October Film Festivals in and around Barcelona

October’s calendar is packed with an impressive list of film festivals in and around the city. You’ll find gritty investigative documentaries at CLAM International Social Film Festival, hair-raising fantasy and horror at Sitges International Film Festival, hauntingly beautiful dance films at Choreoscope, hardcore music docs at IN-EDIT and so much more!

Barcelona Jewish Film Festival

October 3-30, 2024, Barcelona

Barcelona’s Festival Cinema Jueu is dedicated exclusively to celebrating the artistry and creativity of Jewish culture, which is itself inextricably bound to the city and to Spain. Each year the festival delivers a diverse series of cinematic and artistic projects exploring a variety of genres and topics in great depth: from documentaries and feature films to independent shorts and audiovisual pieces.

Highlights in this year's program include Günter Schwaiger's documentary Who Is Afraid of Hitler’s Town? (Austria, 2023) which relates the controversial story of the Führer's birthplace, how the town struggles with the weight of his legacy and the question of what to do with the building he lived in as a toddler; Noé Debré's feature-length directorial debut Le Dernier des Juifs (France, 2023) a French comedy-drama about two Jews who are the last ones living in their neighborhood, and eerily seems almost to have predicted the rise in antisemitism in the wake of the outbreak of war between Israel and Hamas; and James Schamus' directorial debut Indignation (USA, 2016), takes place in 1951, telling the story of a working-class Jewish student from New Jersey who attends a small, very Christian Ohio college where he struggles with sexual repression, his religious heritage and the ongoing Korean War.

Films are screened in original version with Catalan or Spanish subtitles. You can get tickets at Filmoteca de Catalunya (€4 a session) and Institut Français. You can also catch screenings in Girona at Cinemes Truffaut Girona. fcjbarcelona.org

Sitges International Film Festival

October 3-13, 2024, Sitges

Sitges turns into a film lover’s paradise for a week of screenings, exhibitions and presentations of fantasy films from across the world. With a solid track record, the Sitges International Film Festival offers a stimulating framework for meetings, exhibitions, presentations and screenings. Born in 1968 as the 1st International Week of Fantasy and Horror Movies, today the festival is an essential rendezvous for movie lovers and audiences eager to come into contact with new tendencies and technologies in film and the audiovisual world.

Films confirmed this year include A Different Man by Aaron Schimberg, an A24 production starring Sebastian Stan; Exhuma by Jang Jae-hyun is one of the best examples of supernatural horror in recent years featuring Choi Min-sik; Azrael by E. L. Katz with Samara Weaving is a delicious blend of folk and survival horror; Timestalker, Alice Lowe's bawdy reincarnation rom-com will take you back to the past and The Devil's Bath from Austrian filmmakers Veronika Franz, Severin Fialaand.

Films will be screened at the Hotel Meliá Sitges. Tickets start at €11.50 a session and can be purchased online at sitgesfilmfestival.com.

IndieFest, Barcelona Indigenous Film Festival

October 9-20, 2024, Barcelona

IndiFest, Festival de Cine Indígena de Barcelona gives indigenous peoples a voice on the creative scene, allowing them to bring their demands for compliance with their internationally-recognized rights to a wider audience. The festival advocates for political and social mobilization, with activities that range from audiovisual projections to workshops, talks and more, giving local residents the opportunity to discover the different perspectives, problems, struggles and proposals for change that impact indigenous communities.

This year festival is dedicated to ancestral intelligence and practices of indigenous peoples in the face of the global challenges of the present and the future. The program opens with a film that has made its way through festivals around the world: Algún día las raíces, Alejandro Valdeavellano (Chile, 2024) is a fictional account of a real, young Mapuche man killed by a policeman while trying to encourage his people to recover their ancestral lands. Other films on the program include Saber Sumud Palestina: Les arrels de la terra, Josep Galván (Palestine, 2023) a documentary on the resistance that the Palestinian people put into practice every day and the accumulated violence that the State of Israel employs to continue its expansion; Journey to Our Homeland, Adrien Harpelle (Canada, 2022) follows two First Nation Elders and a small group of youth as they travel an historic canoe route to their ancestral village site; DESERT PHOSfate, Mohamed Sleiman Labat (Western Sahara, 2023) an experimental film that weaves together multi-layered narratives about human and mineral displacement and the loss of nomadic ways of life of the Sahrawi indigenous people in Western Sahara; and Yana-Wara, Óscar Catacora (Peru, 2023) a drama that explores the duality of evil and good spirits in Andean culture, with a focus on violence against women and respect for nature.

Most films will be screened at Cinemes Girona with additional showings at Ateneu del Raval, Filmoteca de Catalunya, Nau Bòstik, Ágora Juan Andrés Benítez, El Mercat Cultural de Vallvidrera as well as Cinema Catalunya in Terrassa, MAC Museu d'Art de Cerdanyola in Cerdanyola del Vallès and Sala Santa Llúciain Reus. Tickets are free, but a donation is requested, and you can get them on the festival website. indifest.org

Choreoscope, Barcelona Dance Film Festival

October 16-20, 2024, Barcelona 

Choreoscope, Barcelona Dance Film Festival is dedicated not only to those passionate about dance, but also to those who enjoy quality cinema. Cinema knows no borders—neither does dance. There is a common language that unites them: the universal language of movement.

The festival features live dance performances alongside cinematic gems like Boaz Yakin's Once Again (For the Very First Time) (USA, 2023) in which street dancer and a poet form a creative connection in this unconventional New York romance; Sabine Krayenbühl and Zeva Oelbaum's Obsessed with Light, (USA, 2023) tells the story of Loie Fuller, a pioneer of dance, stage lighting and design; and Isabelle Stever's Grand Jeté (Germany, 2022) which is a highly charged portrait of woman who left her son with her mother to pursue her dance career only to reunite with him years later and develop a sexual relationship with him.

Films will be screened at Institut del Teatre (free), Filmoteca de Catalunya (€4) and Cinema Maldà (€5). choreoscope.com

Serielizados Fest

October 17-21, 2023, Barcelona

While not a film festival, we think Serielizados Fest deserves a spot on our list because it debuts top-rate original series and documentaries that have triumphed on television and at festivals around the world.

The festival program for 2024 has yet to be announced (coming in September), but a look a last year's agenda will give you an idea of what you can expect in the next session. In the 2023 edition, a number of national titles premiered with the presence of their creators including: La Mesías, by Javier Ambrossi and Javier Calvo, Déjate ver by Álvaro Carmona and Berto Romero’s debut in the horror genre with El otro lado. Other series premieres include the latest season of Fear the Walking Dead, Noche de chicas, Roni and Fanzilona. 

Jesse Amstrong, British creator and showrunner of Succession was the festival's featured guest, with a screening of Peep Show, the first series of the well-known screenwriter. Armstrong spent some time with the audience talking about his career and the process behind the success of Succession.

Screenings will be held at the Centro de Cultura Contemporánea de Barcelona (CCCB), Casa Seat, Sala Phenomena, Auditori Blanquerna and Sala Mompou (SGAE). Tickets are €6 a session, or you can buy packs for multiple sessions starting at €15 for three sessions, or €24 for five, and they can be shared among friends and family. serielizados.com

CLAM International Social Film Festival

October 18-27, 2024, Manresa, Navarcles, St Fruitós de Bages

The International Social Film Festival in Catalunya (CLAM) showcases high-quality films committed to real life—films that shine a light on solidarity, human and civil rights, and serve as a point of reflection and debate on social issues. Numerous film screenings are complemented by parallel activities from a range of artistic and cultural disciplines, including lectures, conferences, exhibitions, professional master-classes, theater performances and concerts.

This year's program has not been released, but last year films screened included Kokomo City (US, 2023), D. Smith's gritty documentary that tells the perilous and raw stories of four Black transgender sex workers through intimate and candid interviews; Club Zero (France, UK, 2023), Jessica Hausner's psychological thriller portraying a teacher at an elite school who forms a close bond with five students that ends up taking a dangerous turn; and Tran Anh Hung's historical romantic drama La Passion de Dodin Bouffant (France, 2023), starring Juliette Binoche and Benoît Magimel, in an exquisitely shot foodie film that tells the story of Eugenie, an esteemed cook, and Dodin, the fine gourmet she has been working for over the last 20 years.

Films will be screened at Multicines Bages Centre, Manresa; Auditori Agustí Soler i Mas, Navarcles; and Teatre Casal Cultural, St Fruitós de Bages. Tickets can be purchased at individual venues, see the festival website for details: clamfestival.org.

FILMETS, Badalona Short Film Festival

October 18-27, 2024, Badalona, Sant Boi de Llobregat and Barcelona

FILMETS, Badalona Short Film Festival was born in 2001 and since then it has taken its place on the international festival stage as a meeting point between filmmakers and a loyal audience. This year's program has yet to be released, but you can take a look at what was showing last year for an idea of what you can expect in the edition to come.

Marking 49 years, the 2023 edition opened with seven short films including the comedy-drama from Ross White and Tom Berkeley An Irish Goodbye (Ireland, 2022) which won the Oscar last year for best live action short and the prestigious British BAFTA award for best fiction; and Liturgy of Anti-Tank Obstacles, by Dmytro Sukholytkyy-Sobchuk (Ukraine, 2022), an impressive documentary about the daily reality of the war in Ukraine that tells the story of sculptors that used to make religious statues who now build anti-tank obstacles to help fend off the Russian invasion.

Films will be screened at Teatre Zorrilla, Badalona; Cinemes Can Castellet, Sant Boi de Llobregat; and Institut français de Barcelona, Barcelona. The complete festival program will soon be announced on the festival website at festivalfilmets.cat.

IN-EDIT International Music Documentary Film Festival

October 23-November 11, 2024, Barcelona

Bringing together the best of the audio-visual and musical sectors, IN-EDIT Barcelona is the most successful music documentary film festival in the world. Films on this year's program include Born to Be Wild: The Story of Steppenwolf, Oliver Schwehm (Canada, Germany, 2024), depicting the tumultuous rise and fall of a group of young men from Toronto, Canada, as they navigated the psychedelic underground of California, biker gangs, legal battles, clashing personalities and the social unrest of the era behind them; June, Kristen Vaurio (USA, 2023), offers a complete, human, and realistic portrait of June Carter that goes beyond the stereotype of the selfless and saving wife; Luther: Never Too Much, Dawn Porter (USA, 2024), is an intimate and touching portrait of the legendary soul and R&B singer Luther Vandross; Misty: The Erroll Garner Story, Georges Gachot (Switzerland, France, Germany, 2024), answers the mystery of what Erroll Garner was really like behind the eternal smile; and The Stones and Brian Jones, Nick Broomfield (UK, 2023), is a comprehensive and revealing documentary about Brian Jones, founder of the Rolling Stones and one of the tragic figures of 1960s rock.

Films will be screened at Aribau Multicines. Tickets are €9.50 for individual showings, or you can buy packs for multiple sessions starting at €35 for five screenings, €53 for eight and €76 for 12, and can be shared. Purchase tickets and check out the festival’s full program online at es.in-edit.org.

Asian Film Festival Barcelona

October 24-November 3, 2024, Barcelona

The Asian Film Festival Barcelona is back for its 12th edition with a program that includes more than a hundred films from over 20 countries in Asia and the Pacific region. Representing the geographical, political, economic and cultural diversity of a vast, multifaceted continent, Asian cinema explores historical narrative, gender issues and drama in all its dimensions. Bringing films from different cultures and ethnicities from across Central Asia, South-East Asia and Pacific Asia, the festival brings audiences on a journey from the corners of Kazakhstan to Iran, from Mongolia to the Philippines and all the way to New Zealand.

This year's festival opens with Park Young-ju's action-comedy-drama Citizen of a Kind (Korea 2024), a gripping tale based on a true story, focusing on the extraordinary journey of a single mother who takes on voice-phishing scammers; and closes with Nick Cheuk's Time Still Turns the Pages (Hong Kong, 2023), a touching drama which tells the story of a schoolteacher who re-lives painful childhood memories after discovering concerning information about an at-risk student. Alongside a packed agenda of world-class films you'll find parallel programing that includes a course dedicated to Asian cinema, a series of round tables and presentations and discussions with guest directors.

Films will be screened at Filmoteca de Catalunya, Cinemas Girona, Phenomena, CaixaForum and Zumzeig. asianfilmfestival.barcelona

International Architecture Film Festival Barcelona (BARQ)

2024 dates to be announced, Cinemes Girona, Barcelona

Founded in 2021 by Nihao Films, BARQ Festival is the only film festival in Spain to focus on architecture and interior design. Dedicated to analyzing and deepening the relationship between architecture and the seventh art, the festival offers an extensive program that includes a selection of documentary films and various parallel activities—talks, debates, workshops, conferences—to bring to viewers new perspectives on the creative processes behind architectural practice.

Showcasing a selection of the most recent productions in the field, the festival brings current issues of contemporary architectural practice to the public. Through films inspired by architecture from a social perspective, BARQ creates a space for critical reflection on our cities and the spaces we inhabit. This year's program has yet to be announced, but should soon be available. Most films are screened at Cinemes Girona in original version with Spanish subtitles, see website for details: barqfestival.com

Updated October 1, 2024.