The D’A 2018 will once again be offering a platform for the very latest Spanish productions by leading, emerging and trendsetting directors, many of whom work independently. Luis López Carrasco returns to the festival after El futuro, the key movie of the new cinema being made in Spain, to present Aliens, a short that was premiered in Locarno and at the TIFF in Canada and which won the best short movie award at the Cinespaña festival in Toulouse. Also being screened is a film that was a huge hit at Berlinale 2018: the Spanish premiere of Con el viento, the fictional feature length debut of Meritxell Colell and starring Ana Fernández, Elena Martín (Júlia ist) and ballerina Mónica García; as well as the Catalan premiere of Penèlope by Eva Vila, which blends fictional elements with her documentary experience to reinterpret Homer’s epic Odyssey. It has taken Gustavo Sánchez quite some time, ten years to be precise, to complete his documentary I Hate New York, produced by J.A. Bayona, and which shows the B side of New York through the eyes of four transgender women from the underground scene. Completing the opening list of Spanish directors exhibiting at the festival are the unclassifiable genius Miguel Ángel Blanca with his film Quiero lo eterno, a poetic, nihilistic piece that follows a group of adolescents living in a reality of their own; and finally Grimsey, by Ricard García and Raúl Portero, produced by Zentropa España.