October Film Festivals in and around Barcelona

October’s calendar is packed with an impressive list of film festivals in and around the city. Journey from the corners of Kazakhstan to Iran, from Mongolia to the Philippines and all the way to New Zealand at the Asian Film Festival, discover gritty investigative documentaries at CLAM International Social Film Festival, set your heart racing with hair-raising fantasy and horror at Sitges International Film Festival, go hardcore with music docs at IN-EDIT and so much more!

Love and Hope International Film Festival (L’HIFF)

October 1-4, 2025, Cinema Maldà, Barcelona

With both short and feature-length indie films, L’HIFF International Film Festival is a relatively new addition to Barcelona's festival scene. Showcasing cinema from around the world, the festival screens works from emerging directors alongside those of experienced creators. Not only does the festival show great films, it allows like-minded people to connect through their love of cinema with networking events, talks, panels, workshops and guest speakers. 

Last year's festival had over 300 films and this year's program is shaping up to be just as impressive. Confirmed feature-length films this year include Timothy Lovell's documentary She Walks a Line (UK, 2025) a film that explores Nepal's human trafficking crisis; Justin Ho's Broken Pieces (USA, 2024), an independent feature set in New York City and filmed entirely on an iPhone; Duncan James' Misgivings (Australia, 2024) explores themes of guilt, redemption and the complexity of family dynamics while challenging conventional cinematic norms; Sabrina Van Tassel's Missing from Fire Trail Road (USA, 2024) exposes how hundreds of indigenous women continue to go missing in the USA, perpetuating trans-generational trauma on Native American reservations; and Mitul Patel's Mercy (India, 2024) tackles the controversial subject of euthanasia. lhifilmfestival.com

IndiFest, Barcelona Indigenous Film Festival

October 8-17, 2025, 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.

Thia year's edition is dedicated to borders, those imaginary lines that delimit territories, identities, languages ​​or mental states. The program opens with Luna Marán's Chicharras (Mexico, 2024), a film that navigates between fiction, documentary and experimental cinema; it highlights the social and political complexities that arise when the government tries to introduce significant changes without a total consensus. Other films on the agenda include Zacharias Kunuk's Wrong Husband (Canada, 2025), a captivating arctic fairy tale about an arranged marriage set in an Inuit community 4,000 years ago; Segundo Fuérez's Puka Urpi (Ecuador, 2025), a film inspired by an Ecuadorian oral tale that tells the adventure of a five-year-old girl who must move from the city to the countryside to live with her grandmother after her mother dies; and Yuyaymanta (Ecuador, 2024), a moving documentary about the June 2022 indigenous uprising in Ecuador that intertwines archive and memory to document physical wounds, emotional consequences and the dignity of resistance.

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

Sitges International Film Festival

October 9-19, 2025, 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 French body horror drama Alpha by Julia Ducournau; Johanna Moder's Mother's Baby, a horrifying thriller about motherhood; Ben Leonberg's Good Boy offers up a terrifying horror story told from a totally new point of view; and Collin Tilley's Eye for an Eye constructs a fascinating horror universe with some of the most shocking images of the year. The Thing with Feathers, directed by Dylan Southern and starring Benedict Cumberbatch, takes a verse by Emily Dickinson as its starting point to construct a story about loss, faith and the invisible presences that inhabit silences. Mike Flanagan adapts Stephen King in The Life of Chuck, a modern fable that tells the story of Charles Krantz’s life—played by Tom Hiddleston in his adult version—in reverse order, from his death back to his childhood in a haunted house. James DeMonaco's The Home turns a nursing home into a space where everyday life becomes twisted. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

Films will be screened at the Hotel Meliá Sitges, Cinema Casino Prado, Escorxador –Centre Cultural and Mercat Vell. Tickets start at €11.00 a session and can be purchased online at sitgesfilmfestival.com.

Barcelona Jewish Film Festival

October 10-18, 2025, 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.The 2025 program will soon be announced.

Highlights in the 2025 program include Eva Neymann's When Lightning Flashes Over the Sea (Ukraine, Germany, 2025), a stark documentary on a handful of people in Odesa who are searching for dignity and dreams between war, loss and hope; Aleksander Ford's Ulica Graniczna (Border Street) (Poland, 1948) tells the story of a group of children from Jewish and Polish families living on Border Street in Warsaw, offering a poignant, sensitive and unsettling look at relations between communities during the Nazi occupation; Daniela Völker's The Commandant’s Shadow (USA, 2024) reveals the long shadows cast by heinous crimes that impact generations in an historic film that captures the moment the son of the Commandant of Auschwitz meets a Holocaust survivor; and Molly Bernstein and Philip Dolin's Art Spiegelman: Disaster Is My Muse (USA, 2024), which traces Spiegelman's eclectic and radical career from his beginnings in the 1960s as co-creator of the Wacky Packages to his provocative New Yorker covers created between 1993 and 2003.

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

FILMETS, Badalona Short Film Festival

October 16-26, 2025, 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 shown last year for an idea of what you can expect in the edition to come.

The 2024 edition featured Elham Ehsas’s Yellow (Afghanistan, UK), a poignant exploration of life under Taliban rule in Afghanistan; George C. Siougas’ The One Note Man (United Kingdom) a short comedy-drama about a musician caught between staying in his comfort zone or stepping out and changing his life forever; Augusto Schillaci’s La Calesita (Argentina, Canada, USA), a story of perseverance and community above the individual; and Phoebe Arnstein’s If You’re Happy (UK) a raw and honest look at a young mother's struggles as she desperately wrestles with the pressures of new motherhood.

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.

CLAM International Social Film Festival

October 17-26, 2025, 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’s films included Silje Evensmo Jacobsen’s A New Kind of Wilderness (Norway, 2024), an intimate and soulful portrait of love, life, and growing up; the romantic tragicomedy My Favorite Cake (Iran, Germany, 2024) directed by Maryam Moghaddam and Behtash Sanaeeha; Andrea Arnold's Bird (UK, 2024) a tender, striking and extraordinarily surprising coming-of-age fable; Mohammad Rasoulof’s The Seed of the Sacred Fig (Iran, Germany, France, 2024) a political drama shot entirely in secret with real footage of student protests following the death of Mahsa Amini in 2022; and Joshua Oppenheimer’s apocalyptic musical film The End (USA, 2024).

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.

IN-EDIT International Music Documentary Film Festival

October 23-November 2, 2025, 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. This year's program has not been announced, but check out some of last year's highlights below for an idea of what’s in store for 2025. 

Films on the program include Alexis Manya Spraic's The World According to Allee Willis (USA, 2024), offering a dazzling mosaic of the life of a one-of-a-kind creator whose work you’ve probably heard thousands of times without even realizing it. Amy Berg's It’s Never Over, Jeff Buckley (USA, 2025), is a deeply moving portrait of one of the most prodigious and enigmatic voices of the 1990s. Jane Mingay's Pauline Black: A 2-Tone Story, (UK, 2025), is a vibrant portrait of the iconic voice that fused Jamaican ska, punk rock and new wave. Rob Reiner's Spinal Tap 2: The End Continues (USA, 2025) is a hilarious portrait of three rock veterans who are still too big and absurd for the stage. Billy Shebar's Monk in Pieces (USA, Germany & France, 2025), is a captivating portrait of Meredith Monk, composer, performer, interdisciplinary artist and trailblazer of the contemporary avant-garde. Andy Brown and Brian Lindstrom's Lost Angel: The Genius of Judee Sill (USA, 2022), is a beautiful and heartbreaking portrait of a singular 1970s California singer-songwriter whose life swung between personal devastation and dazzling artistic creation. And, Fandango, directed by Remedios Malvárez and Arturo Andújar (Spain, 2024), is a stunning journey through the past and present of one of the oldest popular musical expressions on the Iberian Peninsula.

Films will be screened at Aribau Multicines. Tickets are €10.00 for individual showings, or you can buy packs for multiple sessions starting at €34 for four tickets, €64 for eight and €90 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 29-November 9, 2025, Barcelona

The Asian Film Festival Barcelona is back for its 13th 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.

The festival opens at CaixaForum with Junji Sakamoto's film Climbing for Life (Japan, 2025), a drama based on the true story of Junko Tabei, one of Japan's greatest female mountaineers and the first woman to reach the summit of Mount Everest. Other films on the docket include Park Ri-woong's The Land of Morning Calm (Korea, 2024); Dastan Zhapar Ryskeldi's Deal at the Border (Kyrgyzstan, 2024); Saeed Nouri's Tehran, An Unfinished History (Iran, 2025); Rudrajit Roy's Pinjar (India, 2025); Lee Mi-rang's Concerning My Daughter (Korea, 2023); Yin Lichuan's Like a Rolling Stone (China, 2024); Janus Victoria's Diamonds in the Sand (Philippines, 2024); and many more.

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

Updated October 3, 2025.