The 23rd edition of the Festival de Cine Africano de Tarifa-Tánger (FCAT) runs from 22 to 30 May 2026, with programming on both sides of the Strait of Gibraltar: Tarifa, on the southernmost point of Spain, hosts the full nine days; Tangier, on the Moroccan coast directly opposite, holds the African headquarters from 22 to 24 May at the historic Cinema Rif, recently brought back into use as the Cinémathèque de Tanger. Organized by the Al-Tarab cultural association, FCAT is the only festival in Spain dedicated to African cinema and its diasporas. The opening gala takes place at Cinema Rif on 22 May — the first time FCAT has opened the festival at that venue.
The opening film "Memory of Princess Mumbi" by Kenyan-Swiss director Damien Hauser opens the festival. The sci-fi mockumentary, set in Umata, a futuristic African country in 2093, follows a love triangle between a film director, an aspiring actress, and a prince, with assistance from AI. The film won the FCAT LAB 2025 prize, premiered at Venice's Giornate degli Autori, and had its Spanish premiere at Seminci Valladolid.
Hauser attends the opening with lead actress Shandra Apondi. Theme: African islands The 23rd edition centers on African islands — Atlantic and Indian Ocean archipelagos and their connections to the Afro-Caribbean diaspora. The theme runs across the retrospective, the professional forum, and the literary programming.
Hypermetropia: feature competition Hypermetropia, the official feature section, fields 14 titles (13 in competition, one out of competition) by six women and eight men directors from Lesotho, Morocco, Tunisia, Sudan, Egypt, Kenya, Nigeria, Mozambique, Angola, Uganda, South Africa, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The selection: "Ancestral Visions of the Future" — Lemohang Jeremiah Mosese (Lesotho) "Those Who Watch" / "Ceux qui veillent" — Karima Saïdi (Belgium-Morocco), Spanish premiere "Memory of Princess Mumbi" — Damien Hauser (Kenya) "The Women Who Poked a Leopard" — Patience Nitumwesiga (Uganda) "Cotton Queen" — Suzannah Mirghani (Sudan), Venice Critics' Week premiere "One Woman, One Bra" — Vincho Nchogu (Kenya), FCAT premiere "Promised the Sky" / "Promis le ciel" — Erige Sehiri (Tunisia), Cannes premiere "Too Much is Too Much" / "Trop c'est trop" — Elisé Sawasawa (DRC), Berlinale premiere "Bouchra" — Meriem Bennani & Orian Bakri (Morocco), 3D animation "Life After Siham" / "La Vie après Siham" — Namir Abdel Messeeh (Egypt), Cannes ACID selection "My Father's Shadow" — Akinola Davis Jr. (Nigeria), out of competition, Cannes Un Certain Regard Caméra d'Or winner "The Prophet" / "O Profeta" — Ique Langa (Mozambique), debut feature, FCAT premiere "Variations on a Theme" — Devon Demar & Jason Jacobs (South Africa), Spanish premiere "On the Hill" — Belhassen Handous (Tunisia), Tanit de Bronze winner at the Carthage Film Festival The international jury comprises filmmaker and visual artist Aída Esther Bueno Sarduy; Mehdi Bekkar, Senior Producer at Al Jazeera Documentary Channel; and Mohamed Saïd Ouma, Executive Director of DocA – Documentary Africa. FCAT distributes €11,000 across six awards: the AML-FCAT Award for Best Feature in Hypermetropia (€3,000); the ACERCA Award for Best Feature, given by a jury from the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation, AECID (€3,000); the TV5MONDE Audience Award for Best Feature (€2,000); the Casa África Award for Best Director (€1,000); the FAMSI Award for Best Short Film in the En Breve section (€1,000); and the FCAT LAB Award for a future African film project (€1,000).
"Islands" retrospective The "Islands" retrospective programs 27 works — features, shorts, and micro-films across animation, documentary, fiction, and experimental cinema — from Cape Verde, Madagascar, Comoros, Mauritius, Equatorial Guinea, and Afro-Caribbean voices in Cuba, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, and Puerto Rico. Programmer Marion Berger describes the section as designed "to reflect on identity and creativity in territories that serve as strategic bridges between the Indian and Atlantic Oceans." Key titles include Lova Nantenaina's "Sitabaomba" (Madagascar, an FCAT LAB 2024 project); David Constantin's "Lonbraz Kann" (Mauritius), which won Best Fiction Feature at FCAT 2017; Leão Lopes's "Ilhéu de Contenda" (Cape Verde); Ana Sofía Fonseca's "Cesária Évora" (Cape Verde, 2022); Nuno Miranda's "Kmêdeus" (Cape Verde, 2020); Silas Tiny's "O Canto do Ossobó" (São Tomé, 2018); and Guetty Felin's "Ayiti Mon Amour" (Haiti, 2016). A special session brings three short films and a mid-length film from Réunion, focused on the island's Creole and oral cultures.
The retrospective honors two pioneers: Sara Gómez, the first Afro-Cuban woman director and the first woman to graduate from the Cuban Institute of Cinematographic Art and Industry (ICAIC); and Sarah Maldoror, a French-West Indian filmmaker whose work was central to African decolonization cinema in the 1960s and 1970s. The Tree of Words forum...
Source: africanfilmpress.com