La bola negra

Explores what it means to be gay throughout different eras, focusing on "three existences" that are connected through themes of sexuality, desire, pain, and inheritance.

“This country has too many love stories buried in the fields.” La bola negra (or “The black ball”), already the winner of awards at Cannes and TIFF, is about unfinished love stories, an act of reclamation of emotional truth from the grip of fascism and the burying tide of history. With a novelistic approach to storytelling that’s both remarkably vulnerable and incredibly confident, Los Javis (Javier Calvo & Javier Ambrossi), who co-wrote with Alberto Conejero, tell a moving, sprawling tale that takes place across three connected timelines. While taking an epic, encompassing approach to their aesthetic, they also prioritize the intimate, getting as much emotional value out of a well-framed close-up as a golden hour shot of the horizon. One of the most moving films of 2026, “La bola negra” takes an unfinished work by Federico Garcia Lorca and spins it off into a generations-spanning study of war, sexuality, homophobia, and buried love. (rogererbert.com)

Spanish with English subtitles