Bratislava, February 13, 2026 – The 33rd edition of the International Film Festival FEBIOFEST Bratislava will bring a selection of the latest titles from prestigious world festivals to Cinema Lumière in Bratislava from March 11 to 17, 2026. At the same time, it will offer space to discover "new genres, unknown authors, and films that audiences would not normally find their way to," says program director Ondrej Starinský. A rich accompanying program will once again be part of the event this year.
FEBIOFEST will exclusively present the Slovak festival premiere of the unconventional romance Pillion by debuting British director Harry Lighton. "The film premiered at the Cannes Film Festival, where it won the Best Screenplay award, and subsequently earned three BAFTA nominations and four British Independent Film Awards," reveals Ondrej Starinský. At the center of the story is the withdrawn Colin, played by Harry Melling (known as Dudley from the Harry Potter film series), and the charismatic biker Ray, portrayed by popular Swedish actor and Golden Globe winner Alexander Skarsgård. The title itself, Pillion (a seat for a passenger), symbolically suggests the division of power in the relationship between the two men: the dominant Ray drives, while Colin rides along.
László Nemes, the 2016 Oscar winner for Son of Saul, returns with another historical theme—this time focusing on the year following the suppression of the 1956 Hungarian uprising. In the film Orphan, he weaves together the family story of a Jewish boy raised by his mother, a Holocaust survivor. The boy believes his father is a war hero. His dream world collapses when a brutal man arrives at their home claiming to be his real father. The film premiered in the main competition at the Venice Film Festival.
FEBIOFEST will also feature the Brazilian period thriller The Secret Agent, which is nominated for four Oscars. It premiered in Cannes, where it won three awards, including Best Director and Best Actor in a Leading Role. Since then, it has been collecting awards all over the world, and viewers will find out whether it succeeds at the Oscars right during the festival. Part of this year's program will also be a "live" Oscar Night, taking place from March 15 to 16 at the Šafko club in Bratislava.
Another Oscar nominee, documentary filmmaker Christian Frei (War Photographer, 2001), asks Blame in his latest film. He returns to the coronavirus epidemic and reveals the subsequent paradoxical and incomprehensible shift of Western societies away from science. Scientists who researched coronaviruses years ago and warned of a possible epidemic are today facing attacks from populist politicians and self-proclaimed experts. The film opened the prestigious documentary festival Visions du Réel last year.
Documentary director Vitaly Mansky returns to his hometown of Lviv, where he spent a year and a half documenting the seemingly peaceful life in the hinterland. The war is made present here mainly by never-ending funerals and looming rocket attacks. The title itself, Time to the Target, draws attention to these threats. The film premiered last year at the Berlinale and won the award for the best Czech documentary film at the Ji.hlava International Documentary Film Festival.
The program also includes the absolute winner of last year's Ji.hlava: Silver by Polish director Natalia Koniarz, about poor miners living on the Bolivian mountain Cerro Rico. Silver began to be mined here during the Spanish colonization, and it is said that a bridge all the way to Spain could be built from the mined silver. Behind the immense wealth are millions of exploited indigenous people—and this situation practically continues to this day. Local miners have been mining ore themselves since childhood using explosives. It is extremely dangerous. The average life expectancy is 40 years. The director and cameraman descend into the shafts with the locals and run to hide alongside them after lighting the dynamite...
As part of the archival section, the festival will commemorate the work of Slovak screenwriter, director, and writer Eva Borušovičová (†55). Alexander Bárta, Anna Šišková, Zuzana Fialová, Ady Hajdu, and others starred in the action comedy Vadí nevadí.
Thanks to the collaboration with the Visegrad Film Forum, the screenings will traditionally be complemented by introductions, discussions, and the personal participation of the creators, through which the festival creates an open space for dialogue and lively, informal meetings between filmmakers and the audience. The collaborative events will bring guests to Bratislava, such as the Hungarian director György Pálfi, author of the cult film Taxidermia, and architect Uli Hanisch, who worked on the film Perfume: The Story of a Murderer and the series Babylon Berlin.
IFF FEBIOFEST Bratislava is organized by the Association of Slovak Film Clubs – ASFK. The main co-organizer is the Slovak Film Institute. The festival is realized with the support of the Audiovisual Fund. Cinepasses for the entire festival and the Visegrad Film Forum program are currently on presale at discounted prices on the website https://febiofest.cinepass.sk/