72nd San Sebastian Festival - 20/28 September 2023
71SSIFF - 22/30 September 2023
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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).
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Agenda
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Films
Films
Hettie MacDonald
UK
90 min.
Asphyxiated by the torrid summer in Thamesmead, South London, three boys are bored to death. Jamie is rejected by his friends and doesn't go to class; Ste is ill treated by his father and brother; Leah, expelled from college, lives in the musical world of The Mamas and the Papas. Sandra, Jamie's mother, generous and a fighter, who wants to understand her son, works like mad to get a promotion and tries to maintain a relationship with her lover Tony, a real halfwit. To escape his family violence, Ste has taken shelter in Sandra's house, where he shares Jamie's room. The friendship between the two boys turns into a sentimental relationship.
Aki Kaurismäki
USA
96 min.
Ilona is a waitress in a restaurant called the "Dubrovnik", which the owner decides to close for financial reasons, meaning that she and the other workers find themselves out of a job. Although she is disappointed at first, Ilona hopes that her experience will soon help her to find something else. But, after a series of attempts, she is faced with the hard facts of the recession: there is no work for her on an increasingly poor job market. One day she meets Melartin, the doorman of the "Dubrovnik", who proposes the only way out of their situation: for Ilona to open her own restaurant.
John Sayles
Finland
136 min.
During decades, the Texan city of Frontera was controlled by two powerful characters who successively held the post of sheriff: the racist Carley Wade and the man whom, legend would have it, threw him out of the county one hot night in 1957, Buddy Deeds. Now the sheriff is Sam Deeds, Buddy's son, who is totally eclipsed by the shadow of his legendary father. Sam has to investigate the recent appearance of a skeleton on the city outskirts. His only clue is a sheriff's badge dating from 1957. Long-buried secrets start appearing, the double lives of the border town become increasingly complicated, and Sam finds himself involved in a search for truth which could destroy his own world.
Jaques Doillon
USA
97 min.
Ponette is a four-year-old girl who has just lost her mother in a fatal accident and who finds life unbearable without her. The child calls for her mother, talks to her, waits for her and looks for her with increasing stubborness. Nobody can convince her that she won't see her again.
Arturo Ripstein
France
110 min.
Desperate, Coral Fabre sees her youth disappearing before her in her babys' dirty nappies and her sad work tending the terminally ill. Trying to find a way out of her stifling situation, she starts writing to Nicolás Estrella, who defines himself as "a Spanish gentleman looking for a sentimental relationship". After meeting Nicolás, Coral realizes that their relationship is pure fraud, but it's too late: she has discovered her lover's "woman business" and decides to blackmail him. Their lives become entwined both sentimentally and professionally in a mixture of business, jealousy and love.
Mike Leigh
France - UK
142 min.
After the death of her adoptive mother, Hortense, a young 27-year-old black girl, decides to look for her real mother. She is surprised to discover that her progenitor is a white woman called Cynthia, who has another 20-year-old daughter, Roxanne, with whom she lives, in spite of the fact that the two don't get on well. Cynthia's first reaction on meeting Hortense is one of fear, but the two women soon develop a relationship of confidence and love, in spite of the void that separates them. Now Cynthia has only to tell Roxanne and her brother Maurice that she has a black daughter she has never told them about.
Terry George
Ireland - USA
107 min.
Two Irish women, Kathleen Quigley and Annie Higgins, are suddenly faced with the biggest dilemma of their lives: whether or not to back the cause for which their sons are involved in violent fighting. Annie is a farmer's wife who was taught to be strong and make sacrifices. Kathleen is a widowed teacher who is disgusted by the confrontation existing in Northern Ireland. Their two sons, both of whom are members of an underground IRA commando, are arrested and given life sentences in Maze prison for having killed several British soldiers. Their activism in the prison leads them to join the important 1981 hunger strikes. Kathleen and Annie, two women from extremely different backgrounds and beliefs, find themselves thrown together in the hard battle to save their son's lives.
Bernardo Bertolucci
Italy - France - UK
115 min.
Lucy Harmon is a young American who decides to spend the summer in Tuscany after her mother's suicide. She installs herself in a house belonging to old friends of her mother's, who turn out to be a bit strange. The real reason for Lucy's trip to Tuscany is to resume a relationship she had two years previously with a handsome neighbour called Nicolo; but the unusual conditions of the family with which she is staying awaken feelings and curiosities in Lucy that she has never experienced until now.
Nick Park
UK
A compilation of animated shorts from the Aardman factory, including different works ranging from publicity spots (Heat Electric Commercials) to a clip for a song by Nina Simone (My Baby Just Cares for Me), passing through small stories: the problems involved in buying a washing machine (Not without My Handbag), the different fates of two twin princes separated at birth (Wat's Pig), the dexterity of a radio announcer who has breadkfast while on the air (Early Bird), the day-to-day life of a middle-class Englishman during the London bombings of the Second World War (War Story) and a new adventure by the plasticine heroes, Wallace and Gromit (A Close Shave).
Ridley Scott
USA - UK
129 min.
In the autumn of 1960, three young students from an exclusive naval school had started out on a difficult course which consisted of spending a year as crew members on the brigantine "Albatross". During the voyage, the boys were pushed beyond the limits of adolescence while they explored the mysteries of the Caribbean and South Pacific. Towards the end of their wanderings, on the homeward trip, the boat was hit by a natural phenomena known as a "White Squall". The boat sunk in a question of minutes, taking six lives with it. The survivors were rescued after three days in the sea and found themselves in the situation of deciding whether the capitan, the mysterious Christopher Sheldon, had acted negligently.
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Monday to Thursday: 09:00h - 15:00h
Friday: 10:00h - 14:00h
Monday to Thursday: 09:00h - 15:00h
Friday: 10:00h - 14:00h
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