• The festival takes over Madrid with 25 films in competition, five thematic programs, four projects in Corte Final, and six venues to showcase the diversity of the most daring documentary cinema.
• In its 22nd edition, the program revolves around archival material, memory, and new perspectives on social and political cinema.
• Documenta Madrid opens with two previously unseen films by architect Ricardo Bofill and his circle, recovered and restored after more than half a century.
• Women take center stage, with key figures like Ute Aurand, honored with a retrospective at the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, and Miranda Pennell at ECAM.
• Filmoteca Española dedicates a program to Palestinian filmmaker Kamal Aljafari, while Fundación Casa de México and UNAM-España dive into contemporary Mexican social cinema.
• La Casa Encendida joins the festival this year with the program When the United States Dared to Dream, a reflection on the country's recent history.
• The closing event features El secreto de Alberto Portera, including unseen materials from the neurologist about the El Paso art group and its contemporaries, with a live soundtrack by Abel Hernández Pozuelo.
• Ricardo Cases creates the festival’s visual identity with a radical gaze at Madrid’s Usera district.

Cineteca Madrid presented today the 22nd edition of Documenta Madrid, the International Film Festival of the Madrid City Council, organized by the Department of Culture, Tourism, and Sports. The festival will take place from May 6 to 11. This year, it reaffirms its commitment to cinema as a space for reflection, memory, and experimentation. The program—hosted primarily at Cineteca Madrid and also at Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Filmoteca Española, the School of Cinematography and Audiovisual Arts of the Community of Madrid (ECAM), La Casa Encendida, and Fundación Casa de México—offers a cinematic journey through diverse realities, bold languages, and narratives that challenge convention.

Under the artistic direction of Luis E. Parés and the programming committee made up of Paola Buontempo, Javier H. Estrada, Ruth M. Somalo, and Florencia de Mugica, the festival consolidates a curatorial line focused on supporting national cinema, archival film as a tool of memory, and auteur documentary as an aesthetic and political engine. With a renewed image that invites reflection on the city, time, and the materiality of cinema, Documenta Madrid 2025 will award €36,000 in its competitive sections and open up space to new voices and perspectives, both in competition and in its parallel sections.

Opening with the hidden legacy of Ricardo Bofill

The opening session will present a cinematic discovery: the recovery of two unseen films from the 1960s —Imagen de la ciudad (Ricardo Bofill, Óscar Tusquets) and Alucinación arquitectónica (Ricardo Bofill, Xavier Bagué, Peter Hodgkinson)— recently unearthed and digitized by RBTA Ricardo Bofill Taller de Arquitectura. These will be joined by Maldito niño by filmmaker Violeta Pagán, created in collaboration with young participants from Cineteca Madrid’s Dentro Cine School.

Official Competitions and Corte Final: a showcase of documentary diversity

The competitive sections maintain their three categories: International Competition, National Competition, and Corte Final, the latter dedicated to Spanish films in late post-production stages. Each section offers awards from both jury and audiences, and the Fugas award recognizes formal innovation and creative risk. Corte Final also includes a €4,000 distribution award managed by Agencia Freak.

The International Competition films explore ways of inhabiting the world through cinema. 7 promenades avec Mark Brown (7 Walks with Mark Brown), by Pierre Creton and Vincent Barré, turns a botanical walk into a reflection on natural beauty. In Another Other, by Bex Oluwayotin Thompson, fictional images are juxtaposed with real testimonies to denounce ideological repression. Oral tradition as collective identity guides Canone effimero, by Gianluca and Massimiliano De Serio; while John Lilly and the earth coincidence control office, by Michael Almereyda and Courtney Stephens, revisits the life of a scientist who blurred the lines between science and psychedelia.

The relationship between humans and animals is explored in Collective Monologue, by Jessica Sarah Rinland, and Palestinian memory emerges in Partition, by Diana Allan. In Postscript, by Ryan Ferko, Parastoo and Faraz Anoushahpour, lost images are reconstructed to rewrite history; along the same lines, Razeh-del, by Maryam Tafakory, unearths buried memories amidst the ruins.

Other films address contemporary violence: Sixty-Seven Milliseconds, by Fleuryfontaine, reconstructs a police assault captured by surveillance cameras; and The Diary of a Sky, by Lawrence Abu Hamdan, turns Beirut’s airspace into a sonic battlefield. The disappearance of Luciano Arruga is reassembled from archives in Todo documento de civilización, by Tatiana Mazú González, while What we ask of a statue is that it doesn't move, by Dafné Hérétakis, imagines a rebellious statue escaping from a museum to rethink art and resistance.

The films in the National Competition offer personal views on territory, memory, and resistance. Cambium, by Maddi Barber and Marina Lameiro, shows the transformation of the Navarrese landscape through a community that cuts down a pine forest. Capitol vs. Capitol, by Javier Horcajada, contrasts two forms of memory: the archived and the fleeting, captured on phones and social media. In Deuses de pedra, by Iván Castiñeiras Gallego, a young woman’s experience on the border between Galicia and Portugal shapes an intimate portrait of time.

Errotatiba, by Iratxe Fresneda Delgado, evokes the closure of the newspaper Egin through its abandoned spaces. Kukuaren kanta, a collective work from the Navarrese village of Lerga, captures the slow rhythm of a community. La casa y el ternero, by Rocío Montaño Parreño, portrays a combative and everyday Madrid. From a care-based activism, Las territorias, by Anna Brotman-Krass, reclaims domestic work as a symbol of dignity and resistance. Locas del ático, by Tamara García Iglesias, questions the historical representation of the “mad woman” through medical and literary imagery; and Cuando lleguemos al claro, by Márton Tarkövi, observes creation as a silent bond between generations.

Nature is present in Pneuma, by Adrià Expòsit-Goy, which offers a sensory experience in the forest. Recuerdos para el que por mí pregunte, by Fernando Vílchez Rodríguez, reconstructs the memory of Spanish Civil War prisoners through their letters; and Turismo de guerra, by Kikol Grau, blends humor and critique to address national memory. Finally, Un dragón de cien cabezas, by Helena Girón and Samuel M. Delgado, speculates on vegetal communication.

Finally, the films in the Corte Final section explore memory and heritage. In Atlas de la desaparición, by Manuel Correa, three families search for the remains of loved ones who vanished during the Franco dictatorship. Corren las liebres, by Lorena Ros, paints a collective portrait of trans, intersex, and migrant Roma women surviving on the margins with dignity and creativity. In Nos fuimos quedando solos, by Adrián Canoura, a son embarks on a journey following recordings his father made decades ago at sea. In La piel, by Javier Olivera, family reflection emerges across three generations united by fragments of filmed life.

Archival film at the center: five major retrospectives

This year’s parallel programming highlights archival footage as a trigger for new memories and as collective heritage. Memory as resistance: The cinema of Kamal Aljafari, in collaboration with Filmoteca Española, brings together key works by the Palestinian filmmaker exploring familial and national memory through a radical poetics of the archive. In partnership with La Casa Encendida, When the United States Dared to Dream features four films that revisit moments of cultural struggle and transformation. At Museo Reina Sofía, Ute Aurand. People, Places, Lives includes a masterclass to explore the work of the German experimental filmmaker.

Additionally, Un país extenso. Contemporary Mexican Documentaries, organized by Fundación Casa de México with the support of UNAM-España, provides a window into Mexico’s current documentary scene. And with ECAM, Returning the Gaze. Miranda Pennell Retrospective presents a student-curated program on the British filmmaker’s work.

Special screenings

Special sections include TWST: Things We Said Today by Andrei Ujică, which captures the Beatles’ arrival in New York as a metaphor for a turbulent America, and Vestida de azul (1983), Antonio Giménez Rico’s restored documentary about the lives of five trans women during Spain’s transition to democracy.

Cineteca Constellation

This program strengthens the bond between Documenta Madrid and other creative spaces at Matadero Madrid, featuring screenings that engage with urban history, memory, and contemporary artistic practices.

Projects include Viento del este by Maia Gattás, a journey to the West Bank in search of her missing father’s traces; La memoria es nuestra, a preview chronicling Madrid’s Barrio del Pilar from the perspective of its residents; and De matadero a vivero, a piece by Fernando Sánchez Castillo tracing the site’s hundred-year architectural history.

Activities, encounters, and training: spaces to reflect on cinema

Documenta Madrid 2025 is also a meeting space for professionals, students, and audiences. Activities include: The keynote lecture Producing Documentary Cinema by Daniela Alatorre, director of IMCINE, on Mexico-Spain co-productions; The speculative sound workshop It Shouldn’t Be There by Abel Hernández Pozuelo; The children’s audiovisual and archive workshop Be Kind Remind, led by filmmaker Camila de Lucas and critic Javier Rodríguez; and Documenta Pro, a professional forum in collaboration with Madrid Film Office

Closing: spotlight on the El Paso art group

The festival’s closing session will feature El rastro (Javier Aguirre, 1966), an unreleased film restored by ECAM and Filmoteca Española; and El secreto de Alberto Portera (David Plaza Sagrado), a selection of fragments by the neurologist and amateur filmmaker on the El Paso group and contemporary artists, restored by Fundación Juan March and accompanied by a live score by Abel Hernández Pozuelo.

Festival image

This year, photographer Ricardo Cases has been selected to develop Documenta Madrid’s visual identity. His work focuses on the outskirts of Matadero Madrid, particularly the Usera district—a transforming territory encapsulating many of the tensions of contemporary urban life.

An international jury

The National Competition jury includes Dario Oliveira, director of Portugal’s Porto/Post/Doc Festival; Frédéric Maire, director of the Cinémathèque Suisse; and Alejandra Trelles, director of the Uruguay International Film Festival. The International Competition will be judged by Tania Pardo, director of CA2M and art curator; Romanian filmmaker Andrei Ujică; and Daniel Mann, winner of last year’s edition. The Corte Final jury consists of Rafael Alberola (filmmaker and head of ECAM Industria), María Oliva (distributor and founder of Sideral), and Luisa Espino (head of the Artistic Residencies Center at Matadero Madrid). A selection of profiles that embodies the dialogue between tradition and avant-garde, industry and innovation at this 22nd edition of Documenta Madrid.

 

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