Doha Film Festival (DFF) has announced the 15 films selected for its 2026 International Feature Film Competition, bringing together filmmakers from four continents and a line-up spanning the Arab world, Asia, Africa, Europe and the Americas.
Conversation with The Sea
Eleven of the 15 films received support through the Doha Film Institute’s Grants programme, while seven are directed by women. The selection includes 13 Middle East and North Africa premieres and one world premiere, with the competing films recognised at major international festivals including Cannes, Venice, Locarno, Sundance, Toronto and Shanghai.
Four Palestinian films feature in the competition. Thirteen in Gaza by Hosam Abu Dan follows a 13-year-old boy growing up in a Gaza displacement camp and was awarded the NETPAC Award at the Toronto International Film Festival in September. Sama, the world premiere from Rabab Khamis, follows a 10-year-old girl collecting plastic and cardboard in Deir al-Balah to sell as fuel and support her family.
Muayad Alayan’s Conversation with the Sea centres on a Palestinian man in Jerusalem confronted with an Israeli court order relating to a social security debt incurred by his son, who drowned in the Red Sea more than two decades earlier. Meanwhile, Revolutionaries Never Die by Mohanad Yaqubi draws on 113 reels of film preserved by Lebanese filmmaker Jocelyne Saab and won the Special Jury Prize at Locarno.
The Arab world is also represented by Jordanian-Palestinian debut Concrete Land by Asmahan Bkerat, Moroccan feature Bardi by Tala Hadid, and Yemeni-Scottish filmmaker Sara Ishaq’s The Station, set inside a women-only petrol station in war-torn Yemen.
From sub-Saharan Africa, Auguste Bernard Kouemo Yanghu’s House of the Wind follows an 80-year-old woman in Yaoundé determined to bring her children home from the West. The film won the Lion of the Future for a Debut Film and the Special Orizzonti Jury Prize at Venice. My Semba by Hugo Salvaterra follows three orphaned siblings in Luanda and won the Feature Film Competition Award at the International Film Festival Innsbruck.
Asian entries include Thailand’s 9 Temples to Heaven, China’s A Girl Unknown and Filipiñana from Rafael Manuel. The competition is completed by Chilean drama The Meltdown, Alessandra Sanguinetti’s The Illusion of an Everlasting Summer and Irish film Tin Castle.
The films will compete for US$185,000 in awards, including Best Narrative, Best Documentary, Best Artistic Achievement and Best Performance. FIPRESCI will also award a prize to a film judged to have made the most significant achievement in the competition.
Doha Film Festival takes place from the 19th to the 27th of November 2026. dohafilm.com
