The ROS Film Festival stands as the only short film competition focused on robotics-themed science fiction, where machines take the lead in the stories, sometimes alongside humans. According to the festival director, artificial intelligence is participating for the first time this year, with about a dozen short films created entirely using this technology. Ricardo Domínguez presented the fifth edition’s program, noting Alicante as the venue from November 16 to 27. He recalled that the festival emerged from a need to probe how technology shapes daily life.
ROS Film Festival (Robotic Online Short) began online in Elche in 2017. It received 50 submissions, moved to Valencia, and the final screenings were held in Alicante. This edition marks a significant expansion in reach and quality, with Teatre Arniches and MACA serving as core venues and satellite spaces added. The festival has attracted a record number of short films, with more than 425 works submitted from over sixty countries.
Over 30 countries will be represented on screen, from Iran to the United Kingdom via China, and all sessions are free and open to the public. Most screenings will take place in Arniches Hall, where 62 shorts are scheduled between November 21 and 24, emphasizing video art. A new feature this year is the premiere of Pablo Berger’s Robot Dreams, which will be released theatrically on December 6 following its screening on November 24.
Another notable program includes a short film titled INFORMATION as part of the festival’s package. Berger’s latest animated work, submitted out of competition, had its international premiere in Berlin and Cannes in 2023, and it later won the Audience Award at Sitges. It will be shown at Arniches in Alicante on the 24th at 21:30, welcomed by the filmmaker and the music composer Alfonso de Vilalonga (Snow White, Princesses, My Life Without Me).
Additionally, new screening venues will host a variety of shorts. The Soda Barroom, the eight and a half Bookstore, and a session featuring the Cuban School of Animation will showcase cyberpunk-inspired pieces such as Fahrenheit 451 and Long live Pepa. A special Thursday session will focus on human-robot relationships under the title Love, Sex and Robots, curated by Lydia Na.
Ricardo Domínguez highlighted recurring themes in the selected proposals, including death avoidance, cloud memory dumps, compassionate robots, nostalgia for the past, and the sexualized portrayal of robots. The director emphasized that a robot is a tool we create to reflect what we are, especially within science fiction.
Two stage performances accompany the film program. The regional IVC delegate noted that technology will take a leading role on November 25 and 26, with Alicia Garijo confirming the inclusion of Arniches and MACA in the upgrade projects. The first performance, Control Freak, follows a Servant Orr character navigating social awkwardness while grappling with intricate systems on stage. The second, Patience, depicts a robot’s arrival on Mars and is inspired by the Alicante company Marroch, recently recognized at the Valencia Performing Arts Awards for portraying a dystopian world that demands awareness.
Robots are taking over the city
MACA also offers a masterclass that blends art with new technologies, including net art and online art. Daniel G. Andújar, born in Alicante, and Eusebio Sempere, a pioneer of language in contemporary art, will contribute. Andújar will lead a workshop on artistic practice in the age of artificial intelligence, while Sempere’s legacy continues to influence the present. The MACA curator notes that this setup honors Sempere’s role in renewing artistic languages with early computing devices, long before today’s digital trends.
As a family-friendly component, a film will be shown in Aigües and Crevillent on the 20th, featuring a curated short selection suitable for younger audiences, alongside workshops that introduce cinema and robotics to participants. A public-evening event at Soda Bar on the 23rd, hosted by journalist Lorena Sánchez, will entertain adults with music videos from the competition.
There is a prize pool of 1,200 euros for the top short, plus 500 euros for second place and 300 euros for third, along with several runner-up prizes. The jury has already shortlisted 16 finalists, though it was not disclosed whether any of the selections were AI-generated.
The jury comprises Javier Ordóñez, a history of science professor at the Autonomous University of Madrid and jury president; Lorena Sánchez, editor-in-chief of QUO magazine; Daniel García Andújar; Natalia Pérez-Galdós, writer and science communicator; and Edit Felgueiras, CERN science communicator and director of the Braga Science Festival. This year’s festival poster nods to theater and cinema, featuring masks and a robotic motif, echoing themes from V for Vendetta and the notion of an autonomous, artistic robot.
ROS Film Festival is an original concept by El Kaleidoscopio, funded by the Department of Culture of the Alicante City Council and the Institut Valencià de Cultura of the Generalitat Valenciana.