• The international competition brings together films from 16 countries that explore the image as a site of conflict and a field of contemporary dispute.
• In the national competition, the films draw on personal experiences to build narratives shaped by territory and forms of resistance.
• The "Corte Final” section presents works-in-progress that revisit memory through intimate and evolving processes.
• The three sections consolidate a curatorial approach that positions cinema as a critical tool and a space for reflection.
• Alongside Cineteca Madrid, Documenta Madrid takes place at Filmoteca Española, Museo Reina Sofía, La Casa Encendida, ECAM, and Goethe-Institut.

Documenta Madrid International Film Festival, organized by the Department of Culture, Tourism and Sport, will hold its 23rd edition from May 26 to 31 at Cineteca Madrid and other venues across the city (Filmoteca Española, Museo Reina Sofía, La Casa Encendida, ECAM and Goethe-Institut). With 26 films and four projects in competition, and under the artistic direction of Luis E. Parés, this year’s program is structured around the concept “Taking the Pulse,” a look at direct cinema that highlights its ability to capture contemporary reality without mediation, registering its tensions, conflicts, and transformations in real time.

Competitive Sections

The competitive sections are structured into three categories: international competition, national competition, and Corte Final, dedicated to Spanish projects in advanced stages of editing. Both the national and international competitions award jury and audience prizes, as well as the Fugas award, which recognizes formal innovation and creative risk, with a total of €36,000 in prizes. Corte Final includes a distribution award granted by Agencia Freak, valued at €6,000.

The image as a contested territory in the international competition

The international competition brings together films from 16 countries that approach contemporary imagery as a field of dispute. In Afterlives (screening May 28), Kevin B. Lee investigates latent violence within the audiovisual ecosystem; As estações (May 27), by Maureen Fazendeiro, interweaves oral memory and history in Portugal’s Alentejo region; Debut, or, Objects of the Field of Debris as Currently Catalogued (May 29), by Julián Castronovo, turns research into an ungraspable archive of the digital; and El príncipe de Nanawa (May 30), by Clarisa Navas, follows a coming-of-age journey in a border context between Argentina and Paraguay. From a political essay perspective, Evidence (May 29), by Lee Anne Schmitt, revisits the structures of conservative thought in the United States, while Far from Beyrouth (May 28), by Mon Dewulf, constructs a visual correspondence shaped by distance and war.

The section also includes works such as Lengua muerta (May 30), by Chilean filmmaker José Jiménez, centered on the unspeakable, as well as films screening on May 27: Lloyd Wong, unfinished, by Lesley Loksi Chan, reflecting on the legacy of images in Canada’s queer memory; Nova ’78, by Aaron Brookner, revisiting countercultural imaginaries around William Burroughs; and Perseidas, by Natalia del Mar Kasik, returning cinema to a primordial experience.

The selection is completed by Remake (May 29), in which Ross McElwee reflects on how the compulsion to film has shaped his life and those around him; two films with a postcolonial perspective, Except the Past (May 30), by Sanaz Azari, and The Recce (May 28), by Daniel Mann; and With Hasan in Gaza (May 28), by Kamal Aljafari, set in Gaza in 2001. All of them are marked by a reflection on the archive, representation, and the power relations embedded in images.

National competition: new forms of resistance from the intimate

The national competition presents a set of works that explore territory, affect, and forms of resistance from personal perspectives. In Atlas de la desaparición (May 29), Manuel Correa follows processes of searching linked to historical memory; Crías (May 27), by Xiana do Teixeiro, activates an archive of adolescent female writing; and Después de las ciudades (May 28), by Xacio Baño, constructs the city as a device of memory through mediated images. Time and introspection run through El milagro (May 30), by David Varela, while Estados generales (May 29), by Mauricio Freyre, explores the enduring traces of colonial violence.

From the perspective of care, Este cuerpo mío (May 27), by Afioco Gnecco and Carolina Yuste, documents a gender transition process shaped by intimacy and affection. Family memory and archival material intertwine in Fomos ficando sós (May 30), by Adrián Canoura, while sensory experience takes center stage in Krakatoa (May 28), by Carlos Casas.

The section is completed by Like Moths to Light (May 28), by Gala Hernández López, reflecting on the exposure of inner life in the technological age; No hay camino (May 29), by Luciana Espinoza Hoempler, observing migration from a distance filtered through image and technology; OAO (May 27), by Rocío Mesa, connecting with primal emotions; and Perpetual Radiance (May 28), by Magdalena Orellana, finding a core of beauty in urban fragmentation.

‘Corte Final’: films in progress revisiting memory and inheritance 

‘Corte Final’ section brings together Spanish projects in advanced stages of editing that address memory and inheritance from intimate perspectives. Screening on May 28, Escribir nuestro nombre y seguir, by Fernando Vílchez Rodríguez and Lili Albornoz, follows women reconstructing a memory marked by violence; and Las termas, by Armin Marcheisini Weihmuler, approaches old age through affection and fragility. Additionally, Memorias del exilio (May 27), by Manuel Correa, explores the traces of political violence with restraint; and Río (May 27), by Chus Domínguez Sánchez and Nilo Gallego Rodríguez, proposes an experience of estrangement through sound, landscape, and displacement. These works point toward a cinema in process that finds in editing and formal exploration a way to continue questioning the present.

A distinguished jury

Each section will feature its own jury composed of figures from the artistic and film worlds, representing different ways of engaging with contemporary images. The international competition jury includes filmmaker Jessica Sarah Rinland; Laura García-Lorca, president of the Federico García Lorca Foundation; and Christophe Piette, programmer at CINEMATEK, the Royal Belgian Film Archive. The national competition jury consists of Hélder Beja, director of Doclisboa; Maite Conesa, director of the Filmoteca de Castilla y León; and Iris Martín-Peralta, curator and film producer.

The Corte Final jury includes documentary producer Rocío Cabrera; Aimar Arriola, head of the Intermediae program at Matadero Madrid; and programmer Joan Sala. The section also includes the Agencia Freak distribution award and the CineZeta Young Jury Award.

Documenta Madrid 2026  

Documenta Madrid is the City of Madrid’s International Film Festival and one of Spain’s leading platforms for exhibition, reflection, and creation around non-fiction cinema. In its 23rd edition, the festival reaffirms its commitment to cinema as a tool for observing the present, promoting auteur filmmaking, formal experimentation, and dialogue with the history of the seventh art.

Organized by Cineteca Madrid, the festival maintains its three competitive sections—international, national, and Final Cut—alongside a parallel program across venues such as Filmoteca Española, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, La Casa Encendida, ECAM, and Goethe-Institut, consolidating its role as a meeting point for filmmakers, professionals, and audiences.