The suffocating heat, perhaps as an unmistakeable sign of the climate catastrophe, women’s bodies, exploring family structures, the industrial past and the digital universe are all present among the twelve proposals selected for the twelfth Ikusmira Berriak, approached in a rich variety of forms, reinterpreting genres like gothic horror, the road movie, psychological drama and body horror. The film projects by Ekain Albite, Rod Llaverías, Inês Nunes, Gala Hernández López, Kavich Neang and Valeria Hofmann were selected for the residencies organised by the San Sebastián Festival, the Tabakalera international arts centre and Elías Querejeta Zine Eskola. The programme once again broke its own record for entries, receiving 488 film projects. Among the six projects selected, five are debuts and one is a second film, reaffirming Ikusmira Berriak’s commitment to new cinematic voices and points of view.

In the Elías Querejeta Zine Eskola category, open to EQZE students, the project chosen was The Spirit Healer is Away for the Weekend, by Inês Nunes (b. Tavira, 1993). This Portuguese director, whose most recent short, A solidão dos lagartos / The Loneliness of Lizards (2025), was premiered in the official short film selection at the Cannes festival, and selected in the Nest category at the San Sebastián festival, where it won the Movistar Plus + prize for best short, portrays two women who, in an Algarve assailed by heat and tourism, take refuge in a shopping centre, which the film maker describes as “places that offer consolation and belonging, but at the same time work as traps that capitalise on our most deep-seated anxieties.”

In the Nest category, open to filmmakers chosen in the last five editions of the international students' event at the festival (2020-2024), La Canícula by Dominican director Rod Llaverías (b. New York, 1989) was chosen. The first feature-length film by Llaverías, who co-wrote the short Darling, winner of the Orizzonti prize for best short film in Venice (2019), is working on the short Tropicalía, with which he took part in Nest in 2022, exploring care, the duel, trauma and identity through four women who live in a dilapidated family home in the Dominican capital.

In the Basque category the project chosen is Akira, by Ekain Albite (b. Zumaia, 1999), co-director of the collective film Negu hurbilak (2023), which earned a special commendation in the Cineasti del Presente section at the Locarno festival. The first solo feature-length project by Albite, an EQZE graduate, is a spectral, night-time road movie featuring two Georgian scrap merchants who travel from the Lemoiz nuclear power station to their native country.

The project selected in the Spanish category is Los animals magnéticos / Magnetic animals by Gala Hernández López (b. Murcia, 1993). This artist, film-maker and researcher, whose film La Mécanique des fluides won the César for best short documentary in 2024, tells the story of two women with a mysterious connection, a scientist in modern-day Berlin and a French aristocrat trying to deal with motherhood in the late 18th century, a gothic horror film which uses the idea of the female double.

In the international category two projects have been chosen. In Daemon, Chilean director and scriptwriter Valeria Hofmann (b. Santiago de Chile, 1988) uses body-techno horror to tell the story of two people who live on the fringes of the technological system: a content moderator and a worker in a factory that produces mobile phones. Her short film AliEN0089, which also explored the technological habitat, won the prize for best international director at Sundance (2023) and the Grand Prix Labo at Clermont Ferrand (2024).

Finally, Cambodian director Kavich Neang (b. Phnom Penh, 1987), after premiering Boden sar / White Building at the Venice festival (2021), winning the Orizzonti prize for best actor, uses his second feature-length project, Chas Khouch Kmeng Ropus / Bad Man Good Boy, to portray the coming of age of two friends, but also to reflect on the family and an authoritarian context.

The residency lasts eight weeks, divided into two stays. The group of six filmmakers will be arriving at Tabakalera on 9th March and will have time in the Film and Audiovisuals Laboratory there to work on their projects until 19th April. During this time, they will be advised by experts specially chosen on the basis of each project's needs. In June, each resident will receive financial assistance to help them to carry on working on their project between the two stays. In September, coinciding with the festival, they will come back to San Sebastián to complete the last two weeks of their residency. During this phase they will be able to present their project to industry professionals and will have a personalised agenda of visits with people interested in taking part in their projects.

• Projects: 56
• Films completed: 28
• Awards: 57
• Appearances at festivals: 353
• Last films premiered: 5 in 2025
  La misteriosa mirada del flamenco / The Mysterious Gaze of the Flamingo, Diego Céspedes (2025); Anoche conquisté Tebas / Last Night I Conquered the City of Tebas, Gabriel Azorín (2025); Hiedra / The Ivy, Ana Cristina Barragán (2025); Estrany Riu / Strange River, Jaume Claret (2025); Aro berria, Irati Gorostidi (2025).