Asian Film Festival Barcelona (AFFBCN)

Description

The Asian Film Festival Barcelona celebrates its 14th edition

with an extensive showcase of the best contemporary Asian cinema

The Asian auteur film festival organized by Casa Asia is holding its fourteenth edition from October 22 to November 1. India will be the featured country this year, in conjunction with the Spain-India Dual Year 2026 celebration.
The film *In on a Winter's Night*, by Sanju Surendran, will headline the opening screening.
The Asian Film Festival Barcelona (AFFBCN), the Asian film festival organized by Casa Asia, will hold its fourteenth edition from October 22 to November 1.

True to its commitment to showcasing contemporary Asian cinema, the festival presents over a hundred films representing the continent's latest independent, experimental, and auteur works. The selection brings together films from 25 countries across the Asia-Pacific region—mostly produced between 2025 and 2026—with India taking center stage in this edition.

The AFFBCN program covers cinema from Central Asia, South Asia, Southeast Asia, East Asia, and the Asia-Pacific region. This edition pays special attention to both emerging film industries—such as those of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Mongolia, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Cambodia—and established industries with a long-standing presence at the festival, such as those of Iran, China, South Korea, Japan, and the Philippines. The lineup also includes titles from Hong Kong, Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam, as well as productions from Australia and New Zealand. India's prominent participation coincides with the Spain-India Dual Year 2026 celebration.

According to its director, Menene Gras Balaguer, the AFFBCN aims to establish itself as a key international showcase for Asian cinema and to continue winning over new audiences. "We want more and more viewers to discover the vitality and talent of these film industries, and to help ensure that their growing recognition translates into a greater presence in theaters and at festivals. We champion cinema that brings us closer to Asia's cultural diversity and invites us to understand the world through different perspectives."

INDIA: THE CENTRAL FOCUS OF THE PROGRAM
Among the more than one hundred selected titles, India holds a prominent place thanks to the "Focus India" program, which offers a chance to explore some of the most significant works of contemporary independent Indian cinema. This special section also establishes a dialogue with a retrospective dedicated to various Western perspectives on India from the mid-20th century to the present day.

"Focus India" brings together twelve films produced between 2025 and 2026, distributed across the festival's various competitive sections. Accompanying these is a retrospective comprising another twelve titles that explore Western cinematic representations of India between 1946 and 2023.

SANJU SURENDRAN’S *IF ON A WINTER'S NIGHT* TO OPEN THE FESTIVAL

The opening film of this edition is *If on a Winter's Night* (2025), the second feature film by Indian director and screenwriter Sanju Surendran. The film will be screened at the CaixaForum Barcelona auditorium following its world premiere at the Busan International Film Festival. According to Menene Gras Balaguer, the choice reflects "the festival's commitment to supporting independent cinema, addressing universal issues—such as internal migration to major cities—and helping to discover new talent early in their filmmaking careers."

This fourteenth edition of the AFFBCN also features a Special Session on Saturday, October 31—coinciding with the awards ceremony—which will include a screening of the Hong Kong film *We Are Nothing at All* (2025), directed by Herman Yau (b. 1961). The closing event will take place on Sunday, November 1, with a screening of the Korean drama *Journey There* (2025) by independent director and screenwriter Kim Jin-yu.

VENUES, COMPETITION SECTIONS, AND AWARDS
Cinemes Girona will once again serve as the main venue for screenings, alongside the festival's usual partner locations—with the exception of certain titles from the Retrospective, which will be available to watch via the FILMIN platform. The program is structured into five competitive sections: Official, Official Panorama, Discoveries, NETPAC, and Special Section. AFFBCN also features the "Nuevas Miradas" (New Perspectives) initiative, involving students from the Escola de Cinema de Barcelona (ECIB) and the Escola Superior de Cinema i Audiovisuals de Catalunya (ESCAC), with the aim of introducing new generations of filmmakers to the festival experience.

AFFBCN will present awards for Best Film, Best Director, and Best Screenplay in each of the competition sections. The awards will be decided by juries comprising filmmakers, critics, and specialists from the cultural and film sectors.

For the third consecutive year, the festival issued an international call for film submissions. This edition received 259 proposals, of which around twenty were selected for inclusion in the official program of AFFBCN 2026.

The Asian Film Festival Barcelona is supported by the ACS Foundation, the Catalan Institute of Cultural Companies (ICEC), the Barcelona Institute of Culture (ICUB), the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office, Brussels (HKETO), and the Confucius Institute Foundation of Barcelona (FICB), among other collaborating institutions.