Alicante’s Film Festival and the London Spanish Film Festival extended their cooperation for a sixth consecutive year, ensuring the screening of the winning feature and adding an extra cycle of award-winning shorts at the upcoming edition in London this September. A similar agreement exists with the Scottish counterpart, the Edinburgh Spanish Film Festival, where the event in October confirmed ongoing collaboration with partners from Alicante. There is also talk of expanding a parallel agreement with a festival in Istanbul. A few years ago, Greece was invited as guest country to showcase its cinema, marking an ongoing pattern of international collaboration across major European festivals.
These alliances with national and international Spanish film festivals increase the opportunities for audiences to view the award-winning works from Alicante while the festival marks its twentieth edition this year, taking place from 3 to 10 June. Italy was invited to participate as a neighboring country, allowing Italian cinema to feature a curated selection of films and the premiere of a new title in Alicante, highlighting the cross-border appeal of Spanish storytelling alongside neighboring European cinema.
During the Malaga Festival’s final edition, the collaboration between Vicente Seva and Joana Granero, the director of the London Spanish Film Festival, was renewed for six years to broaden exposure for the winning feature from last year’s Alicante festival. The program includes places never visited before and features the latest film by Roberto Perez Toledo, among others, offering audiences fresh perspectives from established Spanish filmmakers.
This collaboration translates into the Golden Tile award–winning feature being screened at the 20th Alicante Film Festival and at the London Spanish Film Festival, which is celebrating its nineteenth edition later this year in late September with the aim of promoting Spanish cinema in the British capital. Seva will attend the London event to promote the competition internationally, while the strongest short films from the current edition will also be showcased, each short selected to run approximately an hour in length.
Spanish cinema gains additional promotional channels through these international partnerships, notes Seva, and Joana Granero stresses that the friendship between the Alicante and London festivals is strong and enduring. Renewing this collaboration is seen as a concrete step in jointly raising awareness of Spanish talent both inside and outside Spain, with a shared commitment to presenting high-quality films to diverse audiences in the United Kingdom and beyond.
In Alicante, previous winners have included works by Victor Garcia Leon and others who won the best film award as well as the Best Director and Best Screenplay honors from the jury, while the critics’ prize recognized titles like Open Door. The season also featured notable achievements such as the Gold Tile honoring a film for Best Feature, Best Screenplay, and Best Actress, along with other acclaimed entries from the festival slate, including titles that resonate with international viewers and critics alike. These selections demonstrate the breadth of contemporary Spanish cinema and its capacity to travel to audiences far from its origin, reinforcing the festival’s role as a premier platform for discovery and cross-cultural exchange.