Here comes the fourth edition of the cinema and artificial intelligence festival +RAIN

BarcelonaFrom June 14 to 17, the fourth edition of the international cinema and artificial intelligence festival +RAIN Film Festival will be held, an event promoted by Pompeu Fabra University that renews the debate on the impact of AI in cinema, audiovisual, and digital culture. As explained at the presentation by the festival director and professor of communication theories and quantitative research methods Frederic Guerrero, in the first editions, the discussion revolved around art and cinema created with artificial intelligence, while, for now, the thematic focus has shifted towards the social impact of AI in different aspects, such as accessibility, sustainability, and ethical implications.

The UPF's Poblenou Campus, the CCCB, and the Filmoteca de Catalunya will host the various activities of +RAIN, which this year features an artisanal graphic design that alludes to cyberpunk motifs. The poster's author, Guillem Bosch, gives his unmistakably human touch to an aesthetic closely linked to AI, to reclaim the tensions and negotiations that arise in the relationship between graphic design and this tool. One of the most notable novelties of this year's edition is the collaboration with the Filmoteca de Catalunya, which dedicates a retrospective to the Romanian filmmaker Radu Jude, one of the most relevant contemporary auteur filmmakers. His reinterpretation of Romanian filmmaker Radu Jude, one of the most relevant contemporary auteur filmmakers. His reinterpretation of Dracula (2025), which incorporates generative AI, will be screened on June 5 and 14, with the director's presence confirmed at the first of the two sessions. 

The Evolution of Propaganda from Film to AIThe Evolution of Propaganda from Film to AI, are some of the names who will participate. This year's +RAIN edition has also programmed parallel activities (SIDE EVENTS) in collaboration with various UPF departments, which address artificial intelligence from different disciplines: ethics (HUM+RAIN, from the Department of Humanities), advertising (AD+RAIN, from the degree in Advertising and Public Relations), and journalism (MEDIA+RAIN, from the Department of Communication), which will explore the application of artificial intelligence in the media with researchers Veronika Solopova (DFKI / TU Berlin), Rob Lang (Reuters), Xavi Vinaixa (Sorensen AI), and the director of digital and AI at ARA, David Quiñonero.

The Tuesday, June 16th session will continue the debate with WORKFLOWS, which focuses on the transformation of creative processes through AI, involving professionals and projects linked to the sector, such as Mutations my Word, by Carme Puche and Sergio Álvarez-Napagao, winner of the Barcelona Crea +RAIN 2025 Grant; and the short film Membrana, by Jorge Carrión, an adaptation of his novel of the same name in collaboration with Jorge Caballero and Anna Giralt, from Artefacto Films.

The +RAIN has a competitive Official Section, this year integrated by two awards: the prize for the best international film and the talent award for the best film produced in Catalonia, a novelty for this edition. The jury that will designate the winners has not yet been revealed. The works in competition will be screened at the CCCB Theatre: Room 174, by Maria Bernardi; Ping Pong, by Tianji Yu; Last may in theaters, by Arief Budiman; Archiva Qu(ia)r, by Diego Marchante and L'uomo più bello del mondo by Paolo Baiguera, are some of the selected titles, film artifacts that use generative AI to "recover collective memory and illuminate dark points of history". The awards will be presented on Tuesday evening, and immediately after we will have the LIVE section in the Aranyó Hall of the Poblenou Campus, a performative event that experiments with music and audiovisuals generated live.

SINAPSI, a deliberative and plural closed-door laboratory, will open the last day of the festival on Wednesday, June 17. Creators, researchers, ethics and AI experts, legal professionals, and cultural industry agents will share their proposals to exchange knowledge and create shared conceptual frameworks. The +RAIN will close its program with the celebration of the IV Open Forum on Arts, Science & Technology, conceived as a “space for transdisciplinary contamination” that aims to foster hybridization and intersectionality between artistic, scientific, and technological disciplines.