Overcoming fears inspires the eighth edition of the Brain Film Fest

Film, mental health, neuroscience in a program of over forty productions and activities exploring the mysteries of the brain and contemporary anxiety

The eighth edition of the Brain Film Fest will take place from March 12 to 16 at the Centre of Contemporary Culture of Barcelona (CCCB). With overcoming fears as its central theme, the program of over forty productions will include eleven feature films and twenty-one short films in the two competitive official sections. Roundtables and workshops will expand the cinematic experience to explore fear as a human tool for overcoming obstacles and a driving force for change. The Brain Film Fest is powered by the Pasqual Maragall Foundation and co-organized with Minimal Films, with the collaboration of the Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology – Ministry of Science and Innovation.

Documentary filmmaker Nicolas Philibert, recipient of the Brain Film Fest 2025 Special Award and author of a transformative trilogy on mental health filmed in psychiatric centers in Paris, will receive the award on March 12, during the festival’s opening, where his latest film The Typewriter and Other Sources of Problems will also be screened. This is the concluding piece of the trilogy that began in 2023 with On the Adamant (Sur l’Adamant), winner of the Golden Bear at the Berlinale, and continued in 2024 with Averroes and Rosa Parks, both also featured in the program.

Anguish, an epiphenomenon of the contemporary world

The acceleration of the modern world and its deep inequalities create sources of anguish that are difficult to control. This year, the Brain Film Fest seeks to delve deeper into its effects with five films and various talks on the risks of the digital environment, the suffering of undocumented migrants, the rise of authoritarianism, and the impact of anxiety in professional life. One of these themes, infodemia, a term that defines the information overload in our digital environment, is tackled by Rodrigo Cortés in the thriller-comedy Escape. It follows a “reverse Alcatraz escape”: the story of a man who, in order to enter prison, commits increasingly severe crimes, creating confusion around him. The Danish documentary Can’t Feel Nothing by David Borenstein and Mikkel Jersin also addresses digital risks, showing the insensitivity of the social media era, used for the emotional manipulation of feelings like anger, love, humiliation, or desire. This will be shown in a special session for the neurodivergent audience.

The French History of Souleymane by Boris Lojkine, which won the Jury Prize and Best Actor at the Cannes Film Festival’s Un Certain Regard section, along with the Fipresci Award and accolades from the European Academy and the Gijón Film Festival, portrays the daily anguish of an immigrant in Paris. Based on the real-life struggles of Abou Sangaré, it depicts the invisible, undocumented labor that keeps the machinery of our first world running in foreign lands and cultures. Another exploration of daily anguish can be seen in Anxiety Club by Wendy Lobel, which captures a group of American comedians as they try to overcome their anxiety. This film will have its international premiere at the Brain Film Fest. The screening will be followed by a roundtable titled Mental Health on Stage: Brave Conversations About Anxiety with the director, psychologist Cristina García Pedrajas, and journalist Roger de Gràcia.

The British production 2073 by Asif Kapadia is one of the most stimulating cinematic experiments of the year. Using a mix of archive and fictional footage, it presents a dystopia about very real threats, such as democratic recession, the rise of neofascism, climate catastrophe, and surveillance technology intrusion. This will be followed by a discussion panel titled The Psychology of Power: Attraction and Manipulation in Authoritarian Politics, featuring the director and journalist Manel Alias.

The impact of memory on personal and collective identity

Familiar Touch by Sarah Friedland is a poignant narrative about a new philosophy of care, showing the transition of an octogenarian woman with Alzheimer’s to life in an assisted living facility. It portrays the conflict between her relationship with herself and with her caregivers amidst her memory and identity changes due to age and desires. Memory and identity are also explored in the Japanese Great Absence by Kei Chika-ura, which won Best Actor at the San Sebastián Film Festival. This emotional story about time and the fragility of life follows an intense, beautiful thriller-like reconnection between a father and son.

A father-child relationship is also central to Bucharest, the Lost Memory, a documentary that won the Gaudí and Goya Awards. Directed by Albert Solé, the film is screened this year outside the competition in honor of the fifteenth anniversary of the death of the politician Jordi Solé Tura. Solé embarks on a search for his roots, reconstructing both his personal and collective memory of his father’s fight against Alzheimer’s. After the screening, the director will engage in a discussion with journalist Carme Colomina. Another documentary, Javier Cercas and the Impostor by Catherine Bernstein, explores the lie that Enric Marco, the voice of Spanish deportees, kept alive in our official memory for over twenty-five years, inventing a past in Nazi concentration camps and a pedigree as an antifascist. This will be presented for the first time to the public, with the director and writer Javier Cercas participating in a post-screening conversation.

The mysteries of the brain

The relationship between brain mechanisms and cinematic storytelling is also a focus of the festival this year. Horror films attract us because they activate fear circuits in the brain, releasing adrenaline and dopamine, substances associated with excitement and pleasure, in a safe environment. In the lecture Adrenaline in Cinema, Dr. Jesús Porta Etessam, president of the Spanish Neurology Society, will analyze this emotional experience, which is both stimulating and addictive.

In Unpacking an Elephant by Aitor Echeverría, Emma Suárez and Natalia de Molina play a mother and daughter undergoing rehabilitation for addiction. The screening will lead to a shared reflection with experts and participants in the roundtable Addictions in Focus: When Cinema Decodes the Addictive Brain. The discussion will include screenwriter Pep Garrido, Javier Giner, author of Yo, adicto (I, Addict), psychologist Montserrat Contel Guillamón, biologist Oihan Iturbide, founder of Yonkibooks, and journalist Flora Saura.

In the documentary Ana Rosa, director Catalina Villar takes viewers on a journey through the history of psychiatry, dissecting her own family memory, particularly her paternal grandmother’s lobotomy in 1950s Colombia. This surgery, which affects more women than men, is one of the cruelest examples of 20th-century biopolitics.

The festival will also screen an episode from the docuseries Brain Hackers, a journey through human cognition in which, guided by science communicator Luis Quevedo and renowned magicians and scientists, we will uncover the secrets hidden in our minds. The screening will be followed by a discussion with the director and Dr. Jordi Camí, a pharmacology specialist and director of the Biomedical Research Park of Barcelona.

Emotional traces of love, motherhood, and death

Morlaix by Jaime Rosales is set in a village in French Brittany, where the filmmaker shot this story about first love and its emotional trace in adulthood. Rosales’ eighth film will be released in theaters on March 14 and will have a pre-screening at the CCCB Theater as part of the Brain Film Fest, followed by a conversation with the director.

Motherhood, in its moment of fragility, can be explained as a horror movie, proposes Mar Coll, director of the thriller Salve Maria, an impactful story inspired by Katixa Agirre’s novel. This film won the Gaudí Award for Best Adapted Script and the Feroz Award for Best Drama Film. Co-writer Valentina Viso will have a discussion with the festival audience after the screening. Finally, Dust Shall Be will be the closing film of the eighth edition of the Brain Film Fest on March 16. Winner of four Gaudí Awards, including Best Non-Catalan Language Film, Carlos Marques-Marcet’s new feature takes the form of a tragicomic musical, exploring the boundaries between life and death, starring Ángela Molina and Alfredo Castro, with music by Maria Arnal and choreography by La Veronal.

Other screenings

The documentary The Farrer Method by Esther Morente, Living Twice by María Ripoll, and a session of Can’t Feel Nothing comprise this year’s program for schools. For family audiences, Brain Film Fest will screen the animated film Sauvages by Claude Barras, a story that invites reflection on the importance of protecting nature. As part of the Alzheimer Program at the CCCB, The Wizard of Oz by Victor Fleming (1939) will also be shown.

Short Films in the Programme

The Brain Film Fest presents a selection of excellent short films that tackle diverse and profound themes. Among the standout works are Pirsas, a story about grief and reconciliation; Cómo desaparecer completamente, a reflection on existence in urban space; El Amoragaor, which explores memory and identity through gastronomy; Instrucciones para ser un niño sensato, an intriguing tale about behaviour and appearances; Presencia, revealing the experience of a woman with reduced mobility; 1500 KCAL, addressing the influence of social media on our image; Dieter, a fantastic journey through the mind of a sick sculptor; Por qué volvías cada verano, a denunciation of abuse and family silence; Pena’s Special Hauling, about a retired truck driver with memory issues; La niña tatuada, reflecting on the behaviour of parents and its implications; Vida o teatro, a story of reconciliation between mother and daughter; Escribiendo…, exploring the challenges of critiquing a superior’s work; Joel el bobo, a raw look at a toxic family relationship; ESA MUJER, which addresses work and personal relationships; Demà, tackling the reality of growing up with a brother who has Down syndrome; La Odisea, a modern take on Ulysses’ journey; Jueves de Marzo, a story of how a single day marks a crucial change; Stills Moving, a reflection on life and death through art; O Estado de Alma, a tale of physical and emotional transformation; A Mamá con Jamón, a family and tradition story; and Como siempre, exploring the life of an artist facing illness. This year, the festival offers a wide range of proposals exploring human relationships, identity, and the challenges of everyday life.

The Brain Film Fest on Tour

This year, the festival takes part of its programme beyond Barcelona, with activities before and after its official dates. In Madrid, in collaboration with Fundación Telefónica, the festival will hold a pre-opening screening at the Telefónica Space in Madrid on March 4th. The session will feature the competition film Can’t Feel Nothing, directed by David Borenstein, followed by a roundtable discussing emotional addictions linked to social media. Sant Boi de Llobregat will also join the Brain Film Fest on Tour, with three screenings on March 21st at the Parque Sanitario Sant Joan de Déu. With the aim of opening the park to the public and destigmatising mental health, the health facility’s auditorium will host a session for schoolchildren (El Método Farrer) and two sessions for the general public (Anxiety Club and La Historia de Souleymane), each followed by discussions.

Acción>Cine collaborates on the screenings of Ana Rosa, La Historia de Souleymane, and Sauvages. This initiative is led by Catalunya Film Festivals, in collaboration with the Catalan Agency for Development Cooperation, the Department of Foreign Action and European Union, and the Department of Culture. It promotes audiovisual media as a tool for building an informed, critical, and mobilised citizenry for a fairer world. We connect the worlds of cooperation, cinema, the audience, reality, critical analysis, and action. Because in a global world, solutions are global.