Three-minute read.
From 10 to 14 December 2025, Barcelona becomes the epicentre of contemporary art and documentary cinema with the 9th edition of Dart Festival, the only festival in Spain dedicated exclusively to visual arts. This year brings a new venue — Mooby Bosque Cine — and a programme that blends documentaries, educational activities and reflections on the transformative power of art.
Highlights of Dart 2025
Dart 2025 features 33 documentaries, including 24 premieres, plus a series of parallel activities through Dart Lab, focused on education, outreach, and debate. The programme revolves around key themes such as artistic activism, climate awareness, contemporary architecture, and the art-market thriller.
International Premieres and Documentaries
Among the 33 screenings (24 premieres), several titles stand out:
- “ASCO: Without Permission” — Opening film on the chicano collective ASCO, iconoclastic and pioneering in merging art and political activism.
- “Maintenance Artist” — A portrait of Mierle Laderman Ukeles and her revolutionary manifesto on the art of maintenance and care.
- “Looking for Simone” — A journey to rediscover Simone de Beauvoir and her feminist, transformative legacy.
- “Radical Women” — Eleven Latin American artists who broke boundaries despite censorship and exile.
- “Art Spiegelman: Disaster Is My Muse” — The creative universe of Maus and Holocaust memory through the lens of comics.
Art Thrillers and Mysteries
- “Minted” — The ups and downs of the NFT boom and the digital art market.
- “LOOT: A Story of Crime and Redemption” — A criminal network looting Cambodian temples to traffic antiquities.
- “The Sleeper. The Lost Caravaggio” — A painting that rose from €1,500 to over €30 million.
- “Alreadymade” — Duchamp’s urinal and the ongoing debate around the artistic canon.
Activism, Memory and Decolonial Narratives
- “Balomanía” — Clandestine art in Brazilian favelas.
- “Climate Art” — Olafur Eliasson, Sebastião Salgado and Agnes Denes confronting climate change.
- “Future History: An Untold Legacy of Ethiopian Resistance” — Ethiopian resistance to fascist invasion (1935–1941).
- “Autochtonies des Amériques” & “Memories of Love Returned” — Shorts exploring Indigenous communities and therapeutic photography in Uganda.
Collaborations with Other Festivals
- In-Edit Festival: Closing film “The Residents: Barking in the Dark”, on the iconic avant-garde band.
- Moritz Feed Dog: “Peter Hujar’s Day”, a conversation between photographer Peter Hujar and writer Linda Rosenkrantz in New York, 1974.
Architecture and Life Within Buildings
- “Miralles” — The creative vision of architect Enric Miralles.
- Ila Bêka & Louise Lemoine — Documentaries that place people at the centre of architecture, plus exclusive titles available online on CaixaForum+: Koolhaas Houselife, Tokyo Ride, and Barbicania.
Spanish Productions
- Oscar Tusquets — A creative universe crossing architecture, design, and art.
- Andy Warhol in Madrid 1983 — A historic encounter organised by Fernando Vijande.
- Eduardo Chillida — The sculptor’s dialogue with matter and the void.
- EL XUPET NEGRE — Urban art and collective memory in Barcelona.
Dart Lab and Parallel Activities
- Biennal Climàtica — Art in response to the environmental emergency.
- “Espacio 10 / Espacio 13. Radical Risk” — The experimental spaces of Fundació Joan Miró.
- Conversation with Wendimagegn Belete and Saiba Bayo at MACBA on pan-African art and culture.
- Symposium on Art, Film and Heritage at Casa Vicens.
Online Platform
From 18 December 2025 to 18 January 2026, CaixaForum+ will offer part of the programme alongside three exclusive documentaries by Bêka & Lemoine, bringing Dart to audiences worldwide.
Dart 2025 reaffirms its transformative power: art as a tool for protest, memory and reflection — blending film, architecture, activism and art-world thrillers that challenge our ways of seeing. A must-attend event for anyone who experiences art as dialogue and discovery.
👉 Full programme
Images courtesy of Dart Festival Internacional de Cine y Arte de Barcelona