Albert Serra’s Sixteen Moments Of My Life is set to open San Sebastian’s Made in Spain strand, where this year’s 24-title selection includes three world premieres and 10 feature debuts, plus the latest films from Pedro Almodóvar, Isabel Coixet, Víctor García León and Júlia de Paz.
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After winning the Golden Shell at the festival for her 2024 matador feature doc Afternoons of Solitude – which also scooped a Goya Award for best documentary – Serra is back with a non-fiction portrait of German actress and singer Ingrid Caven, which will receive its Spanish premiere following an out-of-competition launch at Locarno. Filmed at Paris’s Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord, Sixteen Moments Of My Life features Caven performing songs inspired by 16 of her key experiences.
The Made in Spain section will close with the world premiere of Vanesa Benítez’s 200 Lives, Paco Rabal. Drawing on Super 8 footage and recordings of Rabal’s voice, the documentary retraces the Spanish actor’s travels, film shoots and festival appearances. One of the biggest icons of Spanish cinema, Rabal won a joint best actor award with co-star Alfredo Landa at Cannes in 1984 for Mario Camus’ The Holy Innocents. Rabal also received San Sebastian’s honorary Donostia Award in 2001.
This year’s other world premieres are the feature debuts Kotodama, The Way Of The Mirror, by cinematographer Eugenio Tardón and visual artist Carla Cañellas, and Juan Zavala and Javier Morales’s El Otro Chiquito.
Kotodama follows a woman travelling between the Camino de Santiago and Japan’s Shikoku Henro pilgrimage route, connecting language, calligraphy, landscape and memory. The filmmakers will present a related exhibition at the Chillida Leku museum during the festival.
Based on an idea by writer Diego San José, El Otro Chiquito (The Other Chiquito) revisits the 1990s phenomenon of flamenco singer and dancer-turned-comedian Chiquito de la Calzada’s, and his confrontation with the disturbingly similar Lucas Grijander, played by Florentino Fernández.
Pedro Almodóvar’s Cannes competition title Bitter Christmas, starring Bárbara Lennie, Leonardo Sbaraglia and Aitana Sánchez-Gijón, leads the established filmmakers. Isabel Coixet brings Toronto-launched relationship drama Three Goodbyes, while Víctor García León presents Málaga social comedy Better Class. The programme also includes Marta Díaz de Lope Díaz’s women’s-football drama Another League, Carlo Padial’s Pizza Movies, and Julia De Paz’s Tallinn prize-winner The Good Daughter.
The unusually large debut contingent ranges from intimate dramas to documentaries and genre-inflected survival stories. Aina Clotet presents Cannes Critics’ Week title Alive, centred on a breast cancer survivor’s urgent appetite for life. Bàrbara Farré’s foster-care drama Bad Beast and Laura García Alonso’s Runner, about an elite athlete recovering from a psychotic episode, arrive from Málaga, alongside Marta Matute’s Golden Biznaga-winning adolescent drama I Won’t Die Of Love. Ian de la Rosa’s greenhouse-set romance Iván & Hadoum took Berlin’s Teddy Award.
The other debuts are Berta García Lacht’s Barcelona cinema tribute Life Is Verdi; Afioco Gnecco and Carolina Yuste’s trans-themed non-fiction feature This Body Of Mine; Jorge A Lara and Fer Pérez’s jury-corruption comedy The Righteous; and Fernando Trullols’s Pyrenean survival drama Balandrau, Where The Fierce Wind Blew.
The non-competitive selection moves between star-led fiction, queer and feminist stories, social comedy, cultural biography, sport and landscape-driven documentary. Its 10 debuts provide the discovery element, while the volume of titles previously launched at Cannes, Berlin, Málaga, Valladolid, Tallinn and Gijón underlines Made in Spain’s parallel role as an international shop window for the year’s Spanish production.
Made in Spain 2026
Sixteen Moments Of My Life
Dir. Albert Serra
200 Lives, Paco Rabal (world premiere)
Dir. Vanesa Benítez
Bitter Christmas
Dir. Pedro Almodóvar
Kotodama, The Way Of The Mirror (world premiere; debut)
Dir. Eugenio Tardón, Carla Cañellas
Alive (debut)
Dir. Aina Clotet
Three Goodbyes
Dir. Isabel Coixet
Another League
Dir. Marta Díaz de Lope Díaz
The Guests
Dir. Cristina Diz, Stefan Butzmühlen
Bad Beast (debut)
Dir. Bàrbara Farré
Runner (debut)
Dir. Laura García Alonso
Better Class
Dir. Víctor García León
Life Is Verdi (debut)
Dir. Berta García Lacht
This Body Of Mine (debut)
Dir. Afioco Gnecco, Carolina Yuste
I Won’t Die Of Love (debut)
Dir. Marta Matute
Pizza Movies
Dir. Carlo Padial
The Good Daughter
Dir. Júlia de Paz
The Righteous (debut)
Dir. Jorge A. Lara, Fer Pérez
La Carn
Dir. Joan Porcel
El Abrazo De Los Peces (15 Años Después)
Dir. Chema Rodríguez
Iván & Hadoum (debut)
Dir. Ian de la Rosa
And So The Night Fell
Dir. Ángel Santos Touza
Balandrau, Where The Fierce Wind Blew (debut)
Dir. Fernando Trullols
Homeland Of The Ice Cream Sellers
Dir. Maite Vitoria Daneris
El Otro Chiquito (world premiere)
Dir. Juan Zavala, Javier Morales
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