Fifteen years are much more than the time they bring together. Much more when they are the result of human teams and, in addition, the material of which time and dreams are made becomes a cinematographic film. Never before have we looked back to understand the horizon we could reach in the future. These fifteen editions, and these fifteen recommendations, bring together this revealed purpose: the screen, the big screen as a genuine, dynamic and changing horizon, like these stories and these characters that bring us together around the past, present and future of what we love: cinema.
The Universal Language
One of the most surprising films of recent years: fresh, multiethnic, absurd, surprising; a sublime trompe l’oeil, with echoes of Roy Andersson, Aki Kaurismäki and Wes Anderson. A great comedy shot in a freezing Winnipeg, or not…
Super Happy Forever
I recommend all the Asian films present at D’A 2025, but Kohei Igarashi’s film, which participated successfully at the last Venice film festival, deserves special mention: it takes us into grief, love and the search for happiness that everyone seeks at all costs. 100% Japanese cinema.
Sorda
The perfect example of how to make a short that will later become a feature film. The work could be considered the most representative Spanish piece of the Berlinale 2025: with a very good reception and a public award. A very special preview at D’A 2025: courage, audacity and diversity are its best calling cards.
Wishbone
One of the advantages of going to festivals to see films is, without a doubt, the possibility of discovering filmmakers. In Thessaloniki I discovered Penny Panagiotopoulo. The Greek director surprises us with this film, very close to Romanian cinema and style, for its cadence and ways of portraying the struggle for daily life, history and the effects of governments. Another discovery, the theatre actor Giannis Karampampas: his performance as Kosta, the protagonist of the film, is outstanding.
Orenda
A beautiful intimate film with echoes and themes very much of Bergman and Fellini. Pirjo Honkasolo is a director who flies free: she masterfully films to explain to us, with slow and classic forms, the past and beliefs; there were the beautiful places impose their telluric force.
Duro
Directed by the actor Francesc Cuéllar, excellent in two of the most striking plays of recent seasons such as La jauría and La herencia. Duro presents a risky paratheatrical game: the change of roles to talk to us about sexist violence and the rigidity of the patriarchy. In the stories we will see in this film, everyone will feel reflected. And it is that perhaps we have experienced this type of situation on many more occasions than we would have wished.
Banzo
Margarida Cardoso suma la seva autoria a altres cineastes que han plasmat el passat colonial i imperialista portuguès. Amb encert i autocrítica, com Miguel Gomes a Tabú, la pel·lícula comparteix l’imponent actor Carloto Cotta com a protagonista i, en certa manera, també la saudade, aquí materialitzada en una malaltia que va afectar les excolònies.
Delirium
Auteurfantasy cinema is present at genre festivals, but at D’A we also take it as a good line of programming. There is Cronenberg, but also New Dawn Fades or Peacock. In Delirium, three generations of women live in an almost isolated house. This is a social portrait of family care with fantastic touches.
Salomé
Neon, fluorine and lysergic trips always bring joy to our retinas. In Salomé, all this is guaranteed. A film that breaks the LGTBIQ+ molds, where nothing is logical, and everything is possible. Desire, flesh, sex and drugs move borders and part of the universe; and the universes of Marc Ferrer, Yann Gonzalez, Patric Chiha or Mandico are very present.
New Dawn Fades
Mysterious visual, sensorial and vital journey through a city, Istanbul, which appears as a threatening place. An unstable protagonist gets lost in that place, but also in the recesses of his mind. A protagonist lost between sanity and madness, who ends up in a sect that wants to rule the world. The sound and musical work are impressive, and the protagonist walks his disturbing beauty through the most emblematic places of the city.
The Devil Smokes
Still with fond memories of the endearing children in Samuel Kishi’s magnificent film The Wolves, a Mexican director once again proposes a film with several kids as protagonists. They are 5 girls and boys who live in an existential autarky and who defend themselves, through games, from the abandonment of their parents and the threatening hand of social services.
Exercises to see God
Our most rebellious, free, renovator and vital director returns, breaking the molds of cinema and narration. Exercises to See God is a local Apocalypse Now, and a metacinematographic/television game, to the rhythm of a reality show: to enjoy with witches, mystics, visionaries, believers, and incisive presenters.
To Kill a Mongolian Horse
Immersing ourselves in the landscapes and traditions of Mongolia will help us to perfectly understand how the world is changing. Whether due to climate change or tourism, no natural landscape is left untouched by the effects caused by humans. Tradition and modernity, a dichotomy that is masterfully portrayed in this fil
Holy Cow
As a person born in a mountain village, the peripheral and the rural attract me. The vicissitudes of people from the areas furthest from the city interest me. I still fondly remember when we programmed Julien and now, again in a French film, the young people are wonderfully friendly, fighters, free and autonomous to live, love, share, with the help of the most sincere and frank friendship… Here with the purpose to make the best Comté cheese in the world.
Focus Roberto Minervini
We present the work of one of the great contemporary directors, a fully-fledged expat, an Italian living in the USA, who has lived in Spain for several years. His films are timeless, reflective, fine portraits of American society in which the most invisible social class becomes visible, and always with respect. A director who has competed and participated in the best festivals and who during the D’A we will have at the Filmoteca presenting his films. Highly recommended, a great opportunity to learn about or delve deeper into his work.