Huelva Ibero-American Film Festival: Genre Mashups, a Vibrant Brazil and an Award for the One-Off Paulina García

Honoring Paulina García (“Gloria”), highlighting the latest from great and fast emerging Latin American directors, the 52nd Huelva Ibero-American Film Festival lifts off Nov. 13 as a film event for our times. Bulwarked by fast-recovering Europe and Asia, global film production in 2025 edged up to 7,707 features, higher than pre-pandemic levels of 2017-19. Latin America was no exception, up 2%. In such a context, film festivals are worth their weight in gold as quality filters, and few are more curated than the Huelva Ibero-American Film Festival. TIFF screened 293 films in Official Selection this year. Huelva’s total lineup will feature around 100 films, festival director Manuel H. Martín tells Variety. That’s par for the course for Huelva which will keep its main section, including a main feature and short film competition, Talento Andaluz, framing event films from Andalusia, and Acento. Cine Español, a national movie panorama. “For us, it’s fundamental to have a festival format in line with Huelva, a friendly, close city where you can walk to places,” says Martín. “We’re aiming for a varied quality lineup with premieres for Spain and a chance to catch-up on Spanish films released during the year, but we’re not interested in growing year after year in volume.” Huelva’s main competition will, indeed, feature just 12 titles, two more out-of-competition. Amaia Salamanca, a star of “Grand Hotel” and “Velvet” and key in the lift-off of Spanish TV as an international phenomenon, will pick up a Luz Prize at Huelva’s opening Gala, as will Patrick Criado, good in Pedro Almodóvar’s “Bitter Christmas” and sensational in 2023 TV series “Nights in Tefia.” However tightly curated, Huelva’s lineup also allows a broader vision of which ways Latin American cinema and film industries are heading in Latin America. A few brief provisional takes as the 52nd Huelva Ibero-American Film Festival unpools in Andalusia, running through Nov. 21: Multi-Genre Mashups Where’s Latin America’s cinema at? Some of its most exciting movies, as in world cinema at large, is genre bending and blending. “The Riverbank” “traverses the classic erotic thriller to experiment with tropical noir, crime drama, magical realism and even a hint of whodunnit,” Variety observes, all inspired by and exploring the reality of Recife life, director Enock Carvalho notes. “The Bovine with the Curved Horns” braids myth, oral tradition, Colombia’s armed conflict and downbeat daily life. “Days Off,” Argentine Luciana Mariani’s surprising debut melds coming of-age and sci-fi beats, as Bego, 12, experiments with shifting – the move to an alternative reality – during a solar eclipse. Paulina García García’s receives this year’s City of Huelva Prize, the festival’s highest honor. It is a measure of García’s stature that in Variety’s appreciation of Sebastián Lelio, comparing Julianne Moore’s performance in “Gloria Bell,” inspired by “Gloria,” which won García a Berlin Silver Bear in 2015, Variety does not call Moore’s a better turn but just different. “Gloria” was Lelio’s and García breakout, turning her into one of Latin America’s few performers courted by U.S. auteurs, in part for her enormous range. She is “a funny and resilient force of nature” in “Gloria,” but equally she can act a gravely ailing mother in Huelva 2026 title “Julia’s Flowers,” fading, irascible, frail, seemingly light-bodied, child-like but still, at times, capable of cognizance. Brazil Flexes Its Muscles No country in Latin America has broken out to international recognition more than Brazil. Last year Walter Salles’ “I’m Still Here” won an Oscar. This year, Kleber Mendonça Filho’s “The Secret Agent” scored four Academy Award nominations. Brazil has no film of such scale this year. What it does have, however, is underscored at Huelva. It has funding from its government, “Funk” supported by a classic financing combination of public sector bank BRDE, fund FSA and the Ancine national agency. Brazil also has vibrant regional and municipal film scenes. “Funk” is set in Rio, supports by RioFilme. “The Riverbank” forms part of Recife’s vibrant film scene. The consequences? Films which have the singularity and relevance of auteur cinema but high production standards. Multi-Partner Co-Production Or it’s got there already. Sometimes the partners align in a single territory, such as “The Bovine with the Curved Horns,” produced by Colombia’s La Fortaleza Films, Congo Films, Universidad del Magdalena, Lightbox, Pablo Mondragón, De La Tierra Producciones and Soretti Films. Or co-producers stack up internationally, such as on Lucila Mariani’s “The Days Off,” produced by Argentina’s Maravillacine (“Marilyn,” “Under the Flags, the Sun”), alongside Brazil’s Persona Non Grata Pictures and Vulcana Films (“Hard Paint,” “Night Stage”), with Mexico’s Woo Films (“Pedro Páramo,” “Noise”) and Valiente Films as co-producers. Co-production these days is a sign of necessity and partners wanting to buy into exciting propositions. Women Reach Some Parity Huelva’s competition lineup features seven films by men, though two of those – “Julia’s Flowers” and “Funk” – have women protagonists. Four of the 12 have queer lead characters. Add Manuela Martelli’s “The Melting” and Fernanda Tovar’s “Sad Girls” and seven of the 14 official section movies are helmed by women. Overall, of Hueva’s around 100 titles, half are directed by women, notes Martin. Four of the 14 films have LGBTQ lead characters. Huelva is, however, something of an exception when it comes to festivals and women’s films and the world. LGBTQ freedoms remains a barometer of larger freedoms in many Latin American films, such as “Riverbank,” whose leads face the brutal antagonism of members of an Evangelical church. Latin America’s – and Huelva’s – Issue Cinema “We attempt to program films which have a variety of themes, such as might be LGBTQ, mourning or mental health, subjects which can engage and concern society,” says Martín. Huelva’s lineup, as so much of Latin American cinema, deals with issues. In Latin America, the issues are impossible to ignore, Nobel Prize Winning novelist Mario Vargas Llosa said decades ago. That remains true, however, down to this day.