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8/25/2004
THE DOCUMENTARY, AS AN EMERGING GENRE, STAR OF THE SPECIAL ZABALTEGI AND HORIZONTES SCREENINGS


ZABALTEGI-SPECIAL SCREENINGS

Apart from the movies featuring in our New Directors and Festivals’ Top sections, Zabaltegi dedicates an area to the showing of films difficult to qualify which has gained strength in recent years as a privileged venue for the screening of different kinds of cinema. This year, political or historical documentaries take over the Kursaal screen with their committed, vindicating stories.


 LOOKING FOR FIDEL, Oliver Stone. Spain
Oliver Stone goes back to Cuba to complete his investigation into the figure of Fidel Castro after he shot Comandante a few years back. On this occasion Oliver Stone proposes an interview with the Cuban leader in which he doesn’t avoid controversial subjects like the recent execution of three young people who tried to escape from the island and the imprisonment of dissident intellectuals.



CERCA DE TI. Patricia Ferreira, Pere Joan Ventura, Chus Gutiérrez, Javier Corcuera, Javier Fesser. Spain-UNICEF
Five medium-length films made following the five basic priorities of UNICEF.
1º Struggle against AIDS: El secreto mejor guardado, Patricia Ferreira. 2º Immunisation: La vida efímera, Pere Joan Ventura. 3º The integrated development of children: Las siete alcantarillas, Chus Gutiérrez. 4º Protection of children from violence and exploitation: Hijas de Belén, Javier Corcuera. 5º Education for girls: Binta y la gran idea, Javier Fesser. This is a necessary film, half-documentary and half-fiction, in support of a just cause.


 

 THE FEVER, Carlo Gabriel Nero. USA-UK
Cast: Vanessa Redgrave, Angelina Jolie, Joely Richardson, Michael Moore.
Based on actor and writer Wallace Shawn’s theatre monologue, “The Fever” this is the second movie by Carlo Gabriel Nero, son of great actress and Donostia Award 1999 Vanessa Redgrave. Together they participated in Zabaltegi in 1999 with Nero’s opera prima, Uninvited. This time Vanessa Redgrave is the absolute star of a drama about a wealthy middle-class woman travelling in a poor, war-stricken country who is cut down by a sudden passing illness. The fever and discomfort lead her to reflect on the privilege of the western middle-classes in comparison to poverty, violence and injustice.



NIETOS (IDENTIDAD Y MEMORIA) (NIETOS (MEMORY AND IDENTITY). Benjamín Ávila. Argentina
The grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo stubbornly persist in trying to recover their missing grandchildren. This splendid documentary reveals the lives of some of these grandchildren who have been recovered and the strange sensation of discovering parents who, in their memories, are often much younger than they are. This is an original approach to a subject that is still highly topical.



PERSEGUIDOS. Eterio Ortega. Spain
Five real anonymous actors. Nobody knows them. Some people avoid them. With each day that goes by their lives become more restricted. From first thing in the morning two bodyguards accompany them to protect them. Their family, their memories, their hopes are all marked by the terrible feeling that they are being watched all the time. An impressive documentary about the current everyday reality of the lives of certain Basques.


 

 REJAS EN LA MEMORIA. Manuel Palacios. Spain
This documentary reveals the existence of concentration camps during the period after the Spanish civil war in which prisoners were used as labour on public or private building projects. Made using archive material and interviews with survivors, this film is interesting in that it reveals a part of the recent past that had been voluntarily kept secret for decades.



HORIZONTES – SPECIAL SCREENINGS

Horizontes also includes the screening of movies considered as special for their subject matter or characteristics, in this case film films, four documentaries and one fiction film, differing widely from one another with topics ranging from politics and chronicles to experimentation.



 ESCENARIO MÓVIL. Montxo Armendáriz. Spain
For a fortnight Montxo Armendáriz has followed the mobile theatres that have been going round villages in Extremadura with less than 2000 inhabitants for years during the summer months. The unique acting style of these performers and the way that Armendáriz has filmed them turn this musical road movie into a lively fresco that reveals a community that has traditionally been forgotten about.


 

 LOS HIJOS DEL ÚLTIMO JARDÍN. Jorge Sanjinés. Bolivia
A group of friends burgle the mansion of a corrupt politician with a considerable haul. The conflicting interests affecting the decision of what to do with the cash cause an explosion between those in favour of putting it to social use and others who refuse to give up their cut. It will take Indian wisdom to put things in their place. Jorge Sanjinés, winner of the Golden Shell in 1989 with La nación clandestina is back at the Festival with an unrelenting ethical plea.



JE T’AIME...MOI NON PLUS. Maria de Medeiros. France.
The close relationship between filmmakers and critics has not always been easy or simple. Maria de Medeiros uses the exceptional setting of the Festival in Cannes to meet individuals from both species to try and find out what both sides feel through entertaining interviews and brief notes that reveal the tics and obsessions of some and the blasé fears of others.



PINOCHET ET SES TROIS GÉNÉRAUX (PINOCHET AND HIS THREE GENERALS). José María Berzosa. France
In 1976 José María Berzosa filmed a documentary series in Chile called Chili-Impressions in which president Pinochet and his three generals were the real protagonists. The series deeply annoyed the people involved in the coup who tried to stop it being shown abroad. Now, almost 30 years later, Berzosa has taken up this material again to re-edit it in a film that reveals the utter stupidity of the bloodthirsty people who staged the 1973 coup.



TABULA RASA. Juan Miguel Gutiérrez. Spain
The skin of human beings when they are born is like a blank page on which they will gradually record all the events in their lives: from the holes in little girls’ ears, including tattoos, to finally reach the characteristic wrinkles of old age. A strange experiment about a highly unusual subject, made with almost traditional methods, but with very clear ideas.