Z365" or "Festival all year round" is the new strategic point of the Festival in which converge investigation, accompaniment and development of new talents (Ikusmira Berriak, Nest); training and cinematic knowledge transfer (Elías Querejeta Zine Eskola, Zinemaldia + Plus, Filmmakers' dialogue); and investigation, disclosure and cinematic thought (Z70 project, Thought and Discussion and Research and publications).
Andrew Dosunmu had acquired extensive experience as a photographer and musical video director before he shot his first feature Restless City in 2011. He’s currently in San Sebastián presenting Mother of George in the New Directors section and says that what he had aimed to achieve in his latest film was to present the American immigrant experience with an African voice. “The beauty of America that you don’t see in the cinema is that every culture has its own oasis in the metropolis, and I wanted to show the richness of Nigerian culture in Brooklyn.”
However he stressed that he hadn’t approached the issue of infertility from a specifically African perspective as the script was actually written by a non-African based on her own personal experience of this issue. It was the universality of the subject that had attracted him to make his film.
His fame as a video maker and photographer meant that he had had no problems convincing actors such as Isaach de Bankolé and Danai Gurira to appear in the film: “they knew the kind of images I could create.” He said he wasn’t thinking about what the future held for him at the moment: he was just enjoying Mother of George.