Gibara Low-Budget Film Festival 2026: A multicultural event

The 20th Gibara International Low-Budget Film Festival, in the province of Holguín, will take place from April 14 to 18, 2026, event director Sergio Benvenuto announced on Tuesday.

At a press conference in the Cuban Institute of Cinematographic Art and Industry (ICAIC), Benvenuto stated that the Gibara Festival is a multicultural event that promotes, raises awareness, and connects with many people.

This edition is a tribute to the 20 previous events and the 23 years since its founding; it is a pleasure to be able to work on a project with two facets: cultural and local development, he added.

The first call for entries with information on the historical categories in competition (feature and short fiction films, documentaries, animation, and experimental films) will be published this Wednesday on the event's social media and website.

Details will be provided via the same channel in the coming weeks regarding the requirements for the Films in Progress sections and the third edition of Factoría.

The event accepts works from around the world and integrates artistic expressions, theoretical debates, and community participation. The registration period will be from October 6, 2025, to January 5 of next year.

It has taken two decades of effort to found an international festival in a city that was originally a fishing village, almost 800 kilometers from Havana. It has been a precious utopia, commented ICAIC president Alexis Triana.

The Gibara International Low-Budget Film Festival was founded in April 2003 in Holguín and was only interrupted during the COVID-19 pandemic (2020-2022). It is one of the most highly valued events in the alternative seventh art scene in Latin America. (Source: Prensa Latina)