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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Music in Motion
Films
Films
Jaime Chávarri
Spain
30 min.
Short film
(…) An artist can never live without melancholy; it is sad inspiring drug, Utopia is perhaps, after sex, the most melancholic thing that exists. Sexual melancholy, utopian melancholy: these are omnipresent subjects in the works of an artist. The artist is concentrating now: paper, pencil and guitar. Searching for a word, and adjective, one finds oneself face to face with time. A person is not himself; what makes up the work when the artist has reached maturity is the amount of life he carries within. It comes down to the eternal struggle of knowledge versus time. But knowing too much also has its dangers. One must keep aside a space for cultivating what you don’t want to know, that which makes utopia impossible. However, that is the corner where the greys come from, and greyness, with the help of melancholy, holds wisdom and alittle utopia; it is the shadow’s infinite pallet. (…) The work of our artist is, however, unusually bold. He knows there are things which are so mysterious they cannot be exhausted. The artist becomes his own contradiction. It doesn’t matter, as long as there is enough chaos within him, as Nietzsche said, to give birth to a shooting star.Jaime Chávarri
Pilar Miró
Spain
30 min.
Short film
I met him at the presentation of his second single, El cobarde, a song I particulary love, just like Victor, who I particulary love. (…) We were almost thirty years younger but I don’t think we’ve changed too much. We shared the same years of dictatorship, demonstrations, strikes, retaliation and blacklists. Sometimes they were very black. (…) In 1977 we filmed a special por TVE (Spanish Television) with Ana, which I turned into a political statement. We returned from Oviedo four or five days before Adolfo Suárez legalised the Communist Party. It took several months before the programme was broadcast. Twenty years later, we wanted to put together the continuation and take a stroll along the path of Victor’s life and that of this country, remembering Marcelino Camacho, Dolores Ibárruri, Manuel Llaneza, Horacio Fernández Inguanzo… and take a look at ourselves in the mirror that we have forged in the present. Vitorín: I’ll see you in twenty years.Pilar Miró
Dana Ranga
Germany
77 min.
A documentary about the former European socialist countries, and more specifically about their musical films, hitherto unknown to the rest of the world. There are singing farmers, dancing sailors, happy housewives, workers on holiday and the inevitable tractor drivers. In the background are news bulletins and advertisements, appearances by politicians and idols of the masses from countries on the other side of the Iron Curtain. This is the documentary’s way of trying to answer the question of whether or not it was possible to portray socialist realism through the musical comedy genre, which was considered purely capitalist.
José Luis García Sánchez
Spain
30 min.
Short film
A working day in the life of travelling photographer, who in this case, is also a guitar-toting poet who just so happens to appear in the Register of Births as Joaquín Martínez Sabina, born some years ago in Úbeda, Andalusia. Sometimes he lives in Madrid – in the centre of Madrid. The film is about a poacher who uses the cover of night to pursue his prey (his images) with courage, infinite patience and stamina so as not lo let on to the animals that he’s human. He has to be alert, since the beast of beauty is extremely fleeting; he has to shoot without hesitating. (…) In his hideout by day, the photographer dissects the bodies (creates the songs) captured by night. The fact that he is Andalusian gives him that special feeling for art; his literary soul takes care of the rest. The skinniest and –well, damn it- best of our authors rambles, contemplates, observes, reflects and works in front of the cameras for half an hour.José Luis García Sánchez
Mike Figgis
UK
51 min.
This is an experimental documentary on female flamenco dancers which endeavours to capture the intense emotion and energy of this dance and deconstruct its physical intricacy and detail. The crew shot in Madrid with a small company of performers who had never worked together and who were only given six days to rehearse. Figgis chose eight female dances of varying technical and professional levels, resulting in a number of inevitable tensions. The British director was interested in exploring how far the boundaries of flamenco could be pushed, and encouraged the performer to use the time to experiment with their own ideas.
Kelley Sane
USA
90 min.
Rita Page, a former Las Vegas showgirl, and her untalented daugther Franchesca, have come to Broadway searching for fame and fortune. To everyone’s surprise, especially after a disastrous audition, Franchesca lands the understudy role in a half-baked disco revue, only to discover that the whole thing is a scam masterminded by Veronica, a sadistic producer intent on keeping all the investor’s money. Mother and daughter, with best friend Melba in tow, work to thwart Veronica’s plans and make Franchesca a star. The futility of their attempt becomes apparent on opening night when Franchesca, aware of her performing deficiencies, refuses to go on stage and Rita emerges as the one to save the day.
Imanol Uribe
Spain
30 min.
Short film
To enclose Mikel Laboa and what he means in a half-hour film is almost impossible; it’s like trying to trap a genie in a bottle, or at least that’s how it felt to me. I am also convinced, not that the film is finished, that we have succeeded in filling that bottle with a distilled perfume, a powerful scent. This adventure wouldn’t have been possible without the enthusiasm for the project of Mikel Laboa and those surrounding him. Noe would it have been possible without the collaboration of a team of virtuosos highlighted by Xabier Aguirresarobe’s simplicity and the unmistakable way with words of Bernardo Atxaga, the mirror in which we are all reflected.Imanol Uribe
Arturo Ripstein
Spain
30 min.
Short film
I have made a moderate number of short films. They are no less arduous than the extremely long films I have made. Nor are they less interesting. Instead of a bombardment of noise, I chose a bit of intimate silence. Rather than the blur of images which constantly hound us, I opted for clandestine stillness. I gathered intuitively that the character in this short was a genius, and therefore, allowed myself to navigate thorugh a sea of lies. There is nothing more convincing than a well-adorned lie. It turns into a prism. It multiplies. It becomes true. That was my goal. Between history and mythology, I believe in the latter.Arturo Ripstein
Ventura Pons
Spain
30 min.
Short film
From her home in Barcelona, María del Mar Bonet turns the pages of her notebook of watercolours. As she does so, the colours, shapes and the most cherished places in her native land begin to appear. Little by little, the notebook takes her on an internal journey down the roads of memory and of the collective memory of a people who wing while they work. A gaze over the sea, the colour of the earth and the light of Majorca turns this journey into a testimony of the fundamental character of both Majorca and María del Mar Bonet: “the Mediterranean essence”. Beginning with the sacred (Cant de la Sibla), the journey travels through the Islands’ cultural legacy with Cançons de Traball, which María del Mar Bonet has rescued from popular heritage, and finishes with a pagan festival (Jota marinera).Ventura Pons
Fernando Trueba
Spain
30 min.
Short film
A journey through the career of Dominican pianist Michel Camilo, now living in New York. In addition to seeing him play several solo pieces, with a sextet, big band and symphony orchestra, Michel Camilo offers us an enlightening historical exposition of the adventure of Latin Jazz, from the first experiences in fusion up to the present day. It’s got versions of On Fire and Caribe that have never been released and a superb improvisation of the love song from the film Two Much, for which he wrote the soundtrack.Fernando Trueba
Rigoberto López
USA
107 min.
A mixture of history and entertainment, this documentary starts from the origins of the Cuban son right up to the Salsa played today in New York, San Juan, Havana and Caracas, and tells, in the voice of its best known performers, the long history of a musical movement that has set the feet of the world going. Special guest salsa musician Isaac Delgado narrates the story. Other figures who tell their part of the tale are Cachao, tito Puente, Oscar D’León, el Gran Combo de Puerto Rico, Celia Cruz, Chucho Valdés, Juan Formell, Eddie Palmieri and Johnny Pacheco.
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Friday: 10:00h - 14:00h
Monday to Thursday: 09:00h - 15:00h
Friday: 10:00h - 14:00h
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