The Bad Father
2026 film

The Bad Father (Spanish: El mal padre) is a 2026 Spanish comedy-drama film directed by Roberto Bueso, co-written with Óscar Díaz Cruz. It stars Eduard Fernández alongside Adam Jezierski, Francesco Carril, and Meritxell Calvo.
The film premiered at the 74th San Sebastián International Film Festival on 22 September 2026, ahead of its 20 November theatrical rollout in Spain by Caramel Films.
Plot
Renowned writer and scholar Santiago Balmes reunites with his three children, long estranged from him after he left the family for a woman. He proposes them spending Christmas together in the old summer house, proving to be an opportunity to face past rifts.
Cast
Production
The film was produced by MOD Producciones, MOD Pictures, Misent Producciones and Atresmedia Cine, with the participation of Atresmedia, Netflix, and À Punt. It was entirely shot in the Valencia Region.
Release
The Bad Father premiered at the 74th San Sebastián International Film Festival on 22 September 2026, vying for the Golden Shell. Distributed by Caramel Films, it is scheduled to be released theatrically in Spain on 20 November.
The public source identifies “The Bad Father” as 2026 film. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Father and film.
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Object files, edition statements, performance records and contemporary criticism preserve different stages of the work’s history. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 22, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q140694626. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2026.
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This entry incorporates text from “The Bad Father” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.