcelona as its capital, accounts for a very significant chunk of the Spanish films playing this year’s San Sebastián Festival, one of its principal draws. Some 150 Catalan companies, no less, will be in San Sebastián.
The bullish Catalan presence can be put down to an exciting new generation of Catalan directors and producers exploding on the scene over the last decade, since Carla Simón’s “Summer 1993.”
Key, also is Catalonia’s drive into pan-regional co-production, as many movies tap funding from around Spain. Also at play is a step-up in ambition among Catalan films at large and far larger mobility on the part of talent. So “Saints,” one of the big new Catalan films, is directed by Basque but Barcelona-based Mikel Gurrea, and one of the standout films by a Catalan director at San Sebastián, Carla Simón’s short feature “Flamenco,” is produced by Madrid’s Mamma Team.
Here are just some standouts from the far ranging Catalan presence at the 2026 San Sebastián Film Festival:
Main Competition
“5 More Minutes” (Javier Ruiz Caldera, Movistar Plus, El Terrat, Ikiru Films, Spain)
‘Five More Minutes’
Courtesy of San Sebastián Film Festival
An on-the-rocks couple is caught in a time loop at a rural getaway. Part sometimes excruciating dark comedy, part sci-fi mindwarp and part suspense thriller whose grip bids fair to surprise at San Sebastián. Written and starring Berto Romero, one of Spain’s top stand-ups, playing opposite Belen Cuesta (The Endless Trench”) and an ineffable Javier Camara (“Talk to Her”). Spanish pay TV/SVOD colossus Movistar Plus, El Terrat, a Mediapro Studio company, and Ikiru Films, produce a typical genre cocktail for Romero, much directed with virtuosity by Javier Ruiz Caldera as a series of millimetrically calculated five-minute sequence shots. Filmax handles world sales. JH
“Saints,” (“Sants,” Mikel Gurrea, Lastor Media, Nocturna Pictures, Deloris Films, Kino Produzioni, Spain, Italy)
Courtesy of M-Appeal
Played by Victoria Luengo, who starred opposite Javier Bardem in “The Beloved,” Lali cares for her dying mother Glòria, as she falls in with a gang who steals statues of saints, giving much of the proceeds to the needy and forsaken. Gurrea’ second feature, a step-up in style, shot with a continuous visual pulse, varying in tone from scene to scene. Produced by Barcelona’s Nocturna Pictures, Deloris Films and Lastor Media and Kino Produzioni, the latter two both behind Berlin Golden Bear winner “Alcarràs,” another exploration of an alternative economy. JH
Special Screenings
“Pray for Us,” (“Ruega for nosotras,” Daniel Monzón, Arcadia Motion Pictures, Ikiru Films, Spain)
The latest from the still underrated Monzón, director of the breakout blockbuster “Cell 211” and the memorable “The Laws of the Frontier,” a five-time Goya winner that played out of competition at 2021’s San Sebastián. Set in 1974, after a night on the tiles, Ana, 19, is dispatched by her wealthy family to Spain’s Women’s Protection Board, a Francoist state-backed institution confining young women in the guise of moral “reform.” Arcadia Motion Pictures, behind the Oscar-nominated “Robot Dreams” and Sorogoyen’s “The Beasts,” produces. Picked up by Film Factory Entertainment for international, Elastica for Spanish distribution. JH
Horizontes Latinos
“Ashes,” (Diego Luna, La Corriente del Golfo, Animal de Luz Films, Inicia Films, Perro Azul)
Lauded actor Diego Luna (“Y tu mamá también,” “Andor”) steps behind the camera to helm the adaptation of Brenda Navarro’s critically acclaimed feminist novel “Eating Ashes.” The film stars Anna Diaz (“La Cocina”) and Adriana Paz, who shared the Cannes best actress award with Zoe Saldaña, Selena Gomez and Karla Sofía Gascón for “Emilia Pérez.” The heartfelt drama trails Lucila, a young woman who leaves Mexico with her young brother to reunite with their distant mother in Madrid. Luna also produces via his La Corriente del Golfo label, founded alongside Gael García Bernal. Luxbox handles sales. RSR
“Narciso,” (Marcelo Martinessi, La Babosa Cine, Guay Films, Bocacha Films, Pandora Filmproduktion, Bteam Pictures, Oublaum Filmes, Esquina Filmes, La Fábrica Noctura)
Paraguay’s submission to the Oscars, the eight-country co-production “Narciso” began its lauded festival journey at the Berlinale, where it won the Fipresci Award at the Panorama section. Martinessi’s sophomore feature is set in 1959, where the charismatic titular performer returns to Buenos Aires at the height of a strict military regime. When the popular young man is found dead after a show, the culprit becomes even harder to find within this regime built on silence and fear. Luxbox handles world sales. RSR
Zabaltegi – Tabakalera
“Far From the Trees,” (Meritxell Colell, Allegra Films, EXIT Media, Animalita Cine, Spain)
A Locarno 2026 Fipresci Prize winner. Adela, a sound artist recording endangered languages travels to the Peruvian highlands in a film which weaves present and past – collective and personal memory and archive footage of the Catalan diaspora after the Spanish Civil War – speaking about family, forced exile, roots, memory and hybrid identity. “A richly contemplative journey of physical and mental meanderings, beautifully combining 4K digital with Super 16,” says Variety. “Ambitious in scope yet intimate in focus,” Far From the Trees” “could well become an arthouse sleeper,” it adds. JH
“Flamenco Sketches,” (“Jaleos,” Isaki Lacuesta, Lastor Media, Goroka Contents, with La Termita Films, Spain)
Courtesy of San Sebastián Film Festival
Sharing with Francis Ford Coppola the rare honour of two San Sebastián Golden Shells, Isaki Lacuesta returns to the festival fresh from co-directing HBO Max’s acclaimed series “Ravalear.” “Flamenco Sketches” is a restless ride through cinema, machines, Nazism, Civil War, and avant-garde art. The film shows how flamenco has often swallowed disruption whole only to morph itself anew. “Always dying, never dead.” one of the many contributing voices in the doc tells us. CM
“Red Rocks,” (Bruno Dumont, Rosa Filmes, Luxbox, Nightswim, Andergraun Films, Tessalit, Pulpa Films, Sula Films)
The latest by the Silver Bear winner of “The Empire” premiered at Directors’ Fortnight in Cannes and tells the tale of two gangs of kids who compete in the dangerous game of cliff jumping in the French Riviera. Dumont worked with a cast of non-professional actors, adopting a documentary-like approach to the film, shot against the cliffs and open waters of the Mediterranean. The lauded director won two Grand Prix awards at Cannes for “Humanity” and “Flanders.” Luxbox handles world sales. RSR
Made in Spain
“Alive” (“Viva” Aina Clotet, Ikiru Films, Funicular Films, La Terraza Films)
In the intimate “Viva,” which earned its director-star Clotet the Louis Roederer Foundation Rising Star Award, follows 40-something Nora as she finds a new lease of life following cancer treatment. The heartfelt drama explores relationships, as well as the dilemmas brought in by climate change, with a standout performance by the established Clotet, whose 2024 series “This is Not Sweden” racked up several awards and found great success with audiences. The director produces under her Funicular Films label, alongside veteran Edmon Roch of Ikiru Films. Loco Films handles sales, while Caramel Films distributes in Spain. RSR
“The Good Daughter,” (Astra Pictures, Avalon, Krater, Spain, Belgium)
The sophomore feature of Julia de Paz Solvas, also a co-writer on Alauda Ruiz de Azúa’s “Querer,” plumbing gender violence from the untutored perspective of Carmela, the daughter of a direct victim. A trenchant portrait of self pitying, violent male narcissism and an uplifting take on teen female friendship which swept the Tallinn Black Nights Festival in November, sweeping its Grand Prix, actress (Kiara Arancibia) and Audience Awards. JH
“Sixteen Moments of My Life” (Albert Serra, Idéale Audience, Andergraun Films, Weltfilm, Spain, France, Germany)
The latest by irreverent Catalan maverick Albert Serra (“Pacifiction,” “Afternoons of Solitude”) premiered at Locarno. It documents a one-off performance by legendary German film actress and singer Ingrid Caven – known for her collaborations with then-husband Rainer Werner Fassbinder – at the Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord in Paris. Neither a biopic nor a concert movie, “Sixteen Moments of My Life” puts forward a fascinating portrayal of creatives on creatives. Serra’s Andergraun Films label produces and handles sales. RSR
“Three Goodbyes,” (Isabel Coixet, Cattleya, Ruvido Produzioni, Bartlebyfilm, Buena Pinta Media, Vision Distribution, Bteam Prods, Perdición Films, Tres Cuencos, Apaches Entertainment, Spain, Italy)
Bowing at least year’s Toronto, a home-run from Isabel Coixet, Adapting a short story collection by Italy’s Michela Murgia, who died of cancer at 51. Alba Rohrwacher “dazzles in a humane, heartfelt drama” as the “luminous center of a charmingly bittersweet and life-affirming movie,” Variety wrote. “In other hands, this would cue a standard disease-of-the-week weepie, but Coixet keeps the tone lightly wistful and wise,” it added. JH
