The 16th edition of D’A – Barcelona Film Festival completes its programme with 27 new additions that shape a truly outstanding edition, featuring established filmmakers and new auteur voices. In the Direccions section, devoted to filmmakers with consolidated careers, key names in contemporary cinema and films that have triumphed at international festivals, including some usual suspects who cannot miss D’A 2026 such as Hong Sangsoo. Take note: he already has another film in the pipeline, but at the festival we will see ¿Qué te dice esa naturaleza?, a bittersweet comedy premiered at the 2025 Berlinale. We will also present the new work by an undisputed master such as Tsai Ming-liang with Back Home, another of his supremely zen exercises centred on the walking monk, a recurring character in his filmography.
Also noteworthy is the addition to the final programme of six women directors: Alice Diop (Grand Jury Prize in Venice with Saint Omer), who presents Fragments for Venus, a short film about the representation of Black women’s bodies in everyday life and in museums, premiered at Giornate degli Autori of the 2025 Biennale; the return of Valérie Donzelli (Declaration of War), with À pied d’œuvre, winner of Best Screenplay in Venice with a work that combines emotion, humour and social commitment; Ari, by Léonor Serraille, who won the Caméra d’Or in Cannes with her debut feature Montparnasse Bienvenüe and has since consolidated a career focused on generational portraits; Nuestra tierra, by Lucrecia Martel, the first documentary by one of the great directors of world cinema; Autobiografia di una borsetta, by Joanna Hogg, recipient of the D’A 2025 Award, with a new short film premiered at the Biennale; and finally, L’aventura, by Sophie Letourneur, the opening film of ACID Cannes, also screened at the Gijón Festival, which concludes here a trilogy about a couple.
The section is completed by Ancestral Visions of the Future, by Lemohang Jeremiah Mosese, the filmmaker from Lesotho, a poetic and autobiographical essay on exile and identity, premiered at the Berlinale; Cartas a mis padres muertos by Chilean director Ignacio Agüero, a key figure in Latin American documentary filmmaking; and Hen, by György Pálfi, director of the cult film Taxidermia, which received a Special Mention in the Platform section in Toronto.
All these films join the previously announced new works by Werner Herzog, Hlynur Pálmason, Milagros Mumenthaler, Claire Denis and Mark Jenkin.