Programmers' Picks: Hebe Tabachnik on SIFF 2025
Deaf
Ángela, a Deaf woman, and Héctor, her hearing partner, are expecting their first child. They are a couple in love, full of the excitement and all the questions that first parents have. However, Ángela’s pregnancy triggers fears about motherhood and how she will be able to raise her daughter in a world of sounds. Winner of the Audience Award at Berlinale Panorama 2025.
The Nature of Invisible Things
Gloria and Sofia, two 10-year-old girls, meet during the summer holidays while spending the days in a hospital. Gloria is accompanying her nurse mother and Sofia is visiting her grandmother with Alzheimer’s. Their playful and delicate bond will help them navigate the fragility of life and the ever-transforming challenges of growing up.
Flamingos: Life After the Meteorite
Finding the right partner, the right place, and the ideal time to create a family is the most decisive task in nature. Instinct, love, risk, and wisdom are intertwined in this unforgettable journey of the Caribbean Flamingo in its most delicate period of existence; a journey at once surprising, enthralling, and deeply inspiring.
I Am Nevenka
Nevenka Fernández, a town’s finance councilor, is relentlessly pursued by the mayor, a man used to always getting what he wants politically and personally. Nevenka decides to report him, turning her courageous fight into the first #MeToo case in Spain.
Salsa Lives
The rhythms, passion, and energy of Salsa do not recognize borders. Born in the vibrant streets of New York, it conquered and reigned in Cali. Featuring Salsa legends like Rubén Blades, Henry Fiol, and Willie Rosario, this illuminating journey shows how entire generations have been celebrating their common identity through music and dance.
Beef
Lati, a young second-generation Malian migrant from Barcelona, turns to rap to overcome the death of her father. Determined to overcome her fears of performing and to confront her mom’s opposition, a new world opens up for her when she learns how to tap into her frustration and anger to create empowering and liberating rhymes.
Transfers
A poignant documentary, with testimonials, archive material, animations, and heartbreaking reenactments of one of the most brutal and effective ways of killing and disappearing people executed by Argentina’s last Military Dictatorship: the infamous Death Flights.
Manas
Set in a corner of Brazil that remains mostly untouched by the modern world, Manas is the earnest and moving tale of Marcielle, a young victim of abuse who yearns to find a way out of a hostile home and a village that has resisted change for generations.
Hanami
Weaving between the natural and magical, Nana lives on a remote volcanic island from which everybody leaves. Left by her mother soon after birth, she will spend her life trying to find the right answer to the lingering question in her mind and soul: Should she stay or should she go?
Undercover
Inspired by real events, a young policewoman is recruited to infiltrate the terrorist group ETA in order to dismantle one of their dangerous commandos. Undercover, winner of the 2025 Goya Award for Best Film, recreates an unknown, shocking, and terrible story that goes beyond the suspense political thriller and offers a testimony to dark and violent times that still have ripple effects in today’s Spain.
