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The poster, created by Seville-based illustrator José Luis Ágreda, reinterprets Jean-Luc Godard’s Breathless and places its protagonists among the city’s iconic Metropol Parasol.
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Mayor José Luis Sanz described the Festival as being in “the best period of its history” and announced an exhibition dedicated to the new ‘Ágreda Collection’.
The official poster for the 23rd Seville European Film Festival (SeFF), which will take place from 6 to 14 November, was unveiled this morning at the Royal Artillery Factory. Once again, the Festival has entrusted its visual identity to acclaimed Seville illustrator José Luis Ágreda, one of Spain’s leading contemporary artists.
The presentation was attended by Seville Mayor José Luis Sanz, Councillor for Tourism and Culture Angie Moreno, SeFF Director Manuel Cristóbal, and representatives from the film and audiovisual sectors. During the event, the Mayor highlighted the Festival’s continued growth and reaffirmed the City Council’s commitment to strengthening its international profile.
“Today we are not simply presenting an image,” said Sanz. “We are presenting a statement of intent and a new stage in the consolidation of a cultural project that has become one of Europe’s leading film events and places Seville on the international cultural map year after year.”
This year’s poster draws inspiration from the characters played by Jean-Paul Belmondo and Jean Seberg in Breathless, Jean-Luc Godard’s landmark film that transformed the language of European cinema. Ágreda relocates the pair to Seville, placing them at the Metropol Parasol, known locally as Las Setas, one of the city’s most recognisable contemporary landmarks, which celebrates its fifteenth anniversary this year.
During his speech, Sanz described the Festival as experiencing “the best period of its history”, noting that the 2025 edition welcomed more than 67,800 attendees, making it the fourth most attended film festival in Spain and the leading film festival in Andalusia. He also emphasised the City Council’s efforts to strengthen the Festival’s international reach, deepen its relationship with the audiovisual industry and bring it closer to the people of Seville.
“We want a Festival that belongs to Seville, not simply a festival that takes place in Seville. A Festival that is more international, more visible throughout the year, more connected to the global film industry and, at the same time, more deeply integrated into the life of the city.”
The Mayor also praised the work of Festival Director Manuel Cristóbal, crediting him with much of the Festival’s recent growth. “He has brought a modern, ambitious and international vision that is helping the Festival reach new heights,” he said.
For his part, Manuel Cristóbal said that the new poster “perfectly reflects the personality we want for the Festival: a combination of European cinema, Sevillian identity and a contemporary outlook.” He also thanked Seville City Council for its continued support in developing a project that is gaining increasing recognition on the international festival circuit.
The event also served to announce one of the main new features of the upcoming edition: an exhibition dedicated to the ‘Ágreda Collection’, bringing together the six posters created by the artist for the 2025 and 2026 editions, alongside materials from his creative process. Organised in collaboration with the Mercantile and Industrial Circle of Seville, the exhibition will offer audiences a closer look at a body of work that has become part of the Festival’s visual identity.
“José Luis Ágreda has created a unique visual identity for the Festival,” concluded Sanz. “With this latest poster, we continue building a distinctive collection that can now rightly be called the ‘Ágreda Collection’ – an artistic legacy that will continue to grow alongside the Festival.”
The Graphic World of José Luis Ágreda
With a distinctive visual style, José Luis Ágreda has spent nearly 25 years working across a wide range of artistic disciplines, including editorial illustration, press, advertising, comics and production design for animated films. Among his most celebrated achievements are his roles as art director on Robot Dreams and Buñuel in the Labyrinth of the Turtles.
Robot Dreams, directed by Pablo Berger and screened at the 20th Seville European Film Festival, premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in 2023. It won the Contrechamp Grand Prix at Annecy, the Goya Awards for Best Animated Feature and Best Adapted Screenplay, the Audience Award at Sitges, and received an Academy Award nomination. Buñuel in the Labyrinth of the Turtles, directed by Salvador Simó, won the Jury Award at Annecy and the 2020 Goya Award for Best Animated Feature. Both films also received the European Film Award for Best Animated Feature.
Ágreda is currently in Croatia attending another film festival, where he is presenting Decorado, a film on which he worked as art director. Nevertheless, he took part in the presentation through a recorded video message.
The Conversation Between Seville and European Cinema
In his message, Ágreda spoke about his desire to preserve the visual elements that have defined the collection from the beginning, including the colourful mosaic by artist Pedro Cabañas, which serves as a connecting thread between the different posters and reinforces their visual continuity.
For the first image of the Festival’s 23rd edition, Ágreda chose a landmark work of the French New Wave, describing it as “a groundbreaking film that gave rise to a type of cinema that continues to inspire filmmakers and artists today”.
“As a recent example, we only need to think of Nouvelle Vague, Richard Linklater’s recreation of the making of the film, which we were able to enjoy at last year’s Seville European Film Festival,” the artist noted.
“This visual game is also a way of expressing what the Festival has been doing for the past 23 years: bringing some of the finest stories, images and perspectives of European cinema to Seville and making them our own for a few days. It is not only about announcing a new edition of the Festival, but also about celebrating the ongoing conversation between Seville and Europe that the Festival has been building since its beginnings,” he concluded.
