ALCINE, the longest-running film festival in the Community of Madrid, a leading short film festival and a qualifying festival for the Academy Awards® and the Goya Awards, has announced the 46 films selected for the National and European competitions at its 55th edition. The selection includes award-winning shorts from festivals such as Valladolid, Málaga, Krakow and Cannes Critics’ Week, which will compete for the First Diamond in each competition.
Many of the directors have previously taken part in ALCINE, and some have won awards for earlier work at the Alcalá de Henares / Community of Madrid Film Festival. They include Gala Hernández (First Diamond in the National Competition at ALCINE 54 for +10K, and winner of the César for Best Documentary Short Film for La mecánica de los fluidos), presenting Like Moths to Light at ALCINE 55; Frank Sweeney (Second Diamond in the European Competition at ALCINE 53 for Few Can See, which also won a Tiger Short Award in Rotterdam), with Go Ye Afar; Guil Sela (Third Diamond in the European Competition at ALCINE 54 for Montsouris), with No Skate!; Christian Avilés (Movistar+ Award at ALCINE 52 for La herida luminosa), with Stallion y la bola de cristal; and Natalia Marín Sancho (ALCINE Trophy for Best Screenplay at ALCINE 49 for La casa de Julio Iglesias), with Crónica del cansancio, among others.
ALCINE 55 will also welcome back directors and screenwriters already established in feature filmmaking, including Pablo Hernando (Una ballena), competing with Los Divulgators; Teresa Bellón and César F. Calvillo (Buscando a Coque), with In memoriam; and Avelina Prat (Una quinta portuguesa), with Principio de incendio sobre paisaje desierto.
Several short films come to ALCINE 55 following screenings at other national and international festivals. They include Vaterland oder ein Bule namens Yanto, by Berthold Wahjudi, winner of the Canal+ Award for Short Film at Cannes Critics’ Week 2026; No skate!, by Guil Sela, winner of the Silver Spike at SEMINCI 2025; Stroiciele (The tuners), by Pawe? Chorz?pa, winner of a Silver Dragon at Krakow 2026; Ningú borda, by Júlia Coldwell Serra, winner of the Luna de València Award for Best Short Film at Cinema Jove 2026; Should virtual Petz die?, by Carlo Galbiati, winner of the Mikeldi Award for Best Animated Short Film at ZINEBI 2025; and Pinchu es así, by Carmen Córdoba González, winner of the Silver Biznaga for Best Animated Short Film at Málaga 2026.
Animation, the central theme of ALCINE 55, will feature prominently with titles such as The End, by Niki Lindroth von Bahr, selected for the official short film competition at Cannes 2026; Daughters of the Late Colonel, by Elizabeth Hobbs, an award winner in Melbourne and Ottawa following its screening at Cannes Directors’ Fortnight; El cuerpo de Cristo, by Bea Lema, adapted from her work that won Spain’s National Comic Award in 2024; and La veritat et rebutja, Cornelius, by Khris Cembe and Marc Torices, selected to compete at SEMINCI 2026, alongside the titles already mentioned.
The cast of the 46 films (21 in the National Competition and 25 in the European Competition) includes Toni Acosta, Cristina Soria and Pilar Gómez (In memoriam), Nacho Sánchez and Olivia Delcán (Instrucciones para cocinar un pollo bajo tierra), Berlinale Silver Bear winner Thea Ehre (TMWYH), and Julián Genisson (Los divulgators), among others.
ALCINE 55, organised by the Department of Culture of Alcalá de Henares City Council, will present the winner of each competition with the festival’s First Diamond, €3,000 and a trophy. The winning films will also qualify for consideration for the Academy Awards®.
• Primer fuego, by Blanca Camell Galí
• Una mujer que conocí llamada Yudita, by Rodrigo Agüeria
• Principio de incendio sobre paisaje desierto, by Avelina Prat García
• Ningú borda, by Julia Coldwell Serra
• Instrucciones para cocinar un pollo bajo tierra, by Nacho Sánchez and Olivia Delcán
• La veritat et rebutja, Cornelius, by Khris Cembe and Marc Torices
• Llámame, llévame, avísame, by Lucía Romero
• Pinchu es así, by Carmen Córdoba González
• You are not a real woman, by Marta Romero and Kha Villanueva
• In memoriam, by Teresa Bellón Sánchez and César F. Calvillo
• Los divulgators, by Pablo Hernando
• El ensayo, by Alberto Martín Menacho and Carmen Ayala Marín
• Only rats, by Paz del Carre
• Crónica del cansancio, by Natalia Marín Sancho
• El desencanto, by Marta Martín Bueno
• El cuerpo de Cristo, by Bea Lema
• El santo que vestí, by María Monreal
• No hay camino, by Luciana Espinoza Hoempler
• Los rapaces, by Julu Martínez
• Unplug, by Comandante Bebé
• Stallion y la bola de cristal, by Christian Avilés
• Like moths to light, by Gala Hernández López
• Visite en terre irradiée, by Anne-Sophie Girault
• TMWYH, by Helen Esther Aschauer
• Go ye afar, by Frank Sweeney
• Trio, by Morten Borgestad and Fridtjof Stensæth Josefsen
• No skate!, by Guil Sela
• 2:Love, by Ronni Shalev
• Son, by Leona Cauklija
• I will try to find you in the new system, by Gabriele Biasi and Alberto Moscone
• Ce qui n'existe pas n'existe pas, by Lazare Gousseau, Franck Morand and Guillaume Senez
• Dzisiaj przy?ni mi si? woda (Tonight I'll dream about water), by Adrianna Matwiejczuk
• Our land of enchantment, by Annabelle Amoros
• Should virtual Petz die?, by Carlo Galbiati
• Stroiciele (The tuners), by Pawe? Chorz?pa
• Beneath the night, by Maximilian Karakatsanis
• If only, by Ada Güvenir
• Cacciatori d'uranio, by Davide Palella
• Vaterland oder ein Bule namens Yanto (A Bule named Yanto), by Berthold Wahjudi
• Daughters of the late colonel, by Elizabeth Hobbs
• La durmiente, by Maria Inês Gonçalves
• Sand i tissen, by Ingrid Runde Saxegaard
• The end, by Niki Lindroth von Bahr
• Daria's night flowers, by Maryam Tafakory
• Bär Bär, by Clara Schulze
• Dammen, by Grégoire Graesslin
Six jury members, three for each competition, will select the winning short films at ALCINE 55. The National Short Film Competition jury comprises Maryam Harandi, an Iranian filmmaker based in Asturias who won the Second Diamond in the National Competition at ALCINE 53 for La palmera, a personal exploration of the connections between East and West; Núria Gascón, a filmmaker and cinematographer trained at the Cinema and Audiovisual School of Catalonia (ESCAC), whose cinematography credits include Animal salvatge, Ferides and Plàncton, for which she received the WELAB Award for Best Cinematography at ALCINE 54; and Peter Cerovšek, a Slovenian filmmaker, critic and programmer, and director of FeKK, the Ljubljana International Short Film Festival.
The European Short Film Competition jury comprises Lucía G. Romero, a Barcelona-born director and screenwriter trained at ESCAC, whose short film Cura sana won the Generation 14plus Crystal Bear at the Berlinale and the Movistar+ and Audience awards at ALCINE 53; Choche Hurtado, an illustrator, designer and animation filmmaker who won the Community of Madrid Award at ALCINE 54 for Furia; and Jordi Costa, a film critic, writer and exhibition curator who has headed the exhibitions department at the Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona (CCCB) since 2019.
ALCINE will soon announce the films selected for AL(U)CINE, its fantasy and horror section; (J)ALCINE, dedicated to comedy shorts; and Pantalla Abierta, the section showcasing debut feature films by directors who previously worked in short film and took part in ALCINE.
