Award winners from major festivals: the best of international cinema comes to Mar del Plata

Nine films awarded at Cannes, Berlin, Sundance, and Annecy will have their Argentine premiere at the 41^st Mar del Plata International Film Festival.

Within Panorama, the Award Winners from Major Festivals section brings together a selection of the most outstanding films of the past year from the world’s leading international festivals. These are works recognized for their artistic and cinematic merit, coming to the big screen in Mar del Plata for audiences to discover.

Fjord, by Cristian Mungiu, opens the selection with the Palme d’Or from the Cannes Film Festival. Following a family loss, Lisbeth and Mihai leave Romania with their children to start a new life in a remote Norwegian village. That fragile harmony begins to crack when their younger daughter arrives at school covered in bruises, and what seemed like calm gives way to questions that put the bonds and trust between two families to the test.

From Sundance comes Josephine, by Beth de Araújo, winner of the Grand Jury Prize and Audience Award in the U.S. Dramatic competition. Starring Channing Tatum, it follows a father who must navigate an unexpected situation when his eight-year-old daughter, played by Mason Reeves, witnesses a rape in a park.

The 2026 Berlinale is represented by Everybody Digs Bill Evans, by Grant Gee, Silver Bear for Best Direction. In his fiction debut, the British documentary filmmaker takes us to New York in June 1961. Days after recording live at the Village Vanguard two of the greatest jazz albums ever made, Bill Evans loses Scott LaFaro — his bassist and musical soulmate — and stops playing for the first time since childhood. Also from Berlin comes Rose, by Markus Schleinzer, which earned Sandra Hüller the Silver Bear for Best Leading Performance.

Cannes adds further award-winning titles. A Man of His Time (Notre Salut), by Emmanuel Marre, won the Best Screenplay award in the Official Competition. Set during the German occupation of France and based on the director’s father’s memoirs, it portrays a Vichy regime official who seeks to preserve his position while taking part in sending trains to the concentration camps. 

Everytime, by Austrian filmmaker Sandra Wollner, won the top prize in Un Certain Regard. An unexpected tragedy brings together a mother, her daughter, and a teenage boy who, bound by guilt and the search for forgiveness, travel together to Tenerife to take the family vacation they never got to have. In that same section, Bradley Fiomona Dembeasset received the Best Actor award for Congo Boy, by Rafiki Fariala.

Also arriving from Cannes is The Black Ball, by Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi. Inspired by an unfinished short story by Federico García Lorca, it weaves together three stories set in different eras. The cast includes Miguel Bernardeau, Guitarricadelafuente, and Alberto González, with special appearances by Penélope Cruz, Lola Dueñas, Antonio de la Torre, Natalia de Molina, and Glenn Close. 

Animation also has its place with The Violinist, by Raúl García and Ervin Han, winner of the Cristal for Best Feature Film at the Annecy Festival. An adult film co-produced between Singapore and Spain, and the first Spanish film to receive that award.

Nine films that defined the year at the world’s great festivals, now on the big screen in Mar del Plata.