Spain’s ICAA splits €2.2m between 39 short films, picked from 585 applications

Spain’s film institute, the ICAA, has divided its €2.2m ($2.45m) budget for short-film production aid between 39 projects, chosen from 585 applications. The final resolution, signed on Wednesday 11 November and published on the culture ministry’s site, funds 24 fiction shorts, nine documentaries and six animated films, with awards ranging from €15,834 to €92,830.

The resolution shows how thinly the money stretches. Another 358 projects scored above the 60-point minimum but received nothing because the budget ran out, so fewer than one in ten projects that cleared the bar were funded. Those 358 stay on a ranked reserve list and move up only if a winner gives its grant back. The last project in, Refugio, takes the €62,370 left in the pot, as the rules allow for the final place.

Key facts

• Scheme: ICAA production aid for short films on project, 2026 call; €2.2m from the Fondo de Protección a la Cinematografía, the same budget as in 2024 and 2025
• Outcome: 39 funded from 585 applications (6.7%); 358 qualified but unfunded; 174 below the 60-point threshold; 14 excluded, six of them duplicate applications
• Awards: 18 projects at €70,000 or more; average about €56,400 ($62,800); largest €92,830 for the animated La subasta
• Reserved shares: projects directed only by women took 57.38% of the money and animation 17.05%, against floors of 40% and 10%
• Co-productions: 10 of the 39 will be made with foreign companies, against four last year

How the money was split

Fiction took €1.43m, documentaries €391,000 and animation €375,000, according to FilmBunch’s totals from the resolution’s award table. The call allowed up to €70,000 a project, or €130,000 for animation, which is why the two largest awards went to animated shorts: La subasta, from Alicante’s Beniwood Producciones with Aquí y Allí Films, and El país de los jorobados, from Zampano Producciones with Most Wanted Studio, at €79,773.

The top-ranked project is Porcs i egües (formerly Cerdos y yeguas), a fiction short from Valencia-based Suica Productions with Las Chicas de la Cabra, which scored 92.74 points. Suica also took a full award for San Juan, and Madrid’s Lazona Producciones is the only other company to lead two winning projects, Se vende and Material de derribo, the second with Biscay-based Lazona Zinema. Together the 39 projects declared Spanish budgets of €3.9m, so the ICAA is covering about 56% of their Spanish costs.

Counting each project by the region of its lead company, Madrid holds 12, Catalonia nine, the Valencian Community seven and the Basque Country four, with two each in the Canary Islands and Andalusia and one each in Galicia, Asturias and Extremadura.

The resolution names directors only in its annex on the women’s reserve. Its text says 22 of the funded projects are directed by women, but the annex lists 23 projects directed exclusively by women, worth €1,262,326, and it is those 23 that make up the 57.38% share.

The full list

Projects in ranking order within each category. Award in euros; co-producing beneficiaries in brackets.

Fiction (24) – Porcs i egües (formerly Cerdos y yeguas), Suica Productions (with Las Chicas de la Cabra), €70,000 – Da capo, Nanouk Films, €70,000 – Área central, Vayolet Films, €62,475 – System Girl, Inaudita, €35,000 – El far, Shoji Films (with The Fly Hunter, Night Walk Films), €70,000 – Cartas de amor a la Fabrika Millenium, Potenza Producciones, €70,000 – Turbocapitalend, Mansalva Films (with Inaudita), €55,000 – Turrune, Gariza Produkzioak, €48,000 – As cárcavas, Sétima Sociedade Cooperativa Galega, €70,000 – Cayó la tarde, Las Hormigas Negras Producciones Audiovisuales, €35,500 – Hunter, Japonica Films, €70,000 – Muerte de un colibrí, Salon Indien Films, €70,000 – Gamuza, Las Montañas del Canadá, €70,000 – Serveis municipals, Nakamura Films (with Maqueta Films), €70,000 – Maleta verde, post-it rojo, Báltico Media, €70,000 – Nere, Arlong Productions (with La Malquerida Films), €40,000 – Material de derribo, Lazona Producciones (with Lazona Zinema), €70,000 – El corto más bello del mundo, Sarao Films (with Carlos Pérez Santamaría), €70,000 – María (la portuguesa), Novena Nube Producciones, €50,000 – Una broma, Solita Films (with Elástica Films), €50,000 – San Juan, Suica Productions, €70,000 – Se vende, Lazona Producciones, €70,000 – Como Sylvia Plath, Calabaza Films, €15,834 – Refugio, White Leaf Producciones, €62,370 (remainder of the budget)

Documentary (9) – Los últimos días, Filmakers Monkeys, €38,157 – Guantes de ámbar, Kanaki Films (with Maracaná Films), €70,000 – Canica, Artefacto Fílmico (with Colosé Producciones), €61,272 – Zintzoak, Doxa Producciones, €29,299 – M de Mariana, La Banda Negra (with Estudio ST Producciones Cinematográficas), €50,645 – Carta a Buñuel, Pegatum Transmedia, €40,000 – Les sobran razones a nuestras putas pieles, Tornasol, €42,458 – Shito ta kitto, Al Borde Films, €39,110 – Para qué sirven las flores, Summer Films, €19,878

Animation (6) – Enkéfalon: un movimiento invisible, Dvein Films, €72,000 – La subasta, Beniwood Producciones (with Aquí y Allí Films), €92,830 – L’arbre dels records, Most Wanted Studio, €37,400 – El país de los jorobados, Zampano Producciones (with Most Wanted Studio), €79,773 – Becho/Bitxo, La Mola Films (with Artyc Content), €60,000 – Labezomorro, Sultana Films, €33,000

Against last year

The 2025 round funded 45 projects from 559 applications, according to the Spanish trade Audiovisual451, a success rate of about 8%. The sharpest change is in animation, which took 29.71% of the money last year on the trade’s figures and 17.05% this time, still well above the 10% floor. The women’s share moved the other way, from 47.83% to 57.38%. Audiovisual451’s 2025 category counts add up to more than 45 projects, so the comparison here uses its shares of the money, not its counts.

Our reading

For a Spanish short-film producer, the arithmetic is unforgiving. Applications rose from 559 to 585 while the budget stayed at €2.2m for a third year, and the success rate fell to 6.7%. Most of the projects that cleared the quality bar were turned away for lack of money rather than merit, and a place on the reserve list pays only if someone above it drops out.

Within that fixed pot, the money has moved towards fiction (65% of the total, from 59% on Audiovisual451’s figures), documentary and women directors, while animation, which can claim up to €130,000 a project, has lost ground. The awards fund production; they are not proof that the films will be made, and funded producers still have to meet the ICAA’s shooting and delivery deadlines. The ICAA’s larger rounds, its €31.5m selective aid for 70 film projects and the second general-aid procedure, set the scale. The next evidence is the 2027 call and whether its budget finally rises. Elsewhere this week, the Philippines’ FDCP picked 22 projects from 87 applications.

Sources

• ICAA, Resolución por la que se conceden las ayudas a la producción de cortometrajes sobre proyecto correspondientes al año 2026 (signed 11 November 2026; annexes I–V)
• Ministerio de Cultura, Ayudas a la producción de cortometrajes sobre proyecto (Convocatoria 2026), procedure page
• ICAA, Preguntas frecuentes: convocatoria de ayudas a la producción de cortometrajes sobre proyecto 2026 (caps: €70,000, €130,000 for animation)
• Audiovisual451, 39 títulos se reparten los 2,2 millones de euros de las ayudas de 2026 a la producción de cortos sobre proyecto (12 November 2026)
• European Central Bank, euro reference rate, 11 November 2026 (USD 1.1127)