India Takes Centre Stage at Asian Film Festival Barcelona 2026
12 Indian films, 8 Indian languages, 11 days. Your complete Focus India guide.
Spain–India Dual Year 2026
Catalunyaar is sharing these details as a community service and is not the organiser or a ticket seller.
Malayalam. Kannada. Tamil. Telugu. Manipuri. Assamese. Nepali. Hindi. This October, you can hear more Indian languages in a Barcelona cinema than at most family weddings.
The 14th Asian Film Festival Barcelona (AFFBCN), organised by Casa Asia, runs from 22 October to 1 November with more than a hundred films from 25 countries, and this year India is the headline act. It's tied to the Spain–India Dual Year 2026, which means one thing for us: a rare chance to watch the best of new Indian cinema on a big screen, ten minutes from your flat.
One honest heads-up before you book: this is not Bollywood. The festival itself describes Focus India as auteur cinema, far from the commercial model. Think Busan, San Sebastián and BAFTA, not item songs. If that's your kind of cinema, this is your week.
Dates
Thursday 22 October – Sunday 1 November 2026
Main venue
Cinemes Girona, Carrer de Girona 175, Barcelona. Plus CaixaForum, Zumzeig, ECIB, and libraries in Gavà and Santa Coloma.
Focus India
12 new Indian feature films across all five competition sections, plus a retrospective of 12 films on how the West has filmed India.
Tickets
Each film screens once. Cinemes Girona sessions are sold on the cinema's website; other venues are listed on each film's festival page.
Times, venues, languages and runtimes are transcribed from the official festival programme. End times are start time plus runtime. Every film has a Google Calendar link and an .ics download for iPhone, Mac and Outlook.
Thursday 22 October
18:00–19:41
In a quiet hill town in India's Northeast, a lonely mother turns amateur detective to help her police-officer son crack a murder case, and maybe win back their fraying bond along the way. A mystery with a comic streak.
19:00–20:40Opening film
Sarah and Abhi leave Kerala for a cold, unforgiving Delhi. A cramped flat, a landlord obsessed with the electricity bill and money pressure from back home slowly pull them apart. If you've ever moved cities for love or a career, this one will hit close. It premiered at Busan, where it won a Vision award.
Sunday 25 October
20:00–21:30
A couple flies to Goa to bring home their four-year-old adopted daughter. One problem: she refuses to leave the orphanage she's always known. What should be a joyful trip turns into a tense, chaotic stay that tests their marriage across a language and culture gap.
Tuesday 27 October
18:00–19:28
Bangalore, 1993. Nine-year-old Aakash lives for cricket and video games, and hides a harsh maths teacher's punishments from his mum, who is fighting patriarchal pressure to start her own business. Then an accident at home puts his little brother in danger. Anyone who grew up in 90s India will feel this one.
Wednesday 28 October
16:00–17:33
After their mother's death, two siblings spend Christmas in Goa with an aunt they've resented since their teens. The prickly reunion turns into a journey of self-discovery, with romance for one and a reckoning by the sea for the other.
Thursday 29 October
17:00–18:45Free entry · limited capacity
A raw action drama set in the contested borderlands of Chittoor, where a fight over local power strips people down to survival instinct and betrayal. Made by a 25-year-old first-timer who knows the region first-hand.
17:45–19:39Festival favourite
Bishnu leaves Delhi for her Himalayan hometown in Sikkim to open a small guesthouse and live on her own terms. Her village has other plans: marriage. Award winner at Busan and Kolkata, and selected for San Sebastián's New Directors.
20:00–21:28
Three lives, one quiet ache: a suspended father hiding his troubles from his curious young son, an elderly priest clashing with his son over faith and tradition, and a woman coming home from prison to a father whose hopes for her collapsed.
Saturday 31 October
12:00–14:01
Young people in a city juggle big ambitions, strained relationships and an uncertain future, until real-world obstacles start pressing on both their personal lives and their creative dreams.
12:15–13:49BAFTA winner
In Imphal, young Boong's father left for work in the border town of Moreh and went silent. Ignoring rumours that he's dead, Boong and his friend Raju secretly set off to find him and bring him home as a surprise for his mum. The festival lists it as the BAFTA 2026 winner for Best Children's & Family Film.
Sunday 1 November
18:00–19:37Rima Das
An eleven-year-old city boy is sent to his family's remote village in Assam to live with his young aunt. Between a horse, new friends, school and the songs he writes, the slow village life starts working on him, and on the grown-ups around him. Rima Das is one of India's most celebrated indie voices.
Also in Focus India: Hiraeth (Assamese, dir. Chow Partha Borgohain). After a flood wipes out her home in Dibrugarh, Pori and her husband move to the city and run into exploitation and betrayal. The festival hasn't published a screening time for it yet, so keep an eye on its film page.
Hungry for more South Asian cinema? The festival director's picks include Lali from Pakistan (Tuesday 27 October, 20:00, Cinemes Girona Sala 2) and Roid from Bangladesh (Sunday 25 October, 18:00, Zumzeig). The festival closes on Sunday 1 November at 19:00 with the Korean drama Journey There. Browse the full programme for all 100+ titles.
12 Indian films, one screening each, 22 October to 1 November. Put them all in your calendar in one tap, then pick your favourites.
From Thursday 22 October to Sunday 1 November 2026. It's the festival's 14th edition, organised by Casa Asia.
If on a Winter's Night (the opening film), Kaisi Ye Paheli, A Mosquito in the Ear, Don't Tell Mother, Iktsuarpok – The Weight of Longing, Wild Animals, Shape of Momo, Distant, Ekadesham, Boong, Not a Hero and Hiraeth.
Mostly not. Most screenings are VOSE, original language with Spanish subtitles. Iktsuarpok is in English, and the festival lists English subtitles for Kaisi Ye Paheli and Hiraeth.
Screenings at Cinemes Girona are sold on the cinema's website; use the “Buy tickets” buttons above. For other venues, follow the “Entry info” link to the film's page on the festival website.
Yes. The festival lists Wild Animals at ECIB on Thursday 29 October at 17:00 as free entry with limited capacity.
Source & verification
All film details, times and venues come from the official programme at asianfilmfestival.barcelona/2026. Ticket links and standard prices come from cinemesgirona.cat. Film descriptions are Catalunyaar's own summaries of the festival synopses. Schedules can change, so check the festival site before you go. Last checked 13 October 2026.
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
