The Barcelona-based festival deepens its curatorial focus while introducing the Ventura Pons Award, honouring a key figure in Catalan cinema.
A gaze shifts, and with it, the stories that take shape. The 2026 edition of FIRE!! unfolds as a space where queer Arab and Persian narratives take centre stage, expanding the festival’s long-standing commitment to diversity and representation. Set to take place in Barcelona from June 4 to 14, this year’s programme continues to build on its identity as a meeting point for cinema, community and critical thought.
At the heart of this edition lies a curatorial focus that opens the screen to voices and perspectives often sidelined, inviting audiences to engage with new imaginaries around identity, belonging and self-expression. This thematic direction finds a strong visual counterpart in the official image created by Hadi Moussally, who embodies his alter ego Salma Zahore. Through this performative figure, Moussally explores the fluid boundaries between gender and culture, crafting a visual language that resonates with the festival’s ethos.
His work will also extend into the physical space of the city with the exhibition ‘Els àrabs que viuen en mi’ at the Institut Français de Barcelona, alongside the performance ‘I Am Love’, part of the opening event.
Beyond its thematic and visual framework, FIRE!! 2026 also marks a significant step in its evolution with the introduction of a new official award: the Premi Ventura Pons for Best Feature Film. Supported by the Barcelona City Council and endowed with €2,000, the prize pays tribute to Ventura Pons, a central figure in Catalan cinema and a pioneer in LGBTIQ+ representation. His work, spanning over four decades, includes landmark titles such as ‘Ocaña, retrat intermitent’ (1977), which brought visibility to dissident identities at a time when they remained largely absent from the screen.
With this new award, the festival keeps alive the legacy of a filmmaker who opened paths for stories long pushed to the margins. From this edition onwards, the award for Best Fiction Feature will carry his name, reinforcing FIRE!! as a space where cinema becomes memory, freedom and community.
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