Locarno and Venice 2026 selections for HBF and CineMart films – plus a Lightroom work in competition
IFFR-backed films supported by the Hubert Bals Fund and presented at CineMart are heading to the summer festivals, with five titles at Locarno and five at Venice, plus a Lightroom-presented immersive work in Venice’s Immersive Competition strand.
Highlights include the two-time IFFR Pro Award-winning Tear Gas by Uta Beria in Locarno, set amid mass protest in Tbilisi, the twenty-year-in-the-making Dau by Ilya Khrzhanovsky in Venice and Japanese artist Rio Nakada’s autobiographical immersive experience, presented as a work-in-progress in last year’s Lightroom.
Programme texts are drawn from the festival websites where available.
Locarno
Concorso internazionale
Thính Giác (Hearing) by Lê Bảo
Singapore, Vietnam
CineMart 2026
“Ninh lives with his mother and misses his ex-wife Ngọc and their young children. In his work as a mechanic who installs decibel meters in public spaces and homes, Ninh observes the silence that haunts relationships. Wishing for his parents, who live apart and do not speak to each other, to reconcile, his fear of losing his connection to his loved ones forces him to face life’s unpredictable rhythms.”
Vietnamese filmmaker Lê Bảo’s debut feature Vị (Taste) (2021) won the Special Jury Award in the Encounters strand at the Berlinale. Hearing is his second feature.
Princesa Burro by Cristóbal León & Joaquín Cociña
Chile, France, Uruguay, Netherlands, Germany
HBF Development 2020, NFF+HBF 2023
“Diana is the princess of an ancient kingdom. Her father, King Arthur, forbids love. When Diana falls in love with Lalo, he banishes him. Using a magical bracelet, Diana travels to other worlds in search of her love. Discovering that her father manipulates her decisions, she must face her fears and change her destiny.”
Chilean filmmakers and artists Cristóbal León and Joaquín Cociña have worked together since 2007. Their stop-motion feature debut La Casa Lobo (2018) premiered in the Berlinale’s Forum strand and won the Caligari Film Prize. Their latest film is a Netherlands co-production with Viking Film.
À Margem do Rio by Matheus Farias, Enock Carvalho
Brazil, Germany
HBF Development 2022
“Izaquiel works as a cleaner in Recife, a Brazilian city intertwined with rivers and mangroves. At night, he dangerously ventures out in search of secret encounters in the mangrove forest. His world shifts when he crosses paths with Jeremias, an intriguing and magnetic fisherman. As violent intruders close in, Jeremias leads Izaquiel on a journey deep into the heart of the mangroves.”
À Margem do Rio is the feature debut of Brazilian duo Matheus Farias and Enock Carvalho, whose short Inabitável (2020) screened at Sundance and won several national and international awards.
Cineasti del Presente
La Nuit (At Night) by Beatrice Gibson
United Kingdom, France
CineMart 2024
“Six women in Paris traverse the anxiety of the city after dark. A filmmaker struggles to understand the film she is making. A Black single mother refuses the categories imposed on her. A former sex worker reflects on her past. A poet gives up trying for a child. Taking place over a single night, the film intertwines dream, fiction and reality, liquefying one into the other.”
Franco-British artist filmmaker Beatrice Gibson is a two-time winner of the Tiger Award for best short film at IFFR (2009 and 2013). Her short Deux Soeurs Qui Ne Sont Pas Soeurs (2019) premiered in the Quinzaine des Cinéastes at Cannes.
Tear Gas by Uta Beria
Georgia, Germany, France
HBF+Europe: Minority Co-production Support 2023, Darkroom 2025, HBF Empowerment Award 2025, Outward Gaze Prize 2025
Georgia, Germany, France
“16-year-old Elene and her war-scarred family are drawn into a mass protest in Tbilisi that transforms the streets into a battleground for freedom, forcing them to confront the fractures already threatening to tear them apart. A fiction film shot inside real demonstrations.”
Georgian filmmaker Uta Beria’s debut feature Negative Numbers (2019) won the EU Human Rights in Cinema award. Tear Gas is his second feature.
HBF alumni across all sections
Hubert Bals Fund alumni are well represented elsewhere in the Locarno line-up: Deepak Rauniyar, Ratchapoom Boonbunchachok, Timoteus Anggawan Kusno, Suzannah Mirghani, Judy Kibinge, Lê Bảo and Mamadou Dia.
Venice Biennale Cinema
Official Competition
Dau by Ilya Khrzhanovsky
Germany, France, Sweden
HBF Development Support 2005, CineMart 2006
“Inspired by the life of Soviet physicists who built the atomic bomb, Dau follows a Greek-born physicist in the USSR from 1928 to 1968 as his search for scientific truth is bent to the service of the state. Spanning four decades and over twenty years in the making, the film is both an intimate portrait of one man and a fresco of a society shaped by violence and ideology.”
Russian-born filmmaker Ilya Khrzhanovsky’s debut feature 4 won the Tiger Award at IFFR 2004. He began work on Dau in 2006, developing it over more than two decades into a multidisciplinary project spanning cinema, visual art and anthropology; two films from the project screened at the Berlinale in 2020, with Dau. Natasha winning the Silver Bear for Outstanding Artistic Contribution.
Orizzonti
Yak Mai (The Burning Giants) by Phuttiphong Aroonpheng
Thailand, France, Singapore, Taipei, Netherlands
HBF Development Support 2021, NFF+HBF 2024, CineMart 2023
“The film is inspired by the true story of the murder of an environmental and Indigenous rights activist from the Karen group, an ethnic minority in the mountains of Thailand, who was chased away by forest rangers then killed after protesting the forced eviction of his village from a protected forest to make way for a national park.”
Thai filmmaker Phuttiphong Aroonpheng’s debut feature Manta Ray (IFFR 2019) won Best Film in the Orizzonti section at Venice, the first Thai film to receive the honour.
Spotlight
Conversation with the Sea by Muayad Alayan
Palestine, Netherlands, Saudi Arabia, Qatar
HBF Development Support 2024, HBF+Europe: Minority Co-production Support 2025
“In Jerusalem, Kamal, a 60-year-old Palestinian man, is ordered by an Israeli court to pay a large social security debt allegedly owed by his son Wael. But Wael drowned in the Red Sea decades ago. When no official record of his death can be found, Kamal follows the only remaining lead to uncover what happened to his son.”
Palestinian filmmaker Muayad Alayan’s second feature, The Reports on Sarah and Saleem (2018), won the Hubert Bals Fund Audience Award at IFFR. His latest is a Netherlands co-production with KeyFilm.
Guria by Levan Koguashvili
Georgia, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Bulgaria, Türkiye, Norway, Saudi Arabia
HBF Development Support 2019
“In a Georgian village where the Soviet collapse brought only power cuts and poverty, a stubborn widowed hazelnut farmer holds out for two fair deals: a decent price for his harvest, and a second chance at love.”
Georgian filmmaker Levan Koguashvili’s third feature, Brighton 4th (2021), won three prizes at Tribeca and was Georgia’s submission for the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film.
Venice Immersive Competition
NOX by Rio Nakada
Japan
Lightroom work-in-progress 2026
“NOX is a 20-minute interactive XR work that immerses the viewer in a fractured psychological landscape shaped by trauma, dissociation, intrusive memory and fragmented identity. Through narrative progression and four hand-tracked interactions, the participant moves through an unstable inner world where perception, bodily sensation and reality shift. Blending documentary intimacy with dramatic immersion, the work offers a deeply personal experience that leaves a faint sense of hope.”
Japanese artist and creative technologist Rio Nakada works across virtual reality, mixed reality and spatial computing.
Giornate degli Autori
Dear Ajayi by Damilola Elijah Orimogunje
Nigeria, Germany
HBF+Europe: Post-production Support 2025
“In southwestern Nigeria in the 1990s, sisters Ade and Titi Ajayi lead vastly different lives under the shadow of their late father. Ade, a devout Christian and the family’s sole breadwinner, clashes with her independent-spirited sister Titi when their ailing mother comes to live with them, surfacing old resentments. Through intimate domestic spaces and music, Dear Ajayi is a portrait of family, sacrifice and the search for one’s place in the world.”
Nigerian filmmaker Damilola Elijah Orimogunje’s debut feature For Maria, Ebun Pataki (2020) won the Audience Award for Best Narrative Feature at Film Africa and earned six nominations at the African Movie Academy Awards. Dear Ajayi is his second feature.
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