2025 shortlist

2004 film directed by Ousmane Sembène

Domingos is a member of an African liberation movement, arrested by the Portuguese secret police, after bloody events in Angola. His wife goes from a prison station to another, trying in vain to find out where he is.

Caught in the stranglehold of debt and structural adjustment, Africa is fighting for its survival. In the face of disaster, representatives of African society bring an action against international financial institutions. The trial takes place in Bamako, in the yard of a house, among its inhabitants.

Convicted of witchcraft, 8-year-old Shula is brought to live in a penal colony where witches do hard labour in service of the government.

Against all the odds, a thirteen year old boy in Malawi invents an unconventional way to save his family and village from famine.

A community reacts against a group of foreigners who under the guise of development assistance are forcibly sterilizing the peasant women.

Following his son Gabriel’s death, Jorge travels from conservative Bolivia to New York City to confront Gabriel’s boyfriend Sebastian. While the two battle over Jorge’s inability to accept his son, Sebastian channels his grief into a bold new play in honor of his lost love, in which Gabriel’s inner turmoil is transformed into an eye-popping gay fantasia.

2022 film directed by Alejandro Loayza Grisi

The story of Diego, a young and successful photographer that lives in the glamorous world of fashion, shallowness and excess. A tragic accident turns his world around; his partner is now in a coma. Unexpectedly, and right at this terrible time, Diego must take care of his son, Armando. Now, both of them have to adapt to each other; Armando to the unknown, homosexual world of his father, and Diego to the closed attitude of his teenage son.

¡Las Sandinistas! uncovers the disappearing stories of women who shattered barriers to lead combat and social reform during Nicaragua’s 1979 Sandinista Revolution, and who continue to lead Nicaragua’s current struggle for democracy and equality.

A rapturous crime fable set in the Dominican Republic, Nelson Carlo De Los Santos Arias’ COCOTE follows Alberto, a kind-hearted gardener returning home to attend his father’s funeral. When he discovers that a powerful local figure is responsible for his father’s death, Alberto realizes that he’s been summoned by his family to avenge the murder. It’s an unthinkable act — especially for him, an Evangelical Christian. But as pressure mounts, he sees few ways out. Questions of faith, tradition and honor course through this electrifying film, which, seemingly at the speed of thought itself, jumps between film formats, colors, and aspect ratios, radically envisioning a community torn asunder by senseless violence.

A retired singer from northern Sudan, Mona, burdened by guilt for covering up a man's death, hires his southern widow, Julia, as her maid. Unable to confess her role in the tragedy, she hopes to move forward, but the country's growing unrest threatens to reveal her secret.