Doha Film Festival Unveils 2026 International Feature Competition Lineup

Qatar’s Doha Film Festival (DFF) has unveiled the International Feature Film Competition lineup for its second edition which is due to take place this November.

The fifteen titles include Hosam Abu Dan’s Gaza-shot drama Thirteen in Gaza, a coming-of-age drama about a motherless thirteen-year-old living with her father in a Gaza displacement camp without privacy or protection. It won the NETPAC Award in Toronto in September.

It is among four Palestinian films in competition alongside Muayad Alayan’s Venice–selected Conversation with the Sea about a Palestinian man caught in the crosshairs of Israeli bureaucracy over a social security debt for his son who drowned in the Red Sea some two decades previously.

They also include Rabab Khamis’ documentary Sama, which will world premiere in the festival. It revolves around a ten-year-old girl who collects plastic and cardboard in Deir al-Balah in Gaza to sell as fuel and help sustain her family.

Mohanad Yaqubi’s Revolutionaries Never Die, taking its cue from 113 reels of films preserved by Lebanese filmmaker Jocelyne Saab, will also compete. It won the Special Jury Prize in the Filmmakers of the Present competition at Locarno over the summer.

They are among 11 films in the main competition supported by the Doha Film Institute (DFI), which oversees the festival.

The unveiling of the selection is a sign that the DFI is confident the event will go ahead in spite of regional instability caused by the U.S.-Iran-Israel war.

Qatar is a key mediator in indirect talks between the U.S. and Iran, at the same time as negotiating directly with the latter for a regional non-aggression security framework.

Further titles from the Arab world include Concrete Land by Asmahan Bkerat, following an Afro-Palestinian Bedouin family on the outskirts of Amman as luxury villas close in around them. Filmed over eight years, the filmmaker’s debut feature premiered in the Semaine de la Critique at Locarno.

Moroccan director Tala Hadid will present Bardi, about the centuries-old equestrian tradition of Tbourida, which premiered in the Currents section at the New York Film Festival.

As previously announced Yemeni Scottish director Sara Ishaq’s The Station, set against the backdrop of a women-only petrol station in war-torn Yemen, both opens the festival and competes.

Out of sub-Saharan Africa, Cameroonian director Auguste Bernard Kouemo competes with House of the Wind, which debuted in the Venice Film Festival’s Orizzonti sidebar winning its Special Jury Prize and the Lion of the Future for a Debut Film.

Also out of the region, is My Semba by Hugo Salvaterra. It follows three orphaned siblings in Luanda who fight for dignity through faith, fury and verse. The film won the Feature Film Competition Award at the International Film Festival Innsbruck.

Asia is represented by Thai director Sompot Chidgasornpongse’s 9 Temples to Heaven, about a family which visits nine temples in a single day in the hope of keeping their grandmother alive. The film debuted in Cannes Directors’ Fortnight. It went on to win Best Director and Best Actor in the Asian New Talent Award at the Shanghai International Film Festival and is Thailand’s submission for the 99th Academy Awards.

Also out of Asia are Zou Jing Cannes Critics’ Week Fipresci-winner A Girl Unknown, about a girl abandoned at birth who passes between three families, and Rafael Manuel’s Filipiñana about teenage tee-girl at a Manila country club who begins to uncover the violence beneath its manicured lawns.

The latter film won the World Cinema Dramatic Special Jury Award for Creative Vision at Sundance and is Philippines submission for the 99th Academy Awards.

Further contenders include Chilean director Manuela Martelli’s The Meltdown, which premiered in Cannes Un Certain Regard and is Chile’s 99th Academy Awards entry, and Alessandra Sanguinetti’s The Illusion of an Everlasting Summer, following two cousins on the Argentine Pampas through the photographer’s lens over 25 years. It won the Golden Leopard in the Filmmakers of the Present competition at Locarno.

Rounding out the selection is Tin Castle by Alexander Murphy follows an Irish traveller family, two parents and ten children, threatened with eviction as they fight to preserve their way of life in an old caravan.

“This year’s features competition reflects great ambition. The 15 films from across the world are united by the courage, imagination and urgency of their filmmakers. Each has travelled a remarkable journey, and it is deeply meaningful that Doha is a part of that journey, ensuring that these powerful works are seen, shared and remembered,” said Fatma Hassan Alremaihi, CEO of Doha Film Institute and Director of DFF.

The competition will feature a jury of five industry experts who select winners in Best Narrative (with prize money of US$75,000), Best Documentary (US$50,000), Best Artistic Achievement for feature narrative or documentary (US$45,000), and Best Performance (US$15,000) categories. A certificate of Special Mention will also be presented to a feature narrative or documentary.

The festival expands on the DFI’s long-running family-focused festival of Ajyal which ran for more than a decade during the same period.

Alongside the DFI, key partners on Doha Film Festival include Katara, Media City Qatar, Film Committee and Visit Qatar.