The cracks and scars of Europe in the Docsbarcelona 2025

What are a Chinese child who writes poems in the mountains of Hunan, a woman of an Iranian tribe who has to opt between her flock of sheep or the urban life and Jens Stoltenberg (current secretary general of NATO and squeeze minister of Norway) looking for support for Ukraine? The answer will be found in Docsbarcelona 2025, a festival that, how can you verify, this year will deal with various themes, but that will pay special attention to the cracks and the scars of Europe, a continent that is increasingly perceived, also to itself, more fragile.

From May 8 to 18, the festival will celebrate its twenty -exploine edition, distributed between the CCCB, the Filmoteca, the Renoir, the Phenomena, Casa Montjuïc and the Espai Texas. With more than a thousand proposals received, forty -eight selected documentaries and eleven world premieres, the Barcelona appointment reaffirms its place as a meeting point for non -fiction.

The Festival starts strong next Thursday at the Phenomena cinema, with the projection of ‘Riefenstahl’

Docsbarcelona 2025 starts strong on Thursday in the Phenomena: Difenstahlthe expected portrait of lights and shadows of the filmmaker of the Nazi regime led by Andres Veiel, will open the festival just on the 80th anniversary of the end of World war II. A declaration of intentions, of course, that looks straight to the past to try to understand the fissures of the present.

This will to inquire into the roots of the old continent travels almost all the program. Trainsby the Polish veteran Maciej J. Drygas – I better film at the Amsterdam documentary Festival (IDFA) – composes a shocking story from archiving material, with anonymous and forgotten voices that testify how individual dreams and tragedies modeled modern Europe.

The invitation to Germany as an outstanding country of this edition delves, so to speak, in this introspection. Two works produced by Heino Deckert, tribute this year, offer unusual perspectives: on Saturday 10 at 6 pm in the film library, Rabbit in Berlin (2009), nominated for Óscar, will tell the story of wild rabbits that were trapped in anyone’s strip of the Berlin wall, while Heimat is a space in time (2019) proposes a monumental reflection on a century of German history, on Sunday at the same time and in the same room.

‘Trains’ composes a story from anonymous voices that testify how individual dreams and tragedies modeled modern Europe

Beyond the weight of history, programming will also logically focus on the open wounds of the present. The war in Ukraine, a usual theme in these last editions, is filtered in three films that go farther from the battle front. From Russia, Mr. Nobody Against Putin Document with courage how education becomes an indoctrination tool under the ideological empire of Moscow. While, Timestamp Look at the almost heroic effort of Ukrainian students and teachers to keep schools open in the war; and Facing war Follow the aforementioned Jens Stoltenberg in his exhausting diplomatic career to sustain support in Ukraine.

In addition, this year the Catalan documentary shines with its own light. Thirteen local titles participate in the festival, since Maresby Ariadna Seuba, who was four years capturing the process and the consequences of postponing maternity, even Mirror (2025), directed by Maria Mauti, who tells the world’s vision of the missing Enric Miralles, one of the most internationally recognized Spanish architects.

One more edition, the Ukraine War is filtered in three films that go beyond the Battle Front

Maternity will also put on the focus on the film 9-Month Contractin which a mother travels to the subrogation to ensure a home to her daughter. And the American composer Meredith Monk will also be one of the women protagonists during the projection of Monk in Piecesby David C. Roberts and Billy Shebar.

2025 will also mark the 50 years of Franco’s death. Or inherited silencedirected by Lucía Dapena, is fixed above all in the family memory of a Francoist grandmother who vanishes and explores the tension of the death of the grandparents, a generation of people “who could not convey their history.” In Lord, take me soonGuillermo F. ​​Flórez addresses a topic of great news on the billboard and tells Carmen’s life, an 86 -year -old woman who survived the war and now plans to take her life.

The commitment to decolonizing stories floods programming: from Peruvian children torn from their home in The memory of the butterflieseven Sudanese young people who capture a country that bleeds in Khartoumor the libraries rebuilt in Nairobi in How to build a library.

But if there is something that stands out this year, it is, once again, the transversality of themes and geographies. Photography, music and architecture also find their space in this edition. Works like Two strangers trying not to kill each otherabout Joel Meyerowitz, the AfterIROT Last witnessdedicated to Chilean photographer Luis Poirot, will open new windows.

Beyond the projections, Docsbarcelona continues to consolidate its weight as a nerve center of the documentary in Europe: between May 12 and 16, the Industry section will work as a radar of the future by hosting more than sixty projects in the development or assembly phase. The inaugural conference, in charge of the anthropologist Manuel Delgado, under the slogan “Nobody cares about the truth”, and a case study on the limits between journalism and documentaryism, with the Mònica Terribas journalist, photographer Raúl Gallego and the documentary filmmaker Etién Huver, will add reflection to an event that understands that the documentary cinema not only films and looks. It is also discussed.