• The International Competition brings together 12 films from ten countries that explore memory, identity, and territory through hybrid forms and daring narratives.
• 13 titles make up the National Competition, with stories that offer an intimate gaze on landscape, dissent, care, and the communities that inhabit them.
• Corte Final presents four Spanish works still in editing, where the personal essay serves as a way to address disappearances, silenced memories, and family bonds.
• The international jury includes professionals from the artistic, cinematic, and institutional worlds, such as Andrei Ujică, Alejandra Trelles, and Frédéric Maire.
• All competitive sections award both jury and audience prizes, in addition to the Fugas Award, which recognizes formal innovation and creative risk.

The Documenta Madrid 2025 festival, organized by the Department of Culture, Tourism and Sport of the Madrid City Council, transforms the city into a map of living memories and defiant narratives from May 6 to 11. In its 22nd edition, this international film festival will feature 25 competing films and four works-in-progress that challenge the boundaries of documentary through intimate, political, and experimental approaches. Partner venues —Filmoteca Española, Museo Reina Sofía, La Casa Encendida, ECAM, and Fundación Casa de México/UNAM-España— will host a cinema unafraid to look back in order to rethink the present.

Under the artistic direction of Luis E. Parés and the programming committee formed by Paola Buontempo, Javier H. Estrada, Ruth M. Somalo, and Florencia de Mugica, the festival strengthens its curatorial line focused on promoting national cinema, archive film as a memory tool, and auteur documentary as an aesthetic and political force. With a renewed visual identity that invites reflection on the city, time, and the materiality of this art form, Documenta Madrid 2025 will award €36,000 in prizes across its competitive sections and will give space to new voices and perspectives, both in competition and in parallel sections.

A Showcase of Documentary Diversity
The competitive sections maintain their three categories: the International Competition, the National Competition, and the Corte Final section, the latter aimed at Spanish works in advanced editing stages. The National and International Competitions offer both jury and audience awards, as well as the Fugas Award for formal innovation and creative risk. Corte Final grants a €4,000 distribution prize managed by Agencia Freak.

Ten Nationalities in the International Competition
The films in the International Competition explore ways of inhabiting the world through cinema and come from ten different countries. 7 promenades avec 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, fiction footage and real speeches are juxtaposed 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 intertwined science and psychedelia.

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

Other titles denounce contemporary violence: Sixty-seven Milliseconds, by Fleuryfontaine, reconstructs a police assault captured on surveillance cameras; The Diary of a Sky, by Lawrence Abu Hamdan, turns Beirut’s airspace into a sonic battlefield. The disappearance of Luciano Arruga is pieced together through archival materials 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 the museum to rethink art and resistance.

National Competition: Territories, Care, and Forms of Resistance
The National Competition films 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 fells a pine forest. Capitol vs. Capitol, by Javier Horcajada, contrasts two types of memory: archived and fleeting, captured via phones and social media. In Deuses de pedra, by Iván Castiñeiras Gallego, a young woman’s experience on the Galicia-Portugal border shapes an intimate portrait of time. Errotatiba, by Iratxe Fresneda Delgado, evokes the closure of the Egin newspaper from its abandoned offices. 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-activism perspective, 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 “hysterical woman” through medical and literary images, and Cuando lleguemos al claro, by Márton Tarkövi, observes creation as a silent bond between generations.

Nature features prominently in Pneuma, by Adrià Expòsit-Goy, offering a sensory experience in the forest. Recuerdos para el que por mí pregunte, by Fernando Vílchez Rodríguez, reconstructs the memory of Civil War prisoners through their letters, while 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.

Corte Final: Memory and Legacy
The films in Corte Final explore memory, legacy, and survival from both intimate and political perspectives. Atlas de la desaparición, by Manuel Correa, follows three families searching for the remains of their loved ones who disappeared during the Franco dictatorship. Corren las liebres, by Lorena Ros, offers a collective portrait of Romani women—trans, intersex, or migrants—who survive on the margins through art and dignity. In Fomos ficando sós, by Adrián Canoura, a son embarks on a journey inspired by footage his father shot decades ago at sea; and in La piel, by Javier Olivera, a family reflection emerges between three generations connected by fragments of filmed life.

An International Jury
The National Competition jury includes Dario Oliveira, director of the Portuguese festival Porto/Post/Doc; Frédéric Maire, director of the Cinémathèque Suisse; and Alejandra Trelles, director of the Uruguay International Film Festival. The International Competition jury includes Tania Pardo, director of CA2M and artistic curator; Romanian filmmaker Andrei Ujică, who features in one of this year’s special screenings; and Daniel Mann, winner of last year’s edition. The Corte Final jury will consist of Rafael Alberola, filmmaker, screenwriter, and head of ECAM Industria; María Oliva, distributor and founder of Sideral; and Luisa Espino, head of the Matadero Madrid Artists' Residency Center. A selection of profiles that embodies the dialogue between tradition and the avant-garde, industry and innovation.

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