International Documentary Festival Amsterdam 2026 Exclusive: BAHÍA HONDA Poster Premiere
The hybrid documentary Bahía Honda by Alejandro Alonso follows Raudel, a 28-year-old Cuban known as Pitufo, who works dismantling ships in a remote bay.
Surrounded by fire, smoke and twisted metal, he dreams of escaping the ship graveyard and the island itself.
Cuba/Spain-based Estudio ST and France’s Vega Alta Films have unveiled the film’s poster ahead of its IDFA premiere. The artwork was created by Latvian-born, UK-based artist Julia Soboleva, whose surreal mixed-media practice combines found photography, painting and collage.
“The film felt very poetic and mythological to me from the very beginning, and I wanted the artwork to reflect that same sense of symbolism and mystery,” Soboleva says. “I was drawn to the contrast between fire and water, light and darkness, and to recurring symbols such as the dove, the mermaid and the graveyard, which all felt emotionally connected.”
Soboleva approached the design intuitively, drawing on the atmosphere, textures and mythology of Alonso’s film. The resulting image brings together the brutality of the shipbreaking yard and the more fragile inner world of the men working there.
“I also wanted the image to hold something delicate and vulnerable, particularly in relation to the film’s unusual and very tender exploration of masculinity, and of the mythical hero’s journey,” Soboleva adds. The artist collaborated with graphic designer Evelyn Batista, a regular Estudio ST collaborator who developed the typography and colors of the poster’s textual elements. The design also connects with the film’s infographics and credits.
Alonso describes the bay as both an industrial wasteland and an imaginary world constructed by the shipbreakers themselves. Most of the men are convicts serving their sentences in the scrapyard, living beyond the utopian image promoted by Cuban state media. “In Bahía Honda, I wanted to enter the imaginary world the shipbreakers have built around the ships they dismantle,” the director says.
“The film develops its own language from the bay’s mythology, a universe where dreams, desires and visions intertwine with the brutal daily labour of men who are mostly convicts serving their sentences in the scrapyard.” Alonso worked with the shipbreakers through participatory writing and mise-en-scène, using play to build trust and draw out a more sensitive conception of masculinity. Pitufo’s attempt to flee the bay gradually develops into a political gesture set against Cuba’s continuing migratory exodus.
The official synopsis: In a remote bay in Cuba, a group of men, most of them convicts, survive by dismantling ships. Raudel (28), known as “Pitufo,” spends his days in this limbo of fire and twisted metal. Together with Ernesto (24), his best friend, he gathers scraps to build a boat with which to escape the island. To do so, he must cross the ship graveyard, a place where his visions seem to take shape. As Pitufo ventures deeper into the bay, he catches a glimpse of a possible route to freedom.
Alonso’s previous works have screened at IDFA, Visions du Réel, DOK Leipzig, IFFR, Cinéma du Réel, Berlinale Forum and Ji.hlava. His mid-length documentary The Project received the FIPRESCI Award at DOK Leipzig, while Abyssal won the Golden Dove at DOK Leipzig and the Audience Award at Documenta Madrid.
His most recent short, History Is Written at Night, premiered at IFFR and won Best Short Film at Vienna Shorts and DokuFest. The world premiere of Bahía Honda is scheduled in the Envision Competition at the 39th International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam running November 12–22.
Take an exclusive first look at the poster below.
Poster artwork: © Estudio ST / Vega Alta Films
