49 SHORT FILMS IN THE INTERNATIONAL COMPETITION AT ZINEBI 68

• The films come from 33 countries, and all of them will have their national premiere in Bilbao.
• Six Basque-produced short films and seven others from Spain will compete for the ZINEBI Grand Award.

The Short Film International Competition of the 68th edition of ZINEBI – International Festival of Documentary and Short Film of Bilbao, organized by the Bilbao City Council, brings together 49 works selected from over 3,300 submissions received from 33 countries. All selected films will celebrate their national premiere in Bilbao and will be screened across the eight Competition sessions taking place at the Arriaga Theatre from November 21 to 26.

This selection illustrates various approaches to world storytelling through fiction, documentary, and animation. According to the selection committee, it represents a cinema capable of surprising, questioning established certainties, and proposing new aesthetic, cultural, and political perspectives in contrast to dominant audiovisual consumption formats.

The competition features short films by prominent contemporary filmmakers. Among them is the Danish short ‘The Revolution Against Death’ by American director Joshua L. Oppenheimer (Oscar nominee for his 2013 documentary ‘The Act of Killing’ and director of the post-apocalyptic musical ‘The End’, starring Tilda Swinton, which premiered at the 2024 San Sebastián Festival); the German fiction short ‘The Spoon’ by acclaimed German director Nele Wohlatz, winner of the Best First Feature Award at Locarno for her debut feature ‘El futuro perfecto’ (which premiered nationally at ZINEBI in 2016) and recipient of the FIPRESCI International Critics’ Award in the Encounters section at the Berlinale for her second feature, ‘Sleep With Your Eyes Open’ (2024); and the Palestinian-Japanese documentary short ‘Masao Adachi Takes a Passport Photo’ (recently presented in Toronto), directed by Palestinian visual artist Kamal Aljafari, who was nominated last year for Best European Film by the European Film Academy for his documentary feature ‘With Hasan in Gaza’ (presented at ZINEBI 67).

Renowned figures are also returning to Bilbao, such as Colombian filmmaker Diana Bustamante—one of her country’s most influential producers and cultural managers, awarded at ZINEBI in 2022 for her feature film ‘Nuestra película’ and internationally recognized for her production work with directors such as Apichatpong Weerasethakul, César Augusto Acevedo, and Ciro Guerra. On this occasion, she presents her new short film, titled ‘El león’, which has screened at Cinéma du Réel (Paris) and Karlovy Vary.

Other directors with previous ZINEBI experience who return to Bilbao include the winner of the 2025 ZINEBI Grand Award, Hao Zhou, who will present his new work, ‘Already Happened’; and the filmmaking duo Ru Kuwahata and Max Porter. Their new animated film is titled ‘Cartoon Physics’. With their previous work, which won the ZINEBI Grand Award in 2017, they earned an Oscar nomination for Best Animated Short Film.

Additionally, ZINEBI will present the national premiere of the latest work by Brazilian visual artist Jonathas de Andrade, who represented his country at the 2022 Venice Biennale and whose work is held in the collections of museums such as Tate Modern in London and MoMA in New York. In Bilbao, he will present ‘Raftsmen and Canoeists’, filmed in the Brazilian state of Alagoas and world-premiered at the prestigious International Film Festival Rotterdam.

The competition includes titles addressing contemporary displacements, connections, and conflicts from diverse perspectives: the Palestinian film ‘A Tenderness’ by Sabrine Khoury; the Ukrainian co-production ‘Patronymic’ by Mariia Ponomarova; and the Afghan short ‘Forgotten Spaceman’ by Elham Ehsas.

Biscayan short filmmaker Raúl Barreras (editor of films such as ‘Benigno’ by David Baute, or ‘20,000 Species of Bees’ by Estíbaliz Urresola, for which he received a Goya Award nomination) presents his new directorial work, shot in the Baztan Valley, titled ‘Bitartean, gero’, which is part of the 2026 Kimuak catalog—the initiative promoting and distributing Basque short films internationally.

From the same catalog, ‘High River’, directed by Daniel Alegrete, has also been selected. This fiction short is set in a gay club in Bilbao during the August 1983 floods. The short film—part of the development process for a feature film Alegrete is preparing—participated in the Short Film Corner at the Cannes Film Festival as part of the 20cool4school program.

Meanwhile, Lower Navarre filmmaker Maia Iribarne collaborates with French director Violette Bellet on the documentary ‘Guretako eztia’, focusing on mourning beliefs and practices in Iparralde (the French Basque Country) and the relationship between death and bees. The short film originated from a series of interactive workshops conducted with teenagers from the Garazi Valley in Lower Navarre.

Also filmed entirely in Euskera, the latest work by Biscayan filmmaker Mikele Landa Eiguren (director of ‘Noizko basoa’, which premiered at the 2022 San Sebastián Festival) will have its world premiere at ZINEBI. Landa, who is currently working on her first fiction feature film, will present ‘Neska bat desagertu da’ in Bilbao, an experimental short film starring Garoa Bugallo Gorrotxategi.

Present for years at ZINEBI with award-winning films in Bilbao such as ‘Gure Hormek’ (Las chicas de Pasaik, 2016) or ‘Ancora lucciole’ (Maria Elorza, 2018), Gipuzkoan production company Txintxua Films returns to the International Competition with ‘Siurana’, filmed in Euskera in the province of Tarragona and directed by Esther Escudero. It stars Aitor Beltrán and Vera Milán.

The selection of Basque films in the international short film competition of the 68th edition of ZINEBI is completed by the animated film ‘Onena ura da’ by Vitoria-born director and producer Sonia Estévez, who specializes in stop-motion animation and previously presented works such as ‘Malkoak’ (2023) and ‘Plazer bat’ (2025) at past editions of the Festival—albeit in the Bertoko Begiradak section—both of which were nominated for Goya Awards.

Furthermore, ZINEBI will screen the following national films for the first time as part of the International Short Film Competition:

• “Algo en la casa” (Carla Pereira, 2026) is the latest work from the animator, producer, and director who has been nominated for three Goya Awards. In the film she presents at ZINEBI (co-produced with Abano Producións), she begins with the apparent harmony in which a married couple and their young daughter live, until their coexistence transforms into a tense carousel.
• “Los andares” (Sofía Esteve & Isa Luengo, 2026) had its world premiere at the recent edition of the prestigious Locarno Film Festival, and ZINEBI presents its national premiere in collaboration with the Gijón/Xixón International Film Festival – FICX. In it, a group of LGBTQ+ youth goes camping in a forest on the outskirts of Barcelona during a weekend in 1957.
• “Delta Kids” (‘Nens del delta’, Antoni Grañana, 2026) is a documentary depicting, from the perspective of this young director from Tarragona, the lives of three children living in the heart of the Ebro Delta—a rural world that is gradually disappearing.
• “En este día tampoco se encontró nada” (Irena Visa, 2026) stems from several years of continuous documentary research into archaeology before creatively veering toward fiction. Visual artist Irena Visa translates into cinema practices she has previously explored within the realm of sculptural installation.
• “Nervios de acero” (Beatriz Navas, 2026) is also linked to sculpture—specifically that of Juan Garaizabal. After presenting her previous work, the installation ‘Resolution: On Lifetime Decisions in Spanish Cinema’, at the Fashion Museum in Antwerp, ZINEBI premieres the new piece by this audiovisual policy expert.
• “Patio de luces” (Santiago Tabernero, 2026) is the latest fiction work by the film director and screenwriter who served as an international jury member at ZINEBI in 2025. The creator of ‘Versión española’ on TVE and director of ‘Life and Color’ (2005) returns to short filmmaking with this narrative centered on two teenagers.
• “?” (Gala Cubillo, 2026) is an experimental fiction work in which we experience a liminal journey as Alicia shares her reflections on art.