Festivals/contests

The (S8) Mostra Internacional de Cinema Periférico da Coruña is a key reference point in the international avant-garde film scene and an essential space for showcasing and promoting the most radical and personal cinematic practices. The festival brings together filmmakers, professionals, students, and audiences from around the world through a program that combines film screenings with installations, performances, and live actions that expand the audiovisual experience beyond the screen.

Its scope embraces a wide range of formats, from celluloid to digital media, with special attention to hybrid languages. In addition, it fosters professional encounters, educational spaces, and initiatives that support emerging creation, as well as lines of research and the recovery of underrepresented authors. The (S8) Mostra Internacional de Cinema Periférico da Coruña functions as a meeting point for exchange, reflection, and contemporary creation.

The Carballo Interplay is a digital content festival that has established itself as a key space for analyzing the impact of the internet on cultural creation and audiovisual production models. It brings together creators, industry professionals, and audiences around a program that includes web series screenings, meetings, talks, round tables, and participatory activities.

The event pays special attention to the dynamics of digital platforms, the evolving relationships between audiences and content, and emerging professional profiles. It also addresses topics such as virality, digital identity, and transmedia storytelling, encouraging critical reflection on networked culture. The Carballo Interplay also serves as a meeting point for the industry, connecting independent projects with established initiatives and fostering new pathways for online creation.

The Chanfaina Lab is a collective audiovisual creation experience conceived as a meeting space between artistic practice, research, and community life in rural Galicia. Held in areas far from major urban centers, the project offers an intensive immersion in which participants become part of everyday local life, building connections with residents and engaging with their cultural and social dynamics.

Within this framework, working teams create audiovisual pieces within a limited timeframe, drawing inspiration from the landscape, memory, and local stories. The creative process becomes an exercise in listening and interpretation, where the territory itself acts as an active agent. The initiative encourages experimentation and diverse forms of expression, while promoting the dissemination of the resulting works and strengthening the dialogue between rural contexts and contemporary creation.

The Cineuropa, held in Santiago de Compostela since 1987, was created with the aim of overcoming the limitations in the distribution and exhibition of European cinema, offering audiences access to works that would rarely reach conventional commercial circuits. Over the years, the festival has established itself as a key platform for discovering high-quality films from diverse geographies, cultures, and languages.

Its program is defined by a commitment to bold, engaged, and innovative cinema that tackles unconventional themes and explores new forms of expression. Cineuropa thus fosters a critical and reflective viewing experience, moving away from standardized models and encouraging dialogue between audiences and works that challenge the narrative and aesthetic boundaries of contemporary cinema.

The Curtas Festival do Imaxinario, held in Vilagarcía de Arousa, is one of the most distinctive and long-running film events in Galicia. Founded in 1973 as the Vilagarcía Amateur Film Festival, it has evolved into an international festival focused on fantastic cinema, encompassing genres such as horror, science fiction, and fantasy.

Over the years, Curtas has established itself as a key platform for creators who explore imaginative worlds and narratives beyond conventional realism. Its program combines feature films, short films, and parallel activities that encourage interaction between audiences and industry professionals. The festival also contributes to the promotion of audiovisual culture and the cultural vitality of the town, maintaining a strong identity rooted in creativity, innovation, and a passion for fantastic cinema.

The Curtocircuíto was founded in 2003 as an initiative of the Concello de Santiago de Compostela with the aim of promoting cinematic creation and giving visibility to the most innovative trends in audiovisual language. Over time, it has established itself as a leading festival committed to contemporaneity, risk-taking, and quality programming.

With cinema as its central axis, it develops an interdisciplinary approach that incorporates other fields such as photography, sound art, music, ethnography, and literature, fostering dialogue between different forms of artistic expression. This perspective broadens the audience experience and challenges traditional festival formats. In addition, Curtocircuíto maintains a strong commitment to emerging creation, audience development, and civic participation, actively contributing to cultural dynamism and critical thinking.

The Fancine de Lemos was founded in 2014 as a grassroots festival created by friends, families, and enthusiasts of genre cinema, particularly horror and fantasy, with the aim of bringing film and culture into the streets and public spaces of towns in the region. Since its first edition, it has established itself as a distinctive event in Galicia, combining film screenings with participatory activities that encourage interaction between audiences and the works.

The festival promotes the creation and exhibition of genre cinema, featuring both local and international productions, and serves as a meeting point for professionals, fans, and emerging talents. It also maintains a close and accessible spirit, where community, collaboration, and cultural outreach are central values, contributing to the visibility of Galician fantastic cinema and the cultural vitality of the area.

The Festival de Cans is a Galician short film festival that blends cinema and music, transforming the village each year into a vibrant and unique space. During the event, unconventional venues such as wine cellars, barns, house basements, sheds, and abandoned homes become screening rooms, while construction sites, chicken coops, and fields host live performances and parallel activities.

The festival creates a distinctive atmosphere in which audiences move energetically between locations on “chimpines” —small domestic tractors— evoking scenes reminiscent of the films of Emir Kusturica. Cans embraces creativity, community participation, and the promotion of Galician audiovisual production, offering a close and interactive cultural experience where cinema, music, and rural spirit come together in an interdisciplinary celebration that blends tradition, innovation, and fun for all ages.

RIR Festival, a celebration of humor; theater, dance, music, stand-up comedy, workshops, and, above all, the International Short Film Comedy Festival. All free activities, to enjoy with the family in a town as beautiful as Allariz (Ourense).

FicAndaina is a festival solely dedicated to celebrating diversity and inclusion, with the aim of bringing visibility and normalizing diversity through the power of audiovisual storytelling. Today, it stands as one of the largest national festivals dedicated to this cause.

FICBUEU – Bueu’s International Film Festival is an international event that showcases approximately 120 short films from the previous year. It also features an extensive program of activities in which education, dissemination, and project development play prominent roles.

The Galician Freaky Film Festival (GFFF), held in Vigo, is an event focused on freak cinema and culture that offers audiences a unique and innovative experience. The festival presents a carefully curated selection of national and international audiovisual works that usually lack conventional distribution channels, many of them premiering in Galicia.

Over the years, GFFF has established itself as a space for discovering bold and creative proposals, featuring major world, international, and national premieres. In addition to screenings, the festival organizes parallel activities that encourage audience participation, dialogue between creators and viewers, and the promotion of freak culture as part of the contemporary audiovisual landscape. GFFF is committed to diversity, innovation, and the visibility of alternative works that challenge conventional cinematic formats and narratives.