The Asian Film Festival Barcelona (AFFBCN), the Asian film festival organised by Casa Asia, will celebrate its fourteenth edition from 22 October to 1 November.
True to its commitment to promoting contemporary Asian cinema, the festival presents more than one hundred films representing the latest independent, experimental and auteur cinema from across the continent. The selection brings together works from 25 countries in the Asia-Pacific regionmostly produced between 2025 and 2026, with India taking centre stage in this year’s edition.
The AFFBCN programme encompasses cinema from Central Asia, South Asia, Southeast Asia, East Asia and the Asia-Pacific region. This edition pays particular attention to emerging film industries in countries such as Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Mongolia, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Cambodia, as well as established industries with a long history at the festival, including Iran, China, South Korea, Japan and the Philippines. The programme also includes films from Hong Kong, Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam, as well as productions from Australia and New Zealand. India’s prominent participation coincides with the celebration of the Spain-India Dual Year 2026.
According to its director, Menene Gras Balaguer, AFFBCN aims to establish itself as a leading international showcase for Asian cinema and to continue attracting new audiences. “We want more and more viewers to discover the vitality and talent of these film industries and to help ensure that their growing recognition translates into a greater presence in cinemas and at festivals. We are committed to cinema that brings us closer to the cultural diversity of Asia and invites us to understand the world from other perspectives.”
India, a central focus of the programme
Among the more than one hundred selected titles, India occupies a prominent place thanks to the Focus Indiaprogramme, which will allow audiences to explore some of the most significant works in the country’s contemporary independent cinema. This special section also enters into dialogue with a Retrospective devoted to different Western perspectives on India from the mid-twentieth century to the present day.
Focus India brings together twelve films produced between 2025 and 2026, distributed among the festival’s various competitive sections. These are complemented by a retrospective of twelve additional titles exploring Western cinematic representations of India between 1946 and 2023.
Opening, special screening and closing
The opening film of this edition is If on a Winter's Night (2025), the second feature film by Indian director and screenwriter Sanju Surendran. It will be screened at the CaixaForum Barcelona auditorium following its world premiere at the Busan International Film Festival. According to Menene Gras Balaguer, its selection reflects the festival’s commitment to supporting independent cinema, addressing universal issues such as internal migration to large cities and contributing to the discovery of new talent at the beginning of their filmmaking careers.
This fourteenth edition of AFFBCN will also feature a Special Screening on Saturday, 31 October, coinciding with the Awards Ceremony, accompanied by a screening of the Hong Kong film We are nothing at all (2025), directed by Herman Yau (1961). The closing ceremony will take place on Sunday, 1 November, with a screening of the Korean drama Journey There (2025), by independent director and screenwriter Kim Jin-yu.
Venues, competitive sections and awards
Screenings will once again take place primarily at Cinemas Girona, along with the venues that regularly collaborate with the festival. The online programme will be available through Betevé, which will offer a selection of titles, and the FILMINplatform, where some of the films from the Retrospective will be available. The programme is structured into five competitive sections: Official, Official Panorama, Discoveries, NETPAC and Special Section. AFFBCN also includes New Perspectives, comprising students from the Barcelona School of Cinema (ECIB) and the School of Cinema and Audiovisuals of Catalonia (ESCAC), with the aim of bringing a new generation of filmmakers closer to the festival experience.
AFFBCN will award prizes for Best Film, Best Director and Best Screenplay in each of the competitive sections. The awards will be decided by juries comprising filmmakers, critics and specialists from the cultural and film sectors.
For the third consecutive year, the festival opened an international call for film submissions. This year, 259 entries were received, twenty of which have been selected for inclusion in the official AFFBCN 2026 programme.
The Asian Film Festival Barcelona is supported by the ACS Foundation, the Catalan Institute for Cultural Companies (ICEC), the Barcelona Institute of Culture (ICUB), the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office in Brussels (HKETO) and the Confucius Institute Foundation of Barcelona (FICB), among other collaborating institutions.
Call for the Young Jury
AFFBCN 2026 will feature six juries, corresponding to the six competitive sections: the Official Selection, Official Panorama Selection, Discoveries Section, NETPAC Section, Special Section and New Perspectives Section. Following the success of the past two years, the festival will once again include the New Perspectives Section, with a Young Jury made up of students of film, visual arts and East Asian studies from universities in Spain and abroad.
