OFFICIAL SELECTIONS

 

These are the Selected Films for the XI HELL CHESS FESTIVAL 2026

CUANDO LA GUITARRA CALLA .---------- Directed by Roberto Janacua --------- MÉXICO

When a good man who loves crafting musical instruments, after a long career devoted to excellence in this art, feels lost in his own workshop due to the heartbreaking helplessness of Alzheimer's disease. This drama is well interpreted by its lead actor.

THE FLIP-FLOW ----------------  Directed by Brad Condie ---------------  USA

Another short visual essay where animated images form a beautiful modern poem of visual design, from geometries to other images that could easily be part of a TV intro. The perfect union between images and music makes it delightful.

THE WANDERER   ------------ directed by Michael Lavine ------------- USA

We watch a black-and-white short film about the arrival of an angel girl on the eve of the death of a wounded boy. Nothing is as expected in this story, nor does what faith believes exist, but the film has an accurate interpretive presence in that tragic angel.

WARAO OF THE WATERS ------------ created by Rodrigo Volponi -------------BRAZIL

This epic song transports us through evocative atmospheres. From the very beginning, it conveys a seriousness in its approach and then leads us to indigenous songs and perhaps to the trembling emotion of the natural struggle for life. Best music nomination.

LA AMBICIÓN DE MARIE -------------- directed by Manu Fernández ---------- SPAIN

This chess story combines what some critics referred to in “The Seventh Seal”—the idea that the devil is in the chess piece—with a modern approach in this visually well-crafted fable with elegant settings. 

WAKE -------------- Creataed by Celine Egan ---------------- UK

This piece of music is part of a film soundtrack and is truly epic, with the piano and violins soaring skyward, undoubtedly to transport us to a great story.

The sound quality is first-rate. Best music nomination.

DREAM THEATRE .--------- directed by Daniel Limmer  ---------- AUSTRIA

The virtue of this feature film is not about an enterprise that records your dreams to heal, in a way

we have seen this thing before, the main merit is creating this out of the line plot using a principal

actress so natural and without any impression of self-importance. But the idea performs well.

ARASPEL ------------ Performed by Laura Farré Rozada ----------- ESPAÑA

This complex  armenian music is performed by a master pianist able to carry away places

we never think we can live. The power of her fingers and the strange beauty of the lands that

she wishes to introduce us.

---------------

All those plays and films will be showed where and when our poster tells:

SPAIN.