There’s something especially beautiful about a film shot here travelling around the world. Even more so when it comes back home to open our festival.
AMFF 2026 will launch its 16th edition with Forastera, Lucía Aleñar’s feature debut. A film shot in Mallorca, haunted by ghosts, grief and questions of identity, arriving at the festival after winning the FIPRESCI Prize in Toronto.
Aleñar will be joined by Zoe Stein and Lluís Homar at an opening that feels like a statement of intent: Balearic talent is living through one of its strongest moments. And this edition proves it.
Films with a voice of their own
This year’s Talent Balear section brings together nine feature films and twenty short films. Radically different cinema connected by something deeply AMFF: films that understand cinema as search, risk and personality.
There’s La Carn, by Joan Porcel, an emotional thriller blending desire and contemporary loneliness through digital cruising and virtual relationships. The film arrives after winning two Silver Biznagas at the Málaga Film Festival, including Best Film and Best Actor in Zonazine.
There’s also Érem una gran família, by Cristina Rosselló, which rescues one of the most fascinating home archives to emerge in years: decades of family footage filmed by a woman during Franco’s dictatorship. A film about memory, but also about who gets to record history.
And Miguel Eek presents Amilcar, probably one of the most ambitious films in this year’s programme. A documentary shot over more than a decade about Amílcar Cabral, a key figure in African anti-colonial thought, premiered at New York’s MoMA.
But Talent Balear is also about looking at the islands from uncomfortable places.
Marga Melià does exactly that in Soportant el paradís, where voices such as Miquel Barceló and Carme Riera reflect on Mallorca’s transformation through tourism, identity and Mediterranean contradiction.
And Óscar Bernàcer, after winning a Goya in 2025, presents the world premiere of En l’eixam, a psychological thriller about an apparently perfect community where, evidently, nothing ends up being perfect. A Mallorcan rural thriller for people who enjoy distrusting utopias.
From viral fame to Mallorcan haute cuisine
3.000 al mes, by Guillermo Broglia, Mario Figueroa and Jordi Barnés, follows for over a decade the life of Manuel Cortés, a Romani barber who went from total anonymity to cutting the hair of Bad Bunny and Cristiano Ronaldo after going viral online.
And Maria Solivellas, by Alex Dioscórides, enters the universe of the legendary restaurant Ca Na Toneta through a portrait of one of Mallorca’s most important chefs. A documentary about cuisine, territory, tradition and sustainability.
Balearic short films are having a moment
The Balearic presence expands this year with 19 short films ranging from documentary, essay, and horror to intimate fiction, experimental cinema, and awkward humor. These shorts have screened at national and international festivals, confirming the enormous formal diversity of the new Balearic cinema
- Los días azules, by Javier García Lerín
- Instrucciones para cocinar un pollo bajo tierra, by Olivia Delcán y Nacho Sánchez
- Gamberra, by Marine Auclair March
- L’Inocència, by Miki Durán
- Mannequin, by Juan Martínez Avellaneda
- La verdadera mentira, by Kilian IRZ Obermayr
- L’extinció dels mopis, by Pau Gelabert
- La Barraca, by Júlia Castaño
- Check Out, by Alba Bestard
- El último huésped, by Nazim Galoul Kanouni
- Utopus, by Jordi Nadal
- Correspondencias Afásicas, by Sergi Nicolau
- Santa Eulalia, by Ariadna Fortuny Cardona
- Asfixia, by Álvaro Benítez
- Nuredduna, de Marta Jaume Sastre y y Gisela Obradó
- El enamorado de la luna, by Laura Casasnovas
- Yo sí te creo, by Lourdes Segura
- A Dios le pido, by Ester Moyá
- Pulsiones, by Candela Benedetta
And also: celebrating 20 years of Yo
Twenty years ago, Rafa Cortés premiered Yo, one of the defining films of contemporary Balearic cinema. Two decades later, AMFF brings it back for a special screening celebrating a work that still feels profoundly alive.
A jury with its own perspective
The Talent Balear jury will be formed by writer Biel Mesquida, artist Claire O’Keefe and actress Llum Barrera.
Three voices closely linked to contemporary creation who will decide the awards of an edition confirming that Balearic cinema is going through one of its liveliest, most diverse and exciting moments.
And Atlàntida remains the place where all of this happens. 🔥