The European Film Festival in Lecce features films from nine countries competing: films exploring love, family, and personal identity.

The ten films competing at the 26th European Film Festival, taking place in Lecce from November 15th to 22nd, hail from France, Austria, Germany, England, and Iceland, via Spain, Portugal, Belgium, and the Balkans. The works were selected by Alberto La Monica and Luigi La Monica, and each explores, as stated in a statement, "with a distinct voice, the cracks in love, family, and personal identity." Many of the films in competition question the contemporary family and its silences.

In Nathan Ambrosioni's "Out of Love," a mother's sudden disappearance forces a sister to confront responsibility and loss, while Hlynur Pálmason's "The Love that Remains" portrays separation as a painful act of love that gives way to childhood and its dangerous games. João Rosas's "The Luminous Life" also explores the parent-child relationship. Karin Junger's "The Pupil" recounts "manipulation and abuse with a sober and sympathetic gaze," while Pere Vilà Barceló's "When a River Becomes the Sea" addresses gender violence. In Frédéric Hambalek's "What Marielle Knows," the protagonist's supernatural ability becomes a metaphor for the invasion and loss of boundaries within the family.

Several works, however, explore "solitude and alienation." 'Yugo Floridà' by Vladimir Tagi and 'White Snails' by Elsa Kremser and Levin Peter portray marginalized characters. Similarly, 'The Son and the Sea' by Stroma Cairms recounts the escape of two friends to the Scottish coast, where nature becomes a space of suspension and introspection. Finally, Vitrival by Noëlle Bastin and Baptiste Bogaert observes the moral decay of a seemingly peaceful community, where collective anguish transforms into mystery and impotence.