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).
On the 2nd of June 1978, only a year after the first democratic elections had been held in Spain after Franco’s death, a group of 45 inmates were involved in a spectacular escape from the Modelo prison in Barcelona. This event was the starting point that led the director Alberto Rodriquez and his regular scriptwriter Rafael Cobos to produce the first version of the screenplay for Modelo 77, that opened the Official Selection yesterday at the Festival. The director said that what he found really striking about this story was the fact that, in a place like a prison, where people are isolated from one another, there was a spirit of unity at that time among the prisoners that was so powerful that they even organised protests together. This paradox meant that the director expanded the scope of his story to give it a political dimension by describing what life was like in that prison during the early stages of the transition to democracy. According to Rodriguez, “a prison is always a reflection of society, and as such, back in 1977, the cry for freedom that could be heard in the streets even reached the prisons.”