The eighth edition of the Atlàntida Film Fest, organised by the Filmin VoD platform, gets under way on Monday 25 June and will unspool for an entire month, offering 83 titles on its online programme at affordable prices. That same day, those who happen to be on the beautiful Balearic island of Palma de Mallorca will also be able to pop into the various free screenings, concerts and events that, for the next week (until 1 July), will make up this superb gathering.

In the words of Jaume Ripoll, the director of Atlàntida, “Our event is the biggest online film festival in Europe: it will bring an unprecedented programme of unseen films to Spain, and we will host five world premieres, with the clear intention of rejuvenating the audience and attracting them to our screens – traditional, brick-and-mortar ones (in Mallorca) as well as domestic ones.” As for the programme, the organisers have opted to do away with sections and instead divide it into thematic concepts in order to “embrace the diversity” of modern cinema: said themes are Generation, Walls and Frontiers, Historical Memory, Politics and Controversy, and Identity. In addition, there will be a retrospective of the works of Barcelona-born director Kikol Grau, who will be premiering his latest opus: Histeria de Cataluña.

Within the mouth-watering programme of the 2018 Atlàntida Film Festival, the titles that we would recommend are Yo la busco, a kind of contemporary After Hours helmed by first-timer Sara Gutiérrez and starring a passionate Dani Casellas (Best Actor in the Zonazine section of the most recent Málaga Film Festival); the world premiere of Retorno by Marcos Callejo; Croatia’s A Brief Excursion [+lire aussi :
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fiche film] by Igor Bezinovic; the unnerving debut by Katharina Wyss, Sarah Plays a Werewolf [+lire aussi :
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interview : Katharina Wyss
fiche film] (Switzerland/Germany); the drama Colo [+lire aussi :
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interview : Teresa Villaverde
fiche film] by Portugal’s Teresa Villaverde; the acclaimed Austrian documentary The Waldheim Waltz [+lire aussi :
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interview : Ruth Beckermann
fiche film], directed by Ruth Beckermann; the indescribable French movie The Wild Boys [+lire aussi :
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interview : Bertrand Mandico
fiche film], which has already gained cult status; and the magnificent Holiday [+lire aussi :
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interview : Victoria Carmen Sonne
fiche film], a co-production between Denmark, the Netherlands and Sweden, helmed by Isabella Eklöf, which was first presented at Sundance.

Other Continental titles that will be enjoying their Spanish premieres thanks to this festival (which boasts the support of the MEDIA programme), and which tackle LGBT rights just as the pride marches are getting under way, are Queerama [+lire aussi :
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fiche film] (UK) by Daisy Asquith; McKellen: Playing the Part [+lire aussi :
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fiche film] by Joe Stephenson (UK); Grimsey, a road movie across Iceland, directed by and starring Spain’s Richard García and Raúl Portero; Mr Gay Syria [+lire aussi :
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fiche film] (Germany/Turkey/France) by Ayse Toprak; and Out [+lire aussi :
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fiche film] by Denis Parrot, about various young people who film their experience of coming out. Finally, we should highlight a clutch of other must-see titles, such as Jean François and the Meaning of Life [+lire aussi :
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fiche film], the debut feature by Catalan filmmaker Sergi Portabella (see the news); the Turkish effort (in co-production with the Netherlands) Meteors [+lire aussi :
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interview : Gürcan Keltek
fiche film] by Gürcan Keltek; Barbet Schroeder’s documentary The Venerable W [+lire aussi :
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interview : Barbet Schroeder
fiche film], staged by France and Switzerland and shot in Myanmar; and the surprising French-Belgian doc So Help Me God [+lire aussi :
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interview : Jean Libon et Yves Hinant
fiche film] by Jean Libon and Yves Hinant, which will finally be available for Spanish viewers to enjoy, after it was first presented at the most recent San Sebastián Film Festival.

To find out more about the eighth Atlàntida Film Festival, click here.