• The guests will discuss with Carlos del Amor topics related to the film industry, authorship, and acting throughout three different public meetings on April 23 and 24
Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, April 9, 2026.- The 25th Las Palmas de Gran Canaria International Film Festival will hold its 6th Film Conferences, consisting of three different public meetings, on April 23 and 24 at the Alfredo Kraus Auditorium.
Óliver Laxe, Alberto Rodríguez, Albert Serra, Javier Cámara, Laia Costa, and Asier Etxeandia will discuss with journalist Carlos del Amor topics related to the film industry, authorship and acting.
Attendance is free of charge, though subject to a prior withdrawal of invitations that will be available soon at the usual channels of the Alfredo Kraus Auditorium.
This 2026, the Conferences produced by 18 Chulos will expand their format to three meetings with outstanding artists from the Spanish film industry.
Directors Óliver Laxe, Alberto Rodríguez and Albert Serra, and actors Javier Cámara, Laia Costa and Asier Etxeandia will share their experience in three different round tables moderated once again by Carlos del Amor, who is one of the country’s most renowned journalists, the deputy director of the culture department of TVE’s news services and an Ondas Award winner.
The first meeting will take place on April 23, at 5 p.m., and will revolve around Óliver Laxe, a recent recipient of five Goya awards for his feature Sirat. Laxe is currently one of the most internationally renowned Spanish directors. His aforementioned film, Sirat, also earned him nominations to the Oscars, Baftas and Golden Globes, as well as the Jury Prize at Cannes, where his work has always been appreciated: You All Are Captains received the Fipresci Prize in 2010, Mimosas, the Critics’ Week Grand Prize in 2016, and Fire Will Come, the Un Certain Regard Jury Prize in 2019.
The Conferences will then focus on acting on its second meeting, which will take place on April 24 at 1 p.m. Javier Cámara, Laia Costa and Asier Etxeandia, three great and versatile actors, will talk with Carlos del Amor about the acting job, their tools and techniques, as well as the different ways professionals can carry themselves in front of the camera within this particular time of transformation in the audiovisual industry.
This 6th edition has made possible Javier Cámara’s return to the Film Festival ten years after he was a member of its Official Jury. The winner of two Goya Awards (Living Is Easy with Eyes Closed and Truman) and the EFA People’s Choice Award for Best Actor at the European Film Awards is one of Spanish cinema’s most well-regarded and accomplished actors. His solid international career includes theater, television and cinema. He has worked with great directors such as Pedro Almodóvar (Talk to Her, I’m So Excited and Pain and Glory) or Paolo Sorrentino (The Young Pope), and starred in famous tv shows like 7 vidas, Narcos, Rapa or Jakarta, achieving huge popularity and critical acclaim alike.
Meanwhile, Laia Costa has built a multifaceted and impeccable career halfway between Europe and the US that ties her to independent cinema. Her international standing was cemented in 2015 thanks to her role in German director Sebastian Schipper’s thriller Victoria, which led her to become the first foreign actress who won the most prestigious prize of the German Film Awards, the Lola. After that, with Alauda Ruiz de Azúa’s Lullaby, she got the Goya, Silver Biznaga, Feroz, Forqué and Platino Awards for Best Actress.
Finally, this round table on acting will include Asier Etxeandia, an actor with a strong stage presence and long career in television, theater and cinema. His bold and intensive approach to acting has marked a filmography that has naturally moved between auteur pieces like Pedro Almodóvar’s (Pain and Glory) or Paula Ortiz’s (The Bride) and other more popular projects, as well as a solid career in theater. Etxeandia, who is also the singer of the band Mastodonte, has earned a significant number of nominations and awards in all facets of his professional life.
In the afternoon, at 5 p.m., the focus will shift to directing. Alberto Rodríguez and Albert Serra, two radically different filmmakers but essential to our understanding of current Spanish cinema’s richness and diversity, will share their experiences and opinions with the audience in attendance. The meeting will provide a dialogue between two distinctive models (business and auteur approaches) revolving around topics such as creative processes, the design of a personal universe, the relationship with the audience and the place of auteur cinema within the film industry.
Alberto Rodríguez is a key director in contemporary Spanish cinema who combines narrative flair, commercial ambition, and mass appeal. His filmography is defined by a strong visual and story-telling style that has resonated equally with critics and audiences. It includes multiple films which have obtained numerous awards, such as his 10th-Goya Award winner Marshland, well-regarded features like 7 Virgins, Unit 7, Prison 77 and The Tigers, or ambitious tv shows such as La peste or The Anatomy of a Moment.
Albert Serra, one of the most unique filmmakers in European cinema, will join Rodríguez in the round table. His work, a constant exploration of film language’s limits, is both radical and recognizable, and has allowed him to become a regular of festivals such as Cannes or Locarno. He was the first Spanish director to win the Jean Vigo Prix for his The Death of Louis XIV in 2016; prior to that, he obtained the 2013 Golden Leopard for Story of My Death, whereas a few years ago, in 2022, he won the prestigious Louis Delluc Prize for Best Film of the Year with Pacifiction. And now his latest piece, Afternoons of Solitude, received the Golden Shell for Best Film at the San Sebastián International Film Festival as well as the Goya Award for Best Documentary.
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