Twelve films have been selected for C EU Soon, the work-in-progress program dedicated to European films in production and post-production, seeking international distribution.
The finalists of C EU SOON 2026 (including four debut feature films) were chosen by an international selection committee composed of Estrella Araiza, General Director of the Guadalajara International Film Festival and the FICG Cineteca; Jason Bressand, Head of Animation Sales & Acquisitions at Goodfellas; Roberto Butragueño, CEO of Sideral Cinema; Sejin Croninger, Executive Vice President of Worldwide Acquisitions at Paramount Pictures; Huub Roelvink, Owner and Managing Director of Cherry Pickers Filmdistributie; Katarzyna Siniarska, Head of Sales at New Europe Film Sales.
The films are competing for the Screen International Award, which includes dedicated coverage of the winning film on Screen International.
The selected films will be presented to an audience of sales agents, distributors, and industry professionals on Tuesday, October 20 at 4:00 pm at Hotel Excelsior.
The presentation will be followed by one-on-one meetings over the following days.
Feel free to get in touch with us to schedule a meeting!
Bringing together emerging voices and established filmmakers from across 21 countries, the 2026 C EU Soon selection explores family ties, inherited legacies, social change and the search for individual freedom through deeply personal stories.
Set in rural Galicia in the 1990s, A God Without Dance follows an atheist single mother determined to fulfil her dying mother’s last wish: seeing her twelve-year-old granddaughter make her First Communion. It is directed by Pedro Díaz, whose short The Delivery was Goya-nominated and selected at Clermont-Ferrand, and set as a Spanish-Portuguese co-production, including Salon Indien Films.
With Another One, Maybe. But Not This One. Romanian filmmaker Paul Cioran directs a tense coming-of-age thriller about trauma, imagination and emotional silence. Produced by Claudiu Mitcu for Parada Film, The story revolves around a twelve-year-old girl who, after discovering her murdered neighbour, begins obsessively reconstructing the crime through drawings, recordings and imagination.
Irish filmmaker Shaun O’Connor’s Diatribe brings online misinformation and radicalisation into the heart of a family as a teenager falls under the influence of a charismatic conspiracy theorist. Produced by 3 Hot Whiskeys Productions, the film explores truth, belonging and generational conflict. The company recently co-produced Horseshoe, winner of Best First Irish Feature at the 2025 Galway Film Fleadh.
A six-country European co-production led by Serbia’s This and That Productions, Mirjana Karanović’s Folk Play follows a young woman whose encounter with a folk singer challenges the life that has been laid out for her. Exploring desire, tradition and personal freedom, the film marks Karanović’s third feature as a director. A renowned Serbian actress and filmmaker, she made her directorial debut with the Sundance-premiering A Good Wife, followed by Mother Mara.
Internationally acclaimed Polish filmmaker Krzysztof Zanussi returns with the Polish-Bulgarian From Dust to Dust, in which the lives of three characters unexpectedly intersect through illness, faith and life-changing decisions. Produced by Poland’s long-established Documentary and Feature Film Studio, WFDiF, in co-production with Bulgarian RFF International, the film continues Zanussi’s exploration of free will, destiny and moral responsibility.
Directed by György Kristóf, I Will Find You begins as war breaks out in Ukraine, leaving Anna unable to contact the surrogate mother pregnant of her child. Produced through Kristóf’s Dynamo Productions, the film transforms her search across the border into a story of motherhood, uncertainty and displacement. Kristóf previously made Out, which premiered in Cannes’ Un Certain Regard, followed by the dance sci-fi feature Zenith. I will find you was selected at MIA film co-production market in 2023.
Set in a Costa Brava outside the tourist season, Off-Season follows a father and his children after learning that the campsite they have always called home has been sold. Their uncertain future gradually pulls the family apart, turning displacement into an intimate story about belonging, change and reconnecting. The film marks the feature directorial debut of Marta Font and is produced by Ringo Media, whose previous titles have screened at festivals including Berlinale, Sundance, SXSW, Locarno and San Sebastián.
Agnieszka Trzos’s The Seal Mother intertwines a marine biologist’s work protecting endangered seals with her increasingly difficult attempt to become a mother. Produced by Mamma Pictures with Finnish co-producer Greenlit Productions, the film connects questions of reproductive autonomy, loneliness and resilience with a distinctive ecological dimension. The project continues Trzos’s long-standing interest in strong female protagonists and the relationship between humans and nature.
Adding to the 2026 selection of C EU Soon, four groundbreaking animated projects features the long-awaited debuts of Upamanyu Bhattacharyya and Carlos Gómez-Salamanca next to the new efforts of veterans in the animation industry Signe Baumane and Anca Damian, pushing the boundaries of storytelling and exploring topics as such as family and social crises, creating powerful and hand-crafted visual experiences.
In Starseed by Anca Damian (produced by Dream Vessel Films, Aparte Film), a young girl living in a drought-stricken Zimbabwean township turns to ancient folklore and unexpected temporal shifts, setting off on a quest for a lost river goddess to rescue her people from environmental collapse.
The interplay between harsh reality and sanctuary takes a deeply personal turn in Heirloom by Upamanyu Bhattacharyya (produced by Odd & Even Pictures, Otter Studios), where a textile family business in Ahmedabad is facing changes caused by the industrial conversion, until the sick mother discovers an embroidered tapestry that allows her to step into her family’s past, forcing her to decide whether to hide within safe memories or face her real-life mortality.
A darker, grittier fight against marginalization drives Desechable by Carlos Gómez-Salamanca (Colombia, Spain, produced by Jaibo Films, Nocroma) to follow an abandoned scientist on the streets who reclaims an experimental serum to turn his personal tragedy into a fierce, collective rebellion for the disenfranchised.
Rounding out this exploration of freedom and legacy, Karmic Knot by Signe Baumane (produced by Fabian&Fred, Studio Lokomotive, Marriage Project) paints a poignant portrait of a Latvian family growing wealthy through an illicit rose trade, where the youngest daughter must find a way to break free from suffocating domestic bonds as the Soviet regime crumbles around them.
Selected Films for C EU Soon 2026
A God Without Dance
Original title: Un Deus Que Non Baila
Feature Film
Portugal, Spain
Drama, Family
In rural Galicia in the 1990s, María is determined to fulfill her dying mother's last wish: to see her granddaughter Lola make her First Communion. But María is an atheist and a single mother, while 12-year-old Lola hasn't set foot in a church since her baptism.... more
Production Company/ies: Mandrágora Cinema, Salon Indien Films, Matriuska, Nu Boyana Film Studios
Read the full project description on MIADIGITALAnother One, Maybe. But Not This One
Original title: Alta, poate. Dar nu asta
Feature Film
Romania
Crime, Family, Kids/Teenagers, Mistery, Thriller
When 12-year-old Ana finds her neighbor murdered, she has no language for what she has seen. Only her hands, her phone, and a compulsion to return to the crime scene. While her father, Sep, tries to move on as if nothing happened, fear and fascination become inseparable for Ana. She... more
Production Company/ies: Parada Film
Read the full project description on MIADIGITALDesechable
Animated Feature Film
Colombia, Spain
Fantasy, Social Drama
Desechable tells the story of Diego Salinas, a young scientist who is kidnapped by an armed group and forced to work in a cocaine laboratory. After escaping under the effects of an experimental drug he has created himself, Diego falls into the abyss of the city: stigmatized and reduced to... more
Production Company/ies: Jaibo Films, Nocroma
Read the full project description on MIADIGITALDiatribe
Feature Film
Ireland
Drama, Thriller
Living in rural Kerry with his parents, a socially isolated teenage boy, ‘Fionn’, falls under theinfluence of a charismatic conspiracy theorist, ‘Shepherd’, a guest at the family Air B&B.Intoxicated by Shepherd, Fionn’s beliefs spiral into extremism as his desperate parentsmust fight to pull him back before he tears their family... more
Production Company/ies: 3 Hot Whiskeys Productions Limited
Read the full project description on MIADIGITALFolk Play
Original title: Narodna Drama
Feature Film
Croatia, France, Luxembourg, Montenegro, Serbia, Slovenia
Drama
Anka (22) lives in a poor rural town, caring for her sick father and running the family tavern. To fulfill his wishes, she agrees to marry longtime boyfriend Milan. At their engagement party she meets Branka, a free-spirited singer from Belgrade, and discovers her father sold the tavern to Milan’s... more
Production Company/ies: This and That Productions
Read the full project description on MIADIGITALFrom Dust to Dust
Original title: Całopalenie
Feature Film
Bulgaria, Poland
Drama
The renowned filmmaker Krzysztof Zanussi once again explores existential dilemmas that constitute the hallmark of his career. From Dust to Dust portrays the interconnected lives of three characters and asks questions about the limits of personal freedom and the mysterious workings of fate.Zofia, Pawel and Ignacy meet due to a... more
Production Company/ies: The Documentary and Feature Film Studios (Wytwórnia Filmów Dokumentalnych i Fabularnych), RFF International
Read the full project description on MIADIGITALHeirloom
Animated Feature Film
France, Germany, India
Drama, Family, Fantasy
Sonal and Kirti live in Ahmedabad with their daughter Mrinalini and grandmother Baa. Sonal suffers from a disease that demands regular transfusions to stay alive. Kirti wants to build a museum for the art of handlooms. Sonal wants to set up a textile factory to provide the family with financial... more
Production Company/ies: Odd & Even Pictures, Otter Studios
Read the full project description on MIADIGITALI Will Find You
Original title: Megtalállak / Nájdem Ťa
Feature Film
Hungary, Slovak Republic, Germany
Drama
February 2022. Anna (37) from Vienna travels to a Slovak-Ukrainian border village where she spent her childhood, after discovering her mother was adopted and wanting to visit her grandmother’s grave. She wears a prosthetic belly, hiding that her child is being carried by Irina, a Ukrainian surrogate mother. When war... more
Production Company/ies: Gréta Melicher
Read the full project description on MIADIGITALKarmic Knot
Animated Feature Film
Germany, Latvia
Black Comedy, Epic Family Drama
In 70s when Latvia was occupied by the Soviet Union, a poor family of four move into a large house that they cannot afford to buy. The father‘s brother lends them money with the condition that the family starts an underground business of growing and selling rose cultivars to “collectors”... more
Production Company/ies: Studio Locomotive, Marriage Project, Fabian&Fred
Read the full project description on MIADIGITALOff-Season
Original title: Temporada Baixa
Feature Film
Spain
Drama
In a landscape of empty beaches and businesses closing until the following summer, Joana (15) lives with her father, Santi (59), at the campsite where he works as caretaker, while her older brother Roger (27) has recently moved out but remains close.When Santi learns the campsite has been sold and... more
Production Company/ies: Ringo Media
Read the full project description on MIADIGITALStarseed
Animated Feature Film
Belgium, Canada, France, Romania
Adventure, Family, Fantasy
Loveness, a preteen girl with albinism, lives in a township in Zimbabwe with her friends, Dumi and Gloria. But drought has thrown their world out of balance: the local river has run dry, and with it, Magagasi, the half-fish, half-snake river goddess, vanishes. Only someone who possesses a deep love... more
Production Company/ies: Dream Vessel Films/Aparte Film, Wrongmen, Special Touch Studios, Yzanakio, Quetzalcoatl
Read the full project description on MIADIGITALThe Seal Mother
Original title: Matka Fok
Feature Film
Finland, Poland
Drama
Kaja (42), a marine biologist, works at a Baltic seal sanctuary, caring for grey seals and preparing rescued pups for life at sea. Lonely after an affair with a married man and trapped by her controlling mother, she secretly undergoes IVF with anonymous donor sperm, only to learn she is... more
Production Company/ies: Mamma Pictures, Greenlit Productions
Read the full project description on MIADIGITAL
