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
Michael Winterbottom
UK
112 min.
24 Hour Party People is the throbbing, thrilling tale of the spectacular upsurge of the Manchester Factory Records label that started Joy Division, New Order and the Happy Mondays. Inspired by a late-70s Sex Pistols gig, Tony Wilson and his friends set out over the next two decades to change the face of pop music and place Manchester squarely on the map of fame. Launching Factory Records, they buy a joint and set up what went on to become one of the most famous music clubs in the world, the Hacienda. But the party isn't to last. A tale of music, sex, drugs and the outlandish, of a man who leaves his pop stars to their own, a factor ultimately causing his own undoing.
François Ozon
France
103 min.
In the fifties, at a bourgeois country mansion, preparations for Christmas are underway when drama strikes: the owner of the house is murdered. He was surrounded by eight women, all known to him, one of whom is obviously the culprit. They therefore launch into a long day of investigation, arguments, betrayals and revelations, soon revealing that each and every one of them have their reasons and a variety of skeletons in the cupboard. The truth, cruel and tragic, uncovers masks and lies as it explodes.
Mike Leigh
UK - France
128 min.
Penny, a supermarket checkout attendant, no longer loves her gentle, philosophical taxi-driving partner Phil. Their daughter, Rachel, cleans at a home for the elderly, and their son Rory is unemployed and aggressive. The joy has gone out of Phil and Penny's lives; but Rory's illness and emergency admittance to hospital brings them back together again, rekindling their love. Several neighbours from their same London suburb who become involved in Rory's crisis, all see themselves swept along on an emotional journey.
Dai Sijie
France - China
116 min.
The China of the early 70s still bears the yoke of the Cultural Revolution. Two teenagers, Luo and Ma, the children of intellectuals, are sent for reeducation to a remote area near Tibet. Right from the moment they arrive, the youngsters learn to get by for themselves and rebel against everything that surrounds them. One day, Luo and Ma meet the Ancient Tailor and his lovely granddaughter. Luo falls in love with the little seamstress and decides to educate her with stories taking their inspiration from Chinese melodramas... until they come across a real treasure: a suitcase full of foreign books, clearly forbidden, a finding weaving a net of amorous and amicable complicity between the three. Luo and Ma work by day and secretly read by night in order to be able to tell the locals of their new adventures. Shortly afterwards, Luo and Ma leave the village. The Cultural Revolution has ended.
Paul Greengrass
UK - Ireland
107 min.
On 30th January 1972, thirteen people were killed and another fourteen were injured by British Army bullets in the streets of Derry (Londonderry for the British), Northern Ireland. The day was given the name of Bloody Sunday. The film tells what happened, from the arrival of the troops in the town until the violent action taken against the demonstrators by the formidable British Paratroopers. It mainly focuses on four characters: Ivan Cooper, a pro-civil rights leader; Gerry Donaghy, a 17 year-old Catholic caught up in the confrontation with the soldiers; Brigadier Patrick MacLellan, under pressure to bring the demonstration to a definite end; and a young radio operator with the Paratroopers who, together with his hardened veterans, receives the order to enter Bogside.
Michael Moore
Germany - Canada - USA
120 min.
This documentary takes a controversial, uncomprising look at the pathology of violence and fear in America, a country with the highest gun-murder rate in the world, where guns now outnumber voters and television sets. Are we a gun-crazy nation, or just crazy? Do we have Charlton Heston and the NRA to blame for this? Or is it our racial problems that we have yet to resolve and that causes so much killing? The right-wing says that Hollywood, Rock and Roll and the Internet are the culprits. Or, is it just that Americans are historically prone to violence? With the fallout from the tragic 1999 shooting at Columbine High School at its core, this feature-length film presents a provocative, profound and sometimes bitingly hilarious portrait of a country in the aftermath of September 11th.
Fernando Meirelles
Brazil - France
135 min.
Cidade de Deus is a 60's housing project that turned in the early 80's into one of the most dangerous places in Rio de Janeiro. Home to Buscapé, too scared and sensitive to become a criminal, but too intelligent to work at small, badly paid jobs, the boy grows up in this violent place where everything is against him. However, the discovery that he can see reality differently, from an artist's point of view, permits him to achieve redemption as a photographer.
Stephen Frears
USA
98 min.
Everything has its price in the London netherworld. Okwe and Senay work at the same hotel, a beehive of illegal activity. They hardly know each other until the day when Okwe makes an astonishing discovery. They can't tell their bent boss. They can't go to the cops. And they'll be lucky to get out of the whole thing alive.
Gaspar Noé
France
90 min.
Irreversible. Because time destroys everything. Because some actions can't be repaired. Because man is an animal. Because the desire for vengeance is natural. Because most crimes go unpunished. Because the loss of a loved one is as destructive as lightening. Because love is the origin of life. Because history is entirely written in sperm and blood. Because premonitions don't change the course of events. Because time reveals all. The best and the worst.
Bertrand Tavernier
France - Germany - Spain
170 min.
Paris, 1942. Continental Films, a German production company which has been making films in France since 1940, reflects the dilemma faced by all French people: Can we just continue to work as if nothing has changed? Or should we refuse to co-operate and leave the country? Jean Devaivre joins Continental as an assistant director to disguise his activities in the Resistance. He is a man of action, impulsive and bold. Jean Aurenche is a screenwriter with the soul of a poet who tries to refuse the offers of work made by the Germans. He is a reserved man torn between three mistresses. Tens of characters move around these two people, some submissive, others rebels. Some fight and others collaborate, but in occupied France everyone faces with hunger, cold and restrictions.
Otar Iosseliani
France - Italy
122 min.
Every Monday morning Vincent begins the same monotonous routine. One-and-a-half hours of non-smoking transit to an uninspiring factory job. Back at home, family obligations always interrupt his passion for painting. Vincent can't take another Monday morning! He's had enough of the factory, the wife and kids, life's incomprehensible contradictions and the country village of unexpected eccentricities: the postman reads everyone's mail; the priest can't keep his eyes off the village wives; a miserly farmer installs still yet another new alarm system; teenagers come and go by bicycle, chattering about anything that comes to mind just to make life more exciting... One day, Vincent decides to see a little of the world and travels to Venice. Maybe there he'll find out exactly what's missing from his life.
John Malkovich
Spain - USA
135 min.
Agent Agustín Rejas is given the job of catching the famous guerrilla leader, Ezequiel, principal instigator of a peasant uprise threatening to hit the cities and topple the Government. Alarmed by the brutal intimidating tactics employed by Ezequiel's supporters, the army decides to react equally or more violently, creating a climate of collective panic. Rejas follows the tracks of the already legendary Ezequiel under the shadow cast bythe the rebels' obvious advance. Only in his daughter's ballet teacher, Yolanda, does he find the strength to keep going.
Emanuele Crialese
Italy
90 min.
13 year-old Pasquale lives on the little island of Lampedusa, where he spends his time hunting birds with a slingshot and impressing girls by showing off with stunts on his souped-up Vespa. His father, Pietro, is a generous, violent man, loved and feared; his mother, Grazia, unable to stay in her place, and hence a continuous source of worry and gossip. Though ashamed of her, Pasquale can't help but defend her from the ever-increasing pressure of the town and his father, who favours sending her to a hospital in Milan. Pasquale decides to hide his mother in a cave, making believe that she took her life by jumping into the sea. He visits, feeds and takes care of her until he realises that he can't keep her hidden for ever... It's San Bartolo night, and the bonfires lit at the edge of the sea illuminate Grazia's face when she emerges as if by miracle.
Roman Polanski
France - Poland - Germany - UK
148 min.
Having avoided deportation, brilliant Polish pianist Wladyslaw Szpilman, a Jew, is forced to live at the heart of the Warsaw ghetto, where he has to share suffering and humiliation with the other Jews. Managing to escape, he hides among the ruins of the capital. A German officer comes to his rescue, helping him to survive.
Bénédicte Liénard
France - Belgium - Luxembourg
85 min.
In prison, Joanna questions the authority of those detaining her. Meanwhile, Claudine relives the past from a factory production line; a past which closely binds her to Joanna. Joanna's lawyer asks Claudine to reveal what drove her friend to violence; but accepting to testify would mean denouncing the union structure that still seems to protect her. Joanna at first relents, cracks and then finally finds the strength to proclaim her right to dignity and the dignity of the women around her. Claudine stands up for herself: she accepts to testify, leading the struggle at the factory, and rejoins Joanna in her radical stance; she refuses the compromise offered by the union structure and accepts the fact of her exclusion.
Elia Suleiman
France
92 min.
A love story takes place between a Palestinian man living in Jerusalem and a Palestinian woman from Ramallah. He alternates between his ailing father and his love life, trying to keep them both alive. Because of the political situation, the woman's freedom of movement ends at the Israeli army checkpoint between the two cities. Barred from crossing, the lovers' intimate encounters take place on a deserted lot right next to the checkpoint. They are unable to separate reality from occupation; nor can they preserve their intimacy. The impossibility of escaping from this reality gives rise to a complicity of solemn desire generating violent repercussions.
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