The films of the competition sections: 38 major premieres and a ticket to the Oscars

With great pleasure, the 28th Thessaloniki International Documentary Festival announces the films taking part in the three competition sections of this year’s festival edition: the International Competition, the Newcomers competition section and the >>Film Forward competition section.

The competing documentaries are holding their world, international, or European premiere in the Festival, and have their eyes set on the Festival’s official awards, as well the independent awards, most of which are accompanied by cash prizes. The International Competition Golden Alexander winner will automatically be eligible to submit for Academy Awards® consideration in the Documentary Feature category.

The 38 documentaries in the competition sections — including 9 Greek productions — form a dense and multilayered body of work, drawing strength from the intersection of the personal and the collective. Coming-of-age stories, narratives of loss, memory, and family bonds enter into dialogue with urgent social questions surrounding power, inequality, emancipation, the ecological crisis, and technological transformation. With a gaze fixed both on the ruptures and traumas of History and on the fragile textures of everyday life, these films seek to listen closely to the forces that shape us and to reconsider humanity’s place in a rapidly changing world.

International Competition

The fourteen films taking part in the International Competition of the 28th Thessaloniki International Documentary Festival (March 5-15, 2026) will be vying for a series of prizes, among them the Golden Alexander, accompanied by a cash prize of 12,000 euros, and the Silver Alexander, accompanied by a cash prize of 5,000 euros. TiDF is an OSCAR® qualifying festival and the film that wins the Golden Alexander award will automatically be eligible to submit for Academy Awards® consideration in the Documentary Feature category.

This year, the International Competition Jury members are Dana Bunescu (film editor), Caroline Libresco (curator, programmer, producer, and creative executive), and Yorgos Papalios (film producer).

Here’s the lineup of the International Competition:

• Bugboy, Lucas Paleocrassas, Greece-Denmark-France, 2026, 88΄ (World premiere)

George, a shy teenager with misaligned eyes, struggles to connect with others after his parents’ divorce. Finding refuge in the world of insects, he bonds with a cricket named Isabella. Through a portrait of transformation and self-discovery, the film reminds us that even the smallest creatures can help us find where we belong.

• The Golden Grip, Fokion Bogris, Greece, 2026, 94΄ (World premiere)

In the mid-1960s, Kostas left his village in Crete dreaming of becoming a star. His rugged physique and humble background afforded him only small “tough-guy” roles, yet in numerous Greek films – from big studio productions and renowned auteur masterpieces to low-budget exploitation films alike. By placing a support actor at centerstage, the film traces five decades of Greek cinema.

• The Way Elsewhere, Eirini Vourloumis, Greece, 2026, 82΄ (World premiere)

A portrait of Athens told through the lives of three veteran taxi drivers who move through the city as quiet dreamers. Konstantinos is approaching retirement after half a century behind the wheel, and begins each shift with a private ritual beneath the Acropolis. Sunny, a Nigerian actor and family man, drifts between faith, fatigue and a desire to return to artistic expression. Yorgos, an innate performer, sings love songs in small clubs at night. Blending observation with musical sequences, the film inhabits routine, memory and desire in a city shaped by crisis and persistence.

• All About the Money, Sinéad O’Shea, Ireland, 2026, 95΄ (European premiere)

Can the system truly be overthrown from within? Who, if not Fergie Chambers, is better suited to answer such a question? The politically insurgent son of one of America’s wealthiest families, a staunch communist and sworn enemy of the plutocratic environment he was born and raised in, creates a revolutionary base in rural Massachusetts so as to fight against capitalism from within. With a subversive spirit and remarkable directorial finesse, the riveting All About the Money attempts an incredibly fascinating (and extremely alarming) study of the power and financial structures that dominate the modern world, while simultaneously outlining the portrait of a figure as mesmerizing as it is riddled with contradictions. Never before has the dream of a better, fairer world been a matter of concern for one of its natural, at least from a class-conscious, Marxist standpoint, opponents.

• Around Paradise, Yulia Lokshina, Germany, 2026, 122΄ (International premiere)

Lost in the untouched landscapes of Paraguay, a strange community of Europeans attempts to build an enclosed “paradise,” far from everything they consider as decay in the modern world. Conspiracy theorists, right-wing extremists, and all sorts of eccentric people arrive in the community, whose founder and leader is a shrewd German man. Crafting the portrait of the community’s leader and tracing the stories of both the settlers and the Paraguayans around the sect that presents itself as a utopia, Around Paradise is an insightful film that – upon indirectly and allusively casting light on the so-called paradise through dark humor and a metaphysical lens – addresses a number of pressing issues of our time: from the rise of the far right and its historical roots to modern colonialism through the economy and digital technology. Unsettlingly revealing and with masterful aesthetics, Yulia Lokshina’s brilliant documentary stays etched in memory long after the end credits.

• Birds of War, Janay Boulos & Abd Alkader Habak, UK-Syria-Lebanon, 2026, 85΄ (European premiere)

As civil war engulfs Syria, two young journalists begin collaborating remotely, exchanging text messages and voice notes to document the conflict. Abd captures stories from the ground, risking his life to film the war, while Janay shapes his footage from London, where she has lived since leaving Lebanon. Gradually, their professional relationship evolves into an intimate bond, despite never having met in person. Drawn from a remarkable archive spanning 13 years of revolution and war, the film reveals a love story shaped by distance, risk, and shared purpose. At the same time, it offers a powerful reflection on journalism, exposing the limits of news coverage and revealing the deeply human stories that exist beyond the headlines.

• Candidates of Death, Maciej Cuske, Poland, 2026, 90΄ (World premiere)

A father goes on holiday with his son and two of his friends, during which time they make an amateur horror film together. As the years pass, they continue to shoot scenes for their “handcrafted,” carefree, imaginative horror project, with even more passion, dutiful consistency, and unwavering commitment: the documentary chronicles a decade of this beautiful adventure, as Maciej and the kids become a group of people who grow up… and yet somehow still manage to grow younger together. An unexpected blend of documentary and coming-of-age film unlike any other; it’s as if the kids from Stand By Me decided to make a thriller, alongside a dad-director who refuses to grow up. The making of such a film would look a lot like the funny, tenderly melancholic, and wonderful Candidates of Death.

• Closure, Michał Marczak, Poland-France, 2026, 108΄ (European premiere)

Shortly before dawn on May 27, 2023, 16-year-old Chris sneaked out of his house and took a bus to Warsaw. A closed-circuit camera captured images of him standing for twenty consecutive minutes on a central bridge in the city, silently looking out over the water. When the camera returned to the same spot a few moments later, Chris was gone. Daniel, Chris’s father, has been searching for him ever since, along the banks of the Vistula River, improvising methods and means of investigation. Mapping out a hypothetical path of loss and suicide, Daniel becomes a timeless and yet contemporary tragic hero, struggling to unearth answers to questions doomed to remain unresolved. A heart-wrenching journey through unfinished mourning and undying sorrow, with the unattainable promise of closure as its final destination.

• Derek vs Derek, James Dawson, UK, 2026, 88΄ (World premiere)

On a country road in Devon, England, live two implacably opposed neighboring farmers, both called Derek. One believes in intensive farming of his land so that food can be produced in abundance; the other is creating an oasis for nature on his land, driven by an entirely different perception of agriculture and a farmer‘s duties. A wonderful ecological documentary that juxtaposes two wholly opposing approaches to farming, introducing us to two characters who share the same name, and whose constant clashes you’ll never tire of watching. The exquisite film, Derek vs Derek, raises pressing environmental issues, while conducting an exquisite study of idiosyncrasies at the same time, free of any pretension, though full of humor and substance. Two Dereks, two perspectives, two ethical outlooks, and even perhaps two Englands, situated side by side, yet at odds, whose (on-screen) coexistence proves to be quite a delight!

• La Pietà, Rafa Molés & Pepe Andreu, Spain-Iceland-Lithuania, 2026, 82΄ (World premiere)

At the foot of Europe’s largest glacier, seven Icelandic siblings once lived in deliberate isolation, dedicating their lives to observing ice and nature long before climate change had a name. Their abandoned farmhouse becomes a living archive, animated by photographs, objects, and a 16mm film that restores gestures, spaces, and a vanished way of being in the world. Blending observational filmmaking with found footage, Rafa Molés and Pepe Andreu, the duo behind the 2020 unforgettable Icelandic story of Lobster Soup, return to the Arctic North to craft a poetic, contemplative elegy in which time, memory, and matter converge. The glacier – now wrapped in vast white shrouds in a desperate attempt to slow its melting – emerges as both subject and body, altar and loss. La Pietà is a quiet yet devastating meditation on ecological grief, reverence, and the belated effort to protect what once shaped our existence.

• Nuisance Bear, Gabriela Osio Vanden & Jack Weisman, USA-Canada, 2026, 90΄ (International premiere)

“I’ve never told this story. It might seem simple, but each story is a labyrinth that leads us somewhere we’ve never been”: Thus, an elderly Inuit begins recounting the story of his homeland: Churchill, Manitoba, Canada, “the Polar Bear Capital of the World,” where thousands of large animals wind up following the rhythm of the universe and the formation of ice. As a primordial thread lyrically and melancholically unfolds, intertwining the human and the non-human, a “disturbing” presence disrupts a vast landscape that has already been altered by human intervention – overtourism, mining, industrialization, mass settlement, desertification. Reintroducing us to a leading lady we met in one of the most impressive and commercially successful short films of recent years (the titular Nuisance Bear [24th Thessaloniki Documentary Festival, 3rd Evia Film Project]), the directing duo from the fringes of the Arctic circle undermines the human gaze cast upon the planet and proposes a cinema that is, in essence, ecological – an ecosystem where all beings exist in the same way, laughing, hurting, wondering, and looking for food for the next day.

• Soap Fever, Inka Achté, Finland-Sweden, 2026, 78΄ (World premiere)

With the Soviet Union’s dissolution dragging down the economy of neighboring Finland, the Scandinavian country was plunged in a period of protracted recession. And with no recovery in sight, a soap opera offered Finns a respite from the grim reality; the debut of The Bold and the Beautiful on television quickly amassed a vast and dedicated following, whereas the arrival of American idols in the country, on tour, elicited unprecedented frenzy. But beyond providing an indulgent, meta retrospective on the historical impact that the early 90s hit series had on Finland, Soap Fever also examines the circumstances in which the yearning for escapism reaches a breaking point, especially when everything seems bleak.

• The Beauty of Errors, Jukka Kärkkäinen, Finland-Norway-Sweden, 2026, 94΄ (International premiere)

Family ties remain one of the most wondrous human mysteries, and the relationship between father and son is a relationship that has it all: tenderness, interdependence, esteem, conflict, disillusionment. Rarely does a film capture all the nuanced subtleties of the bitter, sometimes unbearable reality of the father-son bond, but also the remarkable devotion it requires: in The Beauty of Errors, Jukka Kärkkäinen revisits two figures he introduced in 2009 in his film, The Living Room of a Nation; Tero and his newborn at the time son, Henri. The subtle, yet insightful observation of Tero’s relationship with Henri, now at the threshold of adulthood, unfolds against the backdrop of the sleepy Finnish countryside, showcasing a story that at times resembles a pocket-sized epic (all passion and intensity), and at other times, a film by Kaurismäki or a wistful waltz, carrying a bittersweet affirmation of life – and its unceasing continuity.

• The Golden Swan, Anette Ostrø, Norway-Sweden-Denmark-The Netherlands, 88΄ (World premiere)

In 1995, young Norwegian artist Hans Christian Ostrø travels to India in search of meaning and artistic growth. Months later, he is kidnapped in Kashmir and held hostage by the militant group al-Faran. During five weeks in captivity, he secretly writes poems and letters to his sister, filmmaker Anette Ostrø. Found on his body after his execution, these texts become the foundation of an intimate reconstruction of his final months. Through personal archives and present-day reflection, The Golden Swan transforms a landmark act of early modern terrorism into a deeply human story of courage, forgiveness, and moral resistance in the face of fear.

Newcomers Competition

Fourteen films of over 50 minutes in length, created by young filmmakers, will compete for the Golden Alexander “Dimitri Eipides” and the Silver Alexander Award. The Golden Alexander “Dimitri Eipides” award is accompanied by a €10,000 cash prize. The Silver Alexander Award is accompanied by a €4,000 cash prize.

This year, the Newcomers Competition Jury members are: Melody Gilbert (documentary filmmaker, and educator), Farahnaz Sharifi (filmmaker and film editor), and Chryssa Tzelepi (documentary filmmaker).

Here’s the lineup of the Newcomers Competition:

• At No Cost, Mary Bouli, Greece, 2026, 79΄ (World premiere)

Danae works at a bar, but dreams of becoming a ballet dancer. She is one of the many young women in Athens struggling to make ends meet. She decides to become an egg donor. Why not? Sounds like it comes at no cost. But the procedure is not that simple.

• EXILE(S), Tales From an Island, Yorgos Iliopoulos, Greece, 2026, 119΄ (World premiere)

A hundred years after the Treaty of Lausanne, the people of Imbros search for a new present, with the aftershocks of population movements still visible around them. Ruined villages, lives lost to time, customs and rituals braided into a singular cultural palimpsest, where memories and borders keep shifting. Yet coexistence is never easy.

• Tiny Gods, Panos Deligiannis, Greece, 2026, 82΄ (World premiere)

Life is a constant movement between the depths of our personal universe and the surface of the world. We dive within ourselves, emerge into everyday life. We oscillate from introspection to extroversion, from our microcosm to the real world. This pendulum is the story of the artist Kleio Gizeli, a pendulum that reaches from the secret space of an apartment to the visible world of a school classroom, from a penthouse in Kypseli, Athens to the life of its streets, from miniature works to the social work of education. This pendulum is the story of the film, the pendulum of a woman but also of all of us.

• Hex, Maja Holand, Norway, 2026, 92΄ (International premiere)

Set in Norway’s legendary black metal scene, Hex follows three young women — Nikoline, Victoria, and Johanna — who form the band Witch Club Satan without knowing how to play a single instrument. Bound by a three-year pact, they commit to becoming witches and musicians, using black metal to unleash raw, female power. But as the band gains momentum, it also gains a will of its own, testing their unity, values, and vision of freedom. Haunted by the echoes of historical witch trials, the film asks: what does it mean to be a free woman today—and are we still condemning witches to silence?

• In Cod We Trust, Guro Saniola Bjerk, Norway-Finland, 2026, 84΄ (World premiere)

In Norway’s northernmost reaches, where winter lingers for months beneath a veil of polar darkness and the sea governs every decision, lies Båtsfjord, a fishing village where cod assumes greater significance than God. This wryly playful observational portrait unfolds as an artful tapestry of meticulously composed vignettes, capturing the essence of a remote Arctic community. Its diverse, resourceful inhabitants, as unpredictable as the blizzards that sweep across the region, are bound by fish, nature, and a shared sense of belonging. The film invites viewers to experience the rhythm, drama, and intimacy of life at the edge of the world, revealing that in the coldest corners of the earth one finds the warmest people, brimming with wit, resilience, and generosity.

• Inner Emigrants, Lena Karbe, Germany-France, 2026, 93΄ (World premiere)

A group of psychologists in Moscow maintain an anonymous hotline providing psychological support following the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022. For the purposes of her second feature film, Russian filmmaker Lena Karbe returns to her homeland after 15 years in Germany and turns her focus to the often minimized, burdensome work of mental health professionals. How does Russian society perceive the invasion, and why does it not react? What is the impact of government propaganda on the masses? What happens when the patient holds completely different views from the therapist - for example, when they are in favor of war, or seek guidance on issues that are illegal in Russia, such as LGBTQI matters? What does “neutrality” mean, where should the boundaries be drawn, and how does each professional set them whilst striving to protect their professional integrity, personal safety, and psyche?

• Just Look Up, Emma Wall & Betsy Hershey, USA-Denmark, 2026, 94΄ (World premiere)

Michael Greenberg, an openly gay activist, leads the disruptive movement “Climate Defiance” and lets nothing get in the way! Armed with decisiveness, caustic humor, and fearless audacity, he revives the radical way of protesting: he sets aside negotiating or asking for a platform to be heard; instead, he barges in at conferences with oil company representatives, denouncing CEOs and Washington’s political elite for the catastrophic impact they have on the environment. As Michael states, “shame is powerful,” and only public outrage can make these individuals realize their accountability. Unyielding and unapologetic, with a deep, nearly spiritual commitment to his cause and the conviction that the world will be destroyed if we don’t act now, Michael, along with his team, manages to attract media attention and create a highly publicized movement. However, the situation becomes even more precarious following the re-election of US President Donald Trump, a turn of events that has Michael and his allies deeply concerned. Now, their mission is more dangerous and challenging than ever…

• Motel Paradise, Jose Eduardo Castilla Ponce, Mexico, 2026, 89΄ (World premiere)

In a coastal town on the Gulf of Mexico lives the insubordinate Daniel, the owner of a small motel. We get to know him through his grandson’s eyes, who decides to use the very same VHS camera that Daniel once used to record him as a child. Through this role reversal, the camera documents Daniel’s daily life as a motel owner in a candid, effortless, yet humorous manner, gradually unveiling his larger-than-life personality and his somewhat tumultuous relationship with his wife, Lourdes. At the same time, when you least expect it, Daniel is transformed into the star of short cinematic vignettes, inspired by different genres of cinema, re-enacting peculiar incidents that may – or may not – have occurred over the years at the motel. A creative blend of reality and fiction, crafted to depict the notion of remembrance, in which the adult perspective – raw, unembellished – engages in constant dialogue with a more childlike, idealized one, as though it were a staged western. An original documentary with a strong B-movie influence that makes the viewer laugh, reminisce, and recall this one fact: it is through cinema and memory that we may, as the director claims, “cheat death, even if only a little.”

• One in a Million, Jack MacInnes & Itab Azzam, UK-Germany, 2026, 100΄ (European premiere)

In September 2015, Isra’a, an 11-year old girl from Aleppo, Syria, was selling cigarettes in Turkey, trying to raise enough money to cross the Aegean in the hope of finding a better life in Europe. Over the years, however, the safe haven the family lighted upon in Germany became the scene of trauma and confusion.

• Replica, Chouwa Liang, Australia-France-China, 2026, 91΄ (World premiere)

In China, an increasing number of young women are choosing partners generated on demand by AI programs, either in response to the societal pressure of getting married or to avoid the disillusionment brought on by real-world relationships. Because in the digital world, expectations are rarely, if ever, met with disappointment, and partners -always emotionally available, mature, and composed - offer unconditional support and companionship through a screen. If Spike Jonze’s Her once seemed like science fiction, it’s now turning into something very real, as we struggle to navigate psychosocial trauma, as well as the world around us; both of which are veiled behind an incessant flow of data and the digital promises of fabricated perfection.

• Sentient, Tony Jones, Australia, 2026, 105΄ (European premiere)

A unique and moving investigation into laboratory research on animals, exposing a hidden world in which it's not just the animals getting hurt. Following the story of Dr Lisa Jones Engel, a primatologist turned animal welfare advocate, it asks 'can we still justify harming animals and ourselves in science’s name?’

• The Smuggler, Sylvelin Måkestad, Sweden-Finland-Norway, 2026, 79΄ (World premiere)

Lisbeth, a recently retired elderly woman, sets out to find the gun her father used in an unsuccessful suicide attempt in 1940 – a weapon that turned into a family legend. She boards a “therapy bus”, full of war-veterans’ children, travels through Finland where she meets an arms dealer, learns to shoot, seeks a witch’s guidance, all while moving toward the pistol - and her past. A beautifully bittersweet documentary, it is a personal journey in search of existential identity, roots, answers, genealogical symbols, as well as a commentary on the weight of History on the daily lives of ordinary people. Exquisitely shot, The Smuggler talks about a woman's need to understand her father, retroactively heal his trauma and, through this paradoxical “therapy”, find her own role and place in the world.

• Tirrenica, Rosario Minervini, Italy-Spain, 2026, 61΄ (World premiere)

In Italy in the 1960s, announcements about a state-of-the-art highway that would soon connect the economically struggling south with the advanced north were as pompous as the scale of the project. Except that it took over 60 years to realize, and its name (Tirrenica) became synonymous with the areas it would connect – from the outskirts of Naples to Salerno – for all the wrong reasons, while also exposing the structural pathologies of the Italian state like no other, effectively confirming the narrative of a “country of two speeds.” Through the striking comparison of yesterday's expectations and the mundane reality of those who were born and raised in the shadow of a phantom project, Rosario Minervini performs a dissection of clinical precision of the delays that have weighed down Italy’s collective psyche over time.

• We Are Stardust, Elisabeth Rasmussen, Norway-Denmark, 2026, 101΄ (World premiere)

For decades, astronomers around the world have spent billions searching the universe for stardust, hoping to unlock the mysteries of life. Jon Larsen, a jazz music artist and true renaissance man, had the audacity to simply look down. He claims to have found stardust in the gutter, right here on Earth. But his discovery is dismissed and ridiculed by the scientific establishment. What if Jon’s stardust proved to be real? Film director Elisabeth, in search of her Sámi heritage, is irresistibly drawn to Jon’s unlikely quest and decides to join him. Can their friendship bridge the gap between ancient wisdom and modern science?

>>Film Forward Competition

>>Film Forward competition section, hosting movies that challenge conventions and utter a bold and daring cinematic language, offers the audience the chance to watch ten films. The awards include the >>Film Forward Golden Alexander, featuring a 6,000-euro cash prize, and the >>Film ForwardSilver Alexander, featuring a 3,000-euro cash prize.

This year, the Film Forward Competition Jury members are: programmer Alberto Valverde, architect and cultural programmer Sandra Pires, and visual artist Aikarini Gegisian.

Here’s the lineup of the >>Film Forward competition section:

• Dear Future, Christiana Cheiranagnostaki, Greece-Switzerland, 2026, 79΄ (World premiere)

An underground archive in the Arctic, museum artefacts awaiting their fate in a storage room in the Netherlands, hidden rock markings in a forest in Switzerland, and a neuroscience study on emotion, reveal a world paused, turning inward, waiting to be shaped by memory and nature; a liminal space between what’s lost and what’s yet to come.

• Horse and Rider, Panayotis Evangelidis, Greece, 2026, 78΄ (World premiere)

Three days of an encounter between two persons in a Thessaloniki hotel, during a July heatwave. Sylvia and Yannis talk, joke, look at each other, are taken by surprise, fall in love, and learn to listen to the sounds of the surrounding world, weaving their own cocoon. Time counts backwards.

• Stories of a Lie, Olia Verriopoulou, Greece-France, 2025, 75΄ (National premiere)

During a stay in Greece, my native country, I learned of a friend’s illness. Her doctors and family are hiding it from her and I have to keep it a secret as well. I start to remember, bewildered. Having grown up in a medical environment, I remember that I was part of this practice in the past and that it has affected loved ones. I decided to talk to my father, a doctor, and start an intimate investigation in my attempt to understand the reasoning behind medical lies…

• A Song Without Home, Rati Tsiteladze, Georgia-USA-Denmark, 2026, 75΄ (International premiere)

What does freedom mean without inner peace? A Song Without Home follows Adelina, a young trans woman who, after 11 years of confinement in a Georgian village, flees to Vienna in search of freedom. As she builds a new life, a past that refuses to release her continues to shape her sense of belonging. Created over a decade under political pressure and personal risk, the film is effectively illegal in Georgia under anti-LGBTQ+ laws, forcing its makers to complete it abroad. Expanding on the award-nominated short Prisoner of Society (2018), the documentary blends immersive imagery with an intimate mother-daughter story to explore identity, resilience, and the complex meaning of liberation -standing as a powerful act of resistance against the erasure of queer lives.

• Level, Carlos Mora Fuentes & Anna Berkhof, Spain, 2026, 78΄ (World premiere)

Level is about landscapes. Landscapes that are irrevocably changing due to climate change. We have memories of landscapes that don’t exist anymore. We miss them. The different layers of the film are grounded by a universal narrative: the loss of a loved one leads to a period of introspection, but after a while there is more space for new things.

• Mummy’s Boys, Jesper Dalgaard, Denmark, 2025, 103΄ (International premiere)

More than twenty years after her death, the ghost of a highly manipulative mother lingers on the minds of her five sons who are now well into their middle-age, haunting them. In Mummy’s Boys, it all begins in 2002 with the resentful farewell letter she left behind; a letter which concluded with the bloodcurdling threat “I’ll be back!” The need to understand her toxic nature and make peace with their jumble of emotions sparks an inventive docudrama, where the skeletons in the closet take center stage, the real-life protagonists intertwine with actors, and the atmosphere evokes Hitchcock’s Psycho, Vinterberg’s family reenactments, and von Trier’s expressive versatility. So, what if cinema cannot ultimately heal wounds? What matters is that it’s able to stir something essential within us.

• Phosphene, Miguel Filgueiras, Portugal, 2026, 74΄ (World premiere)

Phosphene is an animal myth. It is an invitation to reflection, a juxtaposition of the comfort of the real with the discomfort of the imaginary. A liberation from realistic predicates, so that they may become poetic fictions. Its reality is that of the world of the mountains, of the humans and the other beings that inhabit them. It is composed of images revealing impactful events which, in themselves, are rigid blocks of courage for those who film and those who are filmed. It is a fable about the confrontation between man and the force of nature; the clash between the savage, the wild, and the civilized.

• The Culprits, Marta Duran Lozano, Spain, 2026, 85΄ (World premiere)

After carrying the silence of a teenage abortion for years, filmmaker Marta Duran Lozano gathers the anonymous testimonies of women who have lived through similar experiences. Alongside teenage girls who have recently had abortions, she embarks on a collective creative process, revisiting, embodying, and reimagining these intimate stories. The film traces an emotional landscape of fear, vulnerability, and quiet resilience, capturing the hidden struggles of young women navigating stigma, internalized guilt and inadequate institutional support. At a time when abortion rights are increasingly under threat, it emerges as a poignant act of solidarity, transforming loneliness into communion, shame into shared understanding, and secrecy into a space of fortitude and empathy.

• The Magic City - Birmingham According to Sun Ra, Guillaume Maupin & Pablo Guarise, Belgium-Italy-France, 2025, 97΄ (International premiere)

On May 22, 1914, Herman Poole Blount arrived on Earth in Birmingham, Alabama. He would become known many years later as Sun Ra and would become one of the most extraordinary and prolific jazz musicians of his century, as well as the founder of a strange cosmic philosophy. “The Magic City” known as Birmingham was a segregated city in the industrial South. Hostile at first glance, it was there that Sun Ra laid the foundations of his mystical thinking and his music, seeing in his city an incredible world full of signs. He left it for Chicago at the age of 32 and did not return until 1992, shortly before his death. Portraying this artist as a young man as much as portraying a city, TheMagic City tells the story of Sun Ra’s early years in this urban universe that was both political and magical, common and fantastic, disturbing and fascinating.

• Trine on Fire, Alexander Lind, Denmark, 2025, 94΄ (International premiere)

The flames lick up the wall as Trine, then 34 years old, watches in a mix of horror and a strange sense of calm. Eleven years later, she stands on the brink of a new beginning, but the journey has been marked by strange detours. The fire that sent her into the closed wards of forensic psychiatry still casts long shadows onto her life. Her parents, once her safe harbor, are now shaped by mistrust, and Trine wrestles with guilt and a nagging doubt about her own sanity. For three years, she has worked on a raw and unflinching performance—a piece meant to reveal her deepest truth—to her parents, the world, and, most importantly, herself. A remarkable journey toward freedom lies ahead.