Zinemira-Basque Film Showcase is the title of this new section increasing the presence at San Sebastian Festival of movies chiefly produced or directed by Basques. The Basque Cinema Day until now offering a brief rendezvous with a single screening of each film will this year grow in size to become yet another Festival section, with a series of films selected from among the year’s most interesting productions.

Zinemira-Basque Film Showcase is a section organised by the San Sebastian Festival and the Basque Government Department of Culture, sponsored by EITB (the Basque TV and Radio network) and with the collaboration of the producers’ associations Ibaia and APV. This section will feature on the Festival’s general programme and will run for the entire length of the edition. The six premiered movies will be screened three times, and the three titles already released in commercial cinemas will each have two showings at the Festival.

Furthermore, the Zinemira programme will include the first screening of the new Kimuak 2009 catalogue, encompassing a selection of the best Basque shorts of the year. Kimuak is a Basque Government programme managed by the Filmoteca Vasca devoted to the international promotion and diffusion of Basque short films. This event will only be open to professionals.

Basque Film Gala and Zinemira Award. Wednesday 23

Zinemira-Basque Film Showcase includes the Basque Film Gala to take place at the Victoria Eugenia Theatre. The film La máquina de pintar nubes (The Cloud-Painting Machine), directed by Patxo Tellería and Aitor Mazo, and starring Aitor Mazo, Gracia Olayo, Bingen Elortza, Lander Otaola and Santi Ugalde, will be the Gala premiere.

At the Festival, director Imanol Uribe will receive the Zinemira Award each year feting the noteworthy career of a Basque movie personality to be presented at the Basque Film Gala in the Victoria Eugenia Theatre.

Imanol Uribe (San Salvador, 1950) is one of the biggest names to have emerged from the boom experienced by Basque cinema in the late 70s. A director, screenwriter and producer, he carried off the Pearl of the Cantabrian Award for Best Film in the Spanish Language at San Sebastian Festival years back with El proceso de Burgos (The Burgos Trial, 1979). Having made La fuga de Segovia (Escape from Segovia, 1981) and La muerte de Mikel (Mikel’s Death), films also related to the political situation of the time, he turned his attention to other genres resulting in fine contemporary Spanish movie titles: Adiós pequeña (Bilbao Blues, 1986), El rey pasmado (The Dumbfounded King, 1991), the two movies for which he landed the Golden Shell at San Sebastian Festival: Días contados (1994) and Bwana (1996), or the literary adaptations Plenilunio (Plenilune, 1999) and La carta esférica (The Nautical Chart, 2007).