There’s something about winter in Canberra that makes a film festival feel essential. Colder evenings, slower weekends and the chance to slip into a cinema for a few hours and emerge feeling as though you’ve travelled somewhere else entirely.

This winter, the 2026 HSBC Spanish & Latin American Film Festival returns to Canberra’s Palace Electric Cinema from 10 June to 5 July, with more than 30 films from Spain and Latin America spanning drama, romance, thrillers, documentary and restored classics.

The program is filled with stories that feel vivid, intimate and deeply human, exactly the kind of films we love discovering at a festival. These are the titles currently at the top of our list.

For food lovers: Mistura

Opening night film Mistura looks like pure cinematic comfort. Set in 1960s Lima, it follows Norma, a woman whose privileged life unravels after the end of her marriage. Facing financial ruin, she begins rebuilding her life through food, community and a new appreciation for Peru’s cultural and culinary heritage.

We are always drawn to films where food becomes more than a meal, where cooking carries memory, identity, belonging and the possibility of beginning again. With its Peruvian setting and gastronomic heart, Mistura feels like an especially fitting way to begin the festival.

For anyone craving something reflective: Sundays

Sundays (Los domingos) sounds quietly devastating in the best possible way. Set in Bilbao, the film follows 17-year-old Ainiara as she considers becoming a cloistered nun, a decision that unsettles her family and forces them to confront their own beliefs, expectations and long-held tensions.

Directed by Alauda Ruiz de Azúa, the film won the Golden Shell for Best Film at the 2025 San Sebastián International Film Festival and five Goya Awards. This is the kind of measured, emotionally intelligent drama that often lingers long after the credits roll.

For tension and atmosphere: The Tigers and Sofia’s Suspicion

For something darker, The Tigers and Sofia’s Suspicion both look like compelling choices.

The Tigers is a maritime crime thriller about two siblings working as industrial divers on the coast of Huelva. Financial pressure and a dangerous discovery pull them into a moral dilemma beneath the surface of a freighter ship.

Sofia’s Suspicion moves into Cold War territory, following a married couple whose lives become entangled in espionage, secrets and KGB operations between East Berlin and Francoist Spain.

Both promise the kind of suspense we prefer: less about spectacle and more about character, consequence and the increasingly impossible choices people make when their lives begin to unravel.

For contemporary Spanish cinema: Romería

A further title we would add to the list is Romería, the latest film from Carla Simón, director of Summer 1993 and Alcarràs.

Set on Spain’s Atlantic coast, it follows an orphaned teenager travelling to Vigo to meet her father’s family for the first time and piece together the hidden history of her parents. With its Galician coastal setting, family secrets and themes of memory and identity, Romería feels made for anyone who loves films that unfold slowly and beautifully.

It also adds a distinctly contemporary Spanish voice to the selection, balancing the festival’s thrillers and historical stories with something more intimate and visually poetic.

For music, movement and pure energy: La Salsa Vive

Not every festival choice needs to leave you emotionally shattered. La Salsa Vive brings a different kind of energy to the program, tracing salsa’s journey from the neighbourhoods of 1970s New York to Cali, Colombia, where the music became part of the city’s cultural identity.

Featuring salsa legends including Rubén Blades, the documentary promises music, dance and the stories of the communities that kept the rhythm alive across generations. It feels like the ideal choice when you want your cinema night to end with a little more joy in your step.

The film we’re most curious about: The Blue Trail

And then there is The Blue Trail, which might be the film we are most curious to see.

Gabriel Mascaro’s Brazilian fable follows 77-year-old Tereza, who is ordered by the government to relocate to an isolated housing colony for older people. Refusing to surrender her independence, she instead sets off on a journey through the rivers and tributaries of the Amazon in pursuit of freedom and a long-held dream.

Visually ambitious, quietly rebellious and centred on an older woman determined to keep shaping her own life, The Blue Trail sounds like exactly the kind of film festivals exist to champion: surprising, imaginative and difficult to forget.

Why film festivals still matter

What we love most about festivals like this is the opportunity to watch stories that do not always arrive through mainstream channels. The films are often more personal, more culturally specific and more willing to take risks.

In the middle of a Canberra winter, that makes for a particularly good reason to settle into a cinema seat and let a story transport you somewhere new, whether that is a kitchen in Lima, a family home in Bilbao, the Galician coast, a salsa club in Cali or a boat travelling deep into the Amazon.

The 2026 HSBC Spanish & Latin American Film Festival screens at Palace Electric Cinema, Canberra, from 10 June to 5 July 2026.