DocsBarcelona 26

DocsBarcelona will open its 29th edition on May 7 with the Iranian film A Fox Under a Pink Moon, in which sixteen-year-old artist Soraya Akhlaghi documents her attempts to escape Iran, where she lives with her abusive husband, and reunite with her mother in Austria. The festival, which runs From May 7 to 17, 2026, also gives a glimpse of first selections in its Official and Visions Competition sections.

The Catalan docfest will also present a retrospective of Cousins’ work during the upcoming edition, which will take place May 7 to 17. Furthermore, during his visit to Barcelona, Cousins will give a masterclass and present the Spanish premiere of the first episode of his new series, The Story of Documentary Film, following its world and European premieres at the Sundance and Berlin festivals respectively.

In 2026 DocsBarcelona Pro will double the value of its awards to nearly 60,000 euros, of which 42,500 euros are paid in cash. The event will run May 9 to 14 during the 29th edition of DocsBarcelona (May 7 to 17, 2026). Professionals from around the world can apply for sic initiatives which include the Public, Rough Cut and New Tech pitches. The deadline for submissions is January 30, 2026, through Docs&Me.

In Lucía Flórez’s feature doc project, a boy from a fishing family and a pioneering female marine scientist set out to tag whale sharks for the first time in Peru. Together they forge an unlikely bond, reshaping both the fate of the species and the boy’s future. “We started working on this film in 2023, we are currently in production, and we want to complete the film by the end of 2027,” the director told the Barcelona audience. “We think that by connecting a young protagonist's journey with a scientific and conservation story, we invite audiences to see the complexity of how we relate and coexist with the ocean.”

The maverick US filmmaker will return to the festival to present the Spanish premiere of his feature doc debut on May 12 with a Q&A. The 29th edition of the festival also focuses on the ‘contemporary city’ with Docs&City, a mosaic of perspectives on Gaza, Barcelona, Granada, Tokyo and Damascus. DocsBarcelona runs May 7 to 17, opening with A Fox Under a Pink Moon by Iranian Mehrdad Oskouei.

“We don’t separate cinematic quality from impact,” DocsBarcelona’s Èric Motjer tells BDE before doors open on the festival’s 29th edition. “We value both. We look for films that connect with the world we live in and that have cinematic value. I would say that giving value to the collective cinematic experience is central to how we think about the programme.” The festival runs May 7 to 17. Motjer is joined in interview by co-Artistic Director Maria Colomer.

Siblings Mohamed Jabaly, Rima Jabaly and Ibrahim Jabaly made a highly emotional presentation of their feature doc project My Sister Gaza during the Public Pitch session of DocsBarcelona. In the film, as bombs fall over Gaza, Rima and Ibrahim find in filmmaking a way to document their family’s displacement, capturing months of struggle to survive and the shattering of lives. Meanwhile a desperately worried Mohamed, in exile in Norway, stays in daily contact. The project is described as “a raw, intimate story of war, love, resilience, and the unbreakable bonds of family.”

“Invisible Traces aims not only to shift the perception of ala kachuu (bride kidnapping) from a normalized ‘tradition’ to a recognized form of gender-based violence, but also to validate the lived experience of those affected,” renowned docmaker Nurzhamal Karamoldoeva tells BDE of her new feature project. When a theatre performance about bride kidnapping comes to a Kyrgyz village, 78-year-old Asylkan, abducted at 18, steps into the performance and changes its course…

Swiss producer Gaspard Vignon talks to Business Doc Europe about his doc that details attempts in Switzerland to reintegrate wolves into the countryside. “The wolf’s return carries a strong and polarised political debate in a lot of European countries, especially the alpine countries,” he says. “Inhabiting the Night is clearly a political manifesto and has an impact dimension, but not by addressing this debate directly. The question isn’t ‘pro or anti the wolf,’ but ‘how do we coexist, how do we share a common space?’”

The ARTE European Talent Development Award is part of “a strategic alliance that strengthens the role of the professional market as a key space for promoting new documentary projects in the context of increasing complexity in sector financing,” the festival writes. The ARTE professional prize joins others offered by the of Al Jazeera Documentary and 3Cat. Total prize money at DocsBarcelona Pro this year exceeds €66,000, of which €52,500 is in cash.