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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Zabaltegi - New Directors
Films
Films
Farhad Mehranfar
Iran
73 min.
This is a film about birth, love and death among the peoples who live in the misty woods of the fascinating Talesh mountains. During winter, when the men turn the white show purple with the blood of the antilopes, a child is born. His mother tells him the story of the Spring, the mystery of the colour of the flowers and about love for his father. And the restless life of his father finds the peace of death in the cold winter.
David Caffrey
UK
110 min.
Not only is Belfast Evening News satirical column author Dan Starkey a bit mouthier than most, he also drinks a lot and is up to his neck in a sinking marriage. Drunk again, he meets a pretty, up-front, young art student called Margaret and invites her to a party at his house where they are interrupted during a drunken kiss by his wife Patricia, who gives him 24 hours to get out. Allowing himself to be persuaded back to Margaret's place where they have sex on the couch, he notices a framed photo of an ex-IRA man who turns out to be one of her old boyfriends. The next day Margaret gives him a tape which will become a vital clue to her murder.
Chen Yi-Wen
Taiwan
102 min.
Both jobless, Kai and his sort-of girlfriend Jiajia steal the occasional car and sell it to Kai's fence friend, K-boy. But before they can pass on a white Honda Integra they find unlocked in a car park, they learn it was stolen from its original owner and used as the getaway vehicle in a gangland killing. Not only that, but its owner is offering a substantial reward for its return. Kai gets in touch with Hua Ge, the cool hitman who first stole the car and carried out the murder on behalf of his elderly boss, Xu. Impressed, Hua Ge puts Kai on the payroll of the powerful Xu, while Jiajia more or less disappears from his life as he learns the codes and manners befitting of his new position.
Cesc Gay, Daniel Gimelberg
Spain - Argentina - USA
86 min.
4th July. New York. Here, in this hotel which none of you would be able to find, time toys with those who linger on its premises: a second-rate magician, a walk around the city and in search of female company; a photographer on his way to San Francisco who's just arrived from some war, and who constantly pokes his nose in where it's not wanted; a man who's despair has brought him back by chance to the place he was born... Nothing is what it seems. They've all got something to hide. Hidden desires, unexpected secrets. Because that's the way things often happen, with no explanation. Because life can be strange that way. Five stories in one, and all in the same hotel room.
David Riker
USA
88 min.
This is a film about the uprooted and hidden world of the Latin American immigrant community in New York. Told in four separate stories and in their native language, it depicts the collective experience of these immigrant's efforts to lay down new roots in an unfamiliar land. A young labourer scavenging for bricks in a derelict building is killed when a wall collapses. Two teenagers from the same small village fall in love, only to lose each other in a labyrinthine housing project. A homeless father, dreaming of a better life for his young daughter, tries to enroll her in school. A young seamstress struggles to help the daughter she left in her faraway home.
Sherwood Hu
USA
90 min.
It's a lovely day for a Hawaiian wedding. Policeman Ray and his native Hawaiian girlfriend, Jenny, are deeply in love, but their's is not to be when tragedy rears its ugly head. Stopping off on the way to the altar, Ray's run-in with the notorious Lono gang becomes a raging gun battle that eventually engulfs the whole wedding party in a bloody crossfire, leaving Jenny dead in its wake. The wounded groom's desire for revenge takes on such terrible dimensions that his best friend and superior can't stop worrying about him, and when members of the gang start turning up dead, nothing can stop the suspicion from falling on Ray.
Yoichiro Takahashi
Japan
90 min.
Kenji is a member of his high school swimming team. He's got a crush on his classmate, Reiko, but is in for a big let down when she tells him that she fancies Arai, the Korean-Japanese star of the team. Reiko asks Kenji to act as a go-between and he, swallowing his feelings, agrees; but Arai sees through Kenji's love for Reiko and offers to try and bring the two together. Not much of a competitor, Kenji is knocked out of the regional swimming championships during the preliminaries. One day, Reiko asks Kenji out on a date; but when he meets her at the appointed place he finds her there with Arai. This stirs Kenji's competitive juices and he and Arai have a bit of a dust-up.
Ramon Barea
Spain
92 min.
Four contemplative nuns who have been enclosed for more than twenty years, plan to escape from their secluded and rather decrepit convent. To succeed in their childish fancy of "beholding the natural world once again", they dig a tunnel which leads to an old crypt lying directly beneath the church confessional. In order to contrive their intrigue, the four truant nuns will have to side step the bickering contensions which have arisen within the walls of the convent between the modern young Prioress and the conventional and traditional Vice-Prioress.
Eoin Moore
Germany
81 min.
Alex is a part-time construction worker and small-time criminal with nothing to show for his 33 years but a broken marriage, a guitar and his Trabbi, a make of car produced in what used to be the GDR. His life takes a turn for the better on meeting the attractive young Bosnian prostitute, Svetlana, who unfortunately ends up unnecessarily cluttering his life by asking him to marry her. A second prostitute, Ruth, seems to be the perfect woman - like Alex, she is lonely, simple and undemanding. But things get complicated the day he gets caught stealing.
Florian Flicker
Austria
87 min.
A citizen of the former Soviet Union, Nana Iaschwili lands in Vienna with the intention of continuing on to the United States, but her forged visa prevents her from taking her connecting flight. Nana is arrested, but manages to avoid deportation and make her illegal escape through Austria any way she can. She loses her luggage, her money, and when her photograph appears in the papers, decides to head for Germany, where she thinks it will be easier to go unnoticed. Accompanied by a bank robber, she gets to the border with the idea of trying to make an illegal crossing.
Paul McGuigan
UK
105 min.
This is a surreal triptych adapted by Trainspotting author Irvine Welsh from his own collection of short stories. The first part (The Granton Star Cause) is a black comedy of revenge, football and religion that come together in one explosive story. The second part (A Soft Touch) is a story of love and betrayal with a hero who is all too easily manipulated by those around him. The third (The Acid House) is a comedy about marriage, babies and an excess of chemical abuse.
Dan Ireland
USA
100 min.
Gary struggles to stay alive on the streets of contemporary New York City where he weaves his way through a world of porn stars and telephone sex operators. But things change when he meets the sexy and charismatic porn actor, Valentino, for whom he feels an instant, powerful and mutual attraction. In fact, things would be fine if it wasn't for Valentino's ever present girlfriend, a waitress named Mary Carmen, who soon realises that her boyfriend's heart doesn't belong to her. The ensuing battle for Valentino's affections has the two of them at constant loggerheads, until the object of their shared desire becomes sick with AIDS and they have to put their differences aside in order to care for him.
Florent Emilio Siri
France
88 min.
Marek, the Pole and Mimmo, the Italian, have been miners in the French-German border town of Lorraine since the age of 16. Their routine scarcely changes: after work in the pit, they have a few beers with other miners, hang out in strip clubs and race their cars for the odd bet... Now, when they are both 25, a lightning strike is called. Whereas Marek wants to join it beside his staunch union supporting uncle Stanis, Mimmo's imagination follows the beat of a different drum with Jäger, a shadowy but engaging crook. As the strike grows, so does the tension between Marek and Mimmo.
Simon Staho
Denmark - Iceland
95 min.
Carrying 42 grams of heroin and a deadly secret, Ossy tracks down his childhood pal Jimmy, with whom he spent several years in Bangkok getting high on women, whisky and cocaine. Now married with a steady job, Jimmy will do anything to hide his past and throws Ossy out. Ossy swears revenge, even if it means destroying Jimmy, his family and himself.
Pilar Távora
Spain
114 min.
Handed over in a fixed marriage to Juan, Yerma's hearfelt desire to have a child is nipped in the bud when mother nature doesn't fulfil her dreams, and she puts her aspiration on a pedestal as the perfect example of love, liberation and a way of standing up to death. To admit she can't have children would be to deny her very existence, a sort of living death. The fact that her husband is too busy looking after his livestock to be passionate, pushes Yerma to accuse him of being unable to have children, while her sense of honour prevents her from giving in to Victor, the man with whom she is certain she could engender an infant. Realising that society has no room for a childless woman, she sets out on a pilgrimage in honour of a saint rumoured to cure infertility.
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