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Spain’s creative sectors are basking in the spotlight at Cannes this year. Three feature films by Spanish directors have been selected for the prestigious Competition — Pedro Almodóvar’s Bitter Christmas, Los Javis’s La Bola Negra and Rodrigo Sorogoyen’s The Beloved — and further titles, including Aina Clotet’s feature debut Viva in Critics’ Week, are impressing international audiences throughout the rest of the festival.
These filmmakers are at the forefront of an exciting movement that transformed Spain into a cutting-edge, world-class creative hub where film, fashion, design, music, performance, animation and contemporary visual storytelling come together.
To build on this momentum, ICEX’s Audiovisual From Spain initiative has produced three innovative audiovisual short-form pieces, Flamenco, La Tarara and La Llama, by some of the country’s most audacious talents. The films screened in Cannes on May 17 at the Olympia theatre and are available to watch on the campaign’s official website.
Each provides a window into Spanish creativity. Flamenco is directed by Carla Simón, one of Spain’s leading arthouse directors whose credits include Berlinale 2022 Golden Bear winner Alcarràs and Cannes 2025 Competition title Romería. This new short film fuses film, music, performance and emotional storytelling through the participation of artists including Rocío Molina, Niño de Elche and Ángeles Toledano.
“Flamenco is a cultural language widely recognised outside Spain and, at the same time, a very alive space for creation, where the boundaries between what is pure, modern and experimental are always shifting,” says Simón.
Flamenco has been produced in collaboration with Mamma Team, the Barcelona-based production and service company specialising in advertising, fashion and multidisciplinary international shoots.
Nicolás Méndez, the award-winning short film and music promo director, has made La Tarara, which brings together cinematic narrative and fashion. Ingrid García-Jonsson and Lucas Catalán star in the film, where performance, design and presence meet and interact.
“My interest lies in exploring the intersection between fashion, cinema and visual culture as languages that share the creative gesture as a form of communication,” explains Méndez. “La Tarara engages with the idea of contemporary cultural identity proposed by Where Talent Ignites, highlighting Spanish creative talent emerging from the meeting point between audiovisual and fashion.”
La Tarara is produced in collaboration with Canada, the Barcelona-based creative collective co-founded by Méndez, best known for commercials, music video and branded content.
The third short, La Llama, is directed by Turbo (Pau López and Gerardo del Hierro). It brings the visual universe of groundbreaking artist and designer Jaime Hayon to the screen, with creative direction by López and del Hierro. The film is a poetic and sensory journey through a ‘mutant house’, a constantly transforming space where architecture, design and visual culture converge. La Llama explores a century of Spanish creativity, positioning design as a living ecosystem capable of continuous reinvention.
Boutique production outfit White Horse, which specialises in branded content, music-driven projects and creative audiovisual production, and creative consultancy Apartamento Studios, both based in Barcelona, collaborated on the project.
“La Llama positions Spanish talent not as a sum of names or styles, but as a coherent, deep and intersectional creative ecosystem,” says executive producer Pol González Novell of White Horse. “Spanish design is now part of global contemporary culture, in the same way as other internationally recognisable creative expressions,” adds Apartamento’s art director Nacho Alegre.
The three films are presented by ICEX Spain Trade and Investment under the Audiovisual From Spain umbrella. “Spain is experiencing an exceptional moment in the audiovisual sector, and at ICEX we want to support that momentum with projects of high creative impact,” says CEO Elisa Carbonell. “The aim is to create pieces that, in themselves, showcase our talent, the excellence of our work and creators, and why Spanish audiovisual is going through a golden age.
“With these films, we are expanding the campaign’s ambition and connecting audiovisual with creative industries such as fashion, music or design, where Spain is also a benchmark of excellence at an international level.”
This multi-format approach sees the Where Talent Ignites campaign promote Spanish talent as a cultural and industrial driver with an impact beyond its local market. By bringing together disciplines, generations and creative languages, the initiative seeks to position Spain not only as a production hub, but as a source of globally relevant creative expression.
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