Producer, director, and screenwriter Maria Colomer has been appointed new Head of Programming and Co-Artistic Director of DocsBarcelona. Colomer will work alongside Èric Motjer, the current Head of Industry, to co-lead the creative and strategic vision of the festival.
Colomer succeeds Anna Petrus, who held the position of Programming Director and Artistic Director at DocsBarcelona since 2023, bringing “bold, diverse, and committed programming choices,” the festival writes.
Colomer and Motjer are “determined to create a festival that stands out not only for its quality but also as an inclusive space for all voices and audiences. From the most rigorous specialization to the most accessible outreach, embracing all the nuances in between,” the festival adds.
The next edition of DocsBarcelona will take place May 8 to 18 2025 with the aim to deliver “10 days of the best documentary cinema premieres to Barcelona,” alongside an Industry Program, running May 12-16, which has become a key meeting point and reference for the non-fiction sector in Southern Europe. The festival will also feature several parallel activities and visits from filmmakers worldwide.
About Maria Colomer (bio supplied by DocsBarcelona)
Graduating in Audiovisual Communication from the Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona, Colomer furthered her studies with a Master’s in Film and Media at the University of Copenhagen. Her professional career began at The Why Foundation in Denmark, where she worked for six years as producer for the documentary series Why Stories, broadcast in over 100 countries via channels like BBC World News. At the same time, she collaborated with Nick Fraser at the documentary platform Docsville as acquisitions assistant.
Throughout her career, Colomer has combined production work with research and coordination in documentaries such as Magaluf Ghost Town by Miguel Ángel Blanca, A Storm Foretold by Christoffer Guldbrandsen, and The Mole: Undercover in North Korea by Mads Brügger. She also co-wrote her first feature film, Les Perseides, which premiered at BAFICI in 2019.
Her directorial debut, the documentary short Diciotto, premiered at Nordisk Panorama in 2020. Her second documentary short, The Painter’s Room, premiered at the Málaga Film Festival in 2024 as part of the ShortCat program.
In recent years, Colomer has worked as a producer at Nanouk Films, where she served as executive producer for projects like Supernatural by Ventura Durall and the documentary short La desesperació de la pell by Mireia Vilapuig. She also co-ordinated productions such as the TV movie Sis Nits d’Agost and the feature film Quest.
Currently, she is executive producer at Glia Films, a new production company she co-founded with Ventura Durall. Colomer is also a member of the board of PROA and vice president of ProDocs.
