From November 7 to 23, 2025, the 29th edition of the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival will spotlight Catalan creativity with a Catalan Focus featuring more than thirty titles and welcoming over forty professionals from the audiovisual sector. The programme stems from the strong international momentum Catalan cinema is currently experiencing and presents a carefully curated selection combining recent releases with classic films, a Mediterranean presence cutting through Estonia’s long winter nights.
Organised by the Catalan Institute for Cultural Companies (ICEC) and the Institut Ramon Llull (IRL), the initiative aims to strengthen the international visibility of Catalan talent and industry.
The official opening will feature the screening of They Will Be Dust (Carlos Marqués-Marcet, 2024), accompanied by a special performance by Maria Arnal —singer, composer and creator of the film’s soundtrack— who will inaugurate the event on November 7 in an evening dedicated to celebrating Catalan creativity.
The festival’s Official Selection includes Júlia de Paz’s film The Good Daughter, in which the director adapts her own multi-award-winning short Harta (2021). From the original cast, only Julián Villagrán appears in this feature, having earned three Best Actor awards for his role as the father. This intense drama, inspired by real life, follows a young girl placed in a difficult position after her parents’ divorce, as she faces the pressure of being expected to choose sides.
The Good Daughter (Júlia de Paz, 2025)
Rebels With a Cause is the boldest section of PÖFF, and its 29th edition has included one of the most entertaining yet thematically profound films by Catalan director and producer Lluís Miñarro, who brings together an exceptional cast. In Emergency Exit, a work of absolute creative freedom, we encounter Arielle Dombasle, Aida Folch, Emma Suárez, Marisa Paredes —in what would be her final role— Myriam Mézières, Jhonattan Burjack, Francesc Orella, Albert Pla, Oriol Pla, Gonzalo Cunill, and even Japanese filmmaker Naomi Kawase. The characters, embarked on a mysterious journey aboard a vintage bus, cross the Styx lagoon while talking, reminiscing, and letting us imagine who they were, what shaped their lives, and what fears or desires defined them.
As for Catalan documentaries featured at the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival, Miss Jobson by Amanda Sans Pantling appears in the international DOC@PÖFF competition, while the Spanish-Qatari co-production The Flight of the Stork, directed by Soumaya Hidalgo Djahdou and Berta Vicente Salas, competes in the Best Docs section.
Strange River (Jaume Claret Muxart, 2025)
Three films that premiered at the last Cannes Film Festival will also be present in the Baltic capital: Romería by Carla Simón, Sirat by Oliver Laxe (winner of the Jury Prize), and Magallanes by Lav Díaz —recently awarded the Golden Spike at the Valladolid Film Festival— all featured in the Best of Fest section.
In the tribute programme In Focus: Catalonia, audiences will find the Italian co-production Three Goodbyes by Isabel Coixet, starring Alba Rohrwacher and Elio Germano, in which she adapts Michela Murgia’s autobiographical novel. The section will also screen Strange River, the feature debut of Jaume Claret Muxart —whom we had the opportunity to interview in Thessaloniki —as well as the historical thriller Frontier by Judith Colell, Forastera by Lucía Aleñar Iglesias, and Last Night I Conquered the City of Thebes by Gabriel Azorín, a film that has been receiving outstanding reviews throughout its festival run. Completing the selection are Nomad Shadow by Eimi Imainishi, which brings the Sahrawi diaspora’s struggle to the screen, and Nothing Personal by Javier Marco, starring Manolo Solo and Sonia Almarcha.
Sirat (Oliver Laxe, 2025)
Meanwhile, the Spanish–Mexican–Argentinian co-production The Virgin of the Quarry Lake, directed by Laura Casabé, brings a supernatural coming-of-age story to the Midnight Shivers section. Catalan productions will also appear in the children’s and youth programme, with the inclusion of Leo & Lou by Carlos Solano; El tesoro de Barracuda by Adrià García; the animated co-production between Poland, Turkey and Spain The Boy at the Edge of the World, directed by Grzegorz Wacławek and Marta Szymańska; as well as Olivia and the Invisible Earthquake by Irene Iborra and Beef by Ingride Santos.
The 29th PÖFF will also screen short films and a selection of classic titles, including Anguish (1987) by Bigas Luna, In a Glass Cage (1986) by Agustí Villaronga, Umbracle (1972) by Pere Portabella, Ocaña, an Intermittent Portrait (1978) by Ventura Pons, as well as Life in Shadows (1949) by Llorenç Llobet Gracia, Maria Rosa (1965) by Armand Moreno, Los Tarantos (1963) by Rovira Beleta, and Things I Never Told You (1996) by Isabel Coixet.
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