Spain Is Country of Honour at 57th IFFI in Goa

Spain has been designated the Country of Honour at the 57th International Film Festival of India (IFFI), which runs in Goa from 20 to 28 November 2026. To mark the honour the festival has put together a curated package of four contemporary Spanish films, carrying premieres at the world, Asian and Indian levels between them.

The four films

Bitter Christmas (Amarga Navidad) is the new film of Pedro Almodovar, a filmmaker who has won two Oscars. The 2026 work turns on how far a director may go in using his own life and real events as material, following a cult filmmaker named Raul who runs out of ideas and ends up drawing on his own tragedy for a script. It has already travelled to Cannes, Toronto and San Sebastian this year, and comes to the festival as its India Premiere.

Looking For Michael (Persiguiendo a Michael), directed by Juana Macias, is a comedy drama about a young woman who, diagnosed with Parkinson's disease, refuses to settle into sorrow. Backed by her music therapy group, whose members live with the same condition, she sets out to meet the actor Michael J. Fox. The 2026 film gets its World Premiere at the festival.

The Bad Son (El Mal Hijo) is the first film directed by the Spanish actor Jaime Lorente, and reaches Goa for its Asia Premiere. Shown earlier at the San Sebastian International Film Festival, it follows a man left by his father at the age of 11 who goes to live with a grandmother he hardly knows, and who tries to stop the family's inherited hurt from passing on any further.

Trinidad, directed by Laura Alvea and Jose Ortuno, is a 2025 action film set in the late nineteenth century. A young Spanish woman wrongly accused of a crime flees to the Wild West and joins a band of women outlaws, in a story of danger and revenge. It too has its World Premiere at the festival.

Why it matters

The Country of Honour slot is used by IFFI each year to place one national cinema at the centre of the programme. Putting Spain in it brings a line-up that ranges from an established auteur to a first-time director, and gives Indian audiences three kinds of premiere in a single package.