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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Horizontes Selection
Films
Films
Celina Murga
Argentina
80 min.
Ana returns to her native city after a long absence in search of her past, but there's not much left for her, only a few friends and a handful of faint images that she attempts to fit into place. She has an odd feeling of belonging and yet not. Seeing a photograph taken by her teenage boyfriend Mariano in the local newspaper, she decides to seek him out. Running into friends and ex-highschool mates, she inquires after Mariano's whereabouts, finally discovering that he lives in the small nearby town of Victoria. She therefore decides to set off on yet another voyage.
Daniel Burak
Argentina
100 min.
A series of difficulties oblige 47-year-old Jorge to abandon the shooting of a documentary about a tavern related to the origins of tango: Bar El Chino - a special place combining disappearing values and ideals that move him deeply. His meeting with the 26-year-old Martina encourages him to pick up the threads of his movie. When the socio-political chaos reigning in Argentina towards the end of 2001 causes Martina to leave for Spain, despite being thrown into the depths of despair and not having a penny to his name, Jorge decides to carry his project through to the end.
Gastón Biraben
Argentina
115 min.
15-year-old Cristina is suddenly escorted from her strict Catholic school in Buenos Aires and taken before a judge, who reveals to her that she is really Sofía Lombardi, the daughter of two young architects, activists who were disappeared in the 70s. He introduces her to her natural grandmother. Stunned and rejecting this old stranger, Cristina flees from the courthouse. The search for her own identity is on.
Damián Szifron
Argentina
91 min.
A budding architect, 25-year-old Toledo is jealous. He can't concentrate on his work for worrying about what his girlfriend Ana is or isn't doing. Coming home one day, her nervous behaviour has him mystified, until she goes into the kitchen and he discovers his worst dream come true: another man hiding in their own flat. Toledo invents an excuse to leave without Ana noticing the anguish and desperation that are choking him. He waits for the lover to leave the house and sets out to follow him the whole night through, in the endeavour to know who he is and how he knows Ana.
Juan Carlos Desanzo
Argentina
92 min.
?El Polaquito? is a street kid who scrapes a living by imitating Roberto Goyeneche, ?Polaco?, one of the most famous Argentine tango performers, in train carriages at the Estación Constitución in Buenos Aires. There he meets and falls in love with ?La Pelu?, a prostitute at the same station. Both are under the strict daily control of ?Rengo? (crippled) Carbajal, a false bootblack who exploits the kids and, in collusion with the police, runs all of the underhand dealings at the station. ?El Polaquito? tries to guide ?La Pelu? back onto the straight and narrow, making him a threat to the thugs in the doing. The movie is based on the true story of an adolescent murdered in 1994 and the actors are real street kids.
Santiago Loza
87 min.
Somewhere in his 40s, Axel has given up his profession as a doctor and has temporarily moved in with his sister and her children, leading a lacklustre life. Most of the time he does nothing but exist. But one day he meets a young, pregnant woman. A relationship develops, a kind of love, and they live together, clinging to one another like the shipwrecked to driftwood. But Axel's movements are hesitant and he soon goes to visit an old love.
Raúl Perrone
Argentina
76 min.
85 and retired, Don Galván lives in his modest Buenos Aires suburb home with his wife. Getting out of bed one morning, he realizes that the wick on his old kerosene heater no longer works. His attempts at repair fail sadly due to a lack of spares. Determined to sort things out, he sets off in search of the wick, coming into contact with all sorts of characters and situations. The world is no longer as Don Galván knew it and the day is question is enough in itself to prove it. A neighbour gives him a lift to the centre of Morón, a mixture of Persian market and Hong Kong, where Galván hopes to find his wick, but it would seem they're no longer made. He catches a bus, a taxi and a delivery truck, but the wick is nowhere to be found. Making his way home, Don Galván struggles over the mountains amid a storm and other dangers.
Luis Alberto Restrepo
Colombia
90 min.
Peasants Toño and Paulina are evicted from their land - an isolated part of the jungle in which they were born and brought up - and brutally dumped onto the streets of an enormous, heartless, unfamiliar city. Though banished by their country's conflict, they are in fact tormented by another drama. Suffering, disillusion and disappointment in love nest inside them. Each feels alone, unable to assume the other's pain, and even less part of a couple. Passion could open the door that no-one will let them through, but Toño and Paulina find in love a strength that repels them, that does nothing to help them survive.
Martín Rejtman
Argentina-France
90 min.
Alejandro, a 35-year-old taxi driver, is suddenly caught up in a whirlwind of separations, violent climatic changes, rapid wealth, people wanting to return to Argentina, others wanting to leave and never come back, magic gloves, deafening music, abrupt poverty, countless trips to Ezeiza Airport, blue movies, a new relationship, mind-blowing depression, addiction to tablets and alcohol, and flittings, to name but a few. But none of it seems to affect him too much; if the truth be told, the only thing that really matters to him at all is his Renault 12.
José Henrique Fonseca
Brazil
116 min.
A dumb bet with friends turns Máiquel, an unemployed car salesman and until then ordinary guy, into a paid hitman and subsequently owner of a highly successful security firm. Letting himself go with the flow of events, he becomes respected by criminals, the police, and loved by two women... until he makes his first mistake and is forced to take charge of his own destiny.
Luis Barrios
Peru
106 min.
Having lost his wife when his son Percy was only a child, Matías, mayor of a small Peruvian coastal town, has taken care of educating the pretty little Natalia, daughter of humble peasants, sending her to a convent as an internee. On turning 17, her parents turn her over to Matías in wedlock. Given her true religious vocation, Natalia had wanted to stay at the convent, but Father Esteban, a friend of Matías, had convinced her that it was her duty to marry, hence Natalia had accepted on one condition: that Matías was never to touch her. After four years of marriage, when they seem to be living a peaceful life, Matías breaks the agreement. The stage is set for the entrance of Santiago, the young parish priest to replace father Esteban and whom the mystic Natalia sees as the personification of Christ. Tragedy is soon unleashed.
Alejandro Malowicki
Argentina
96 min.
On the one hand usury, on the other the workers, on the other the past and on the other the future. That's the way Pablo sees himself at the head of the company founded by his father, trying to deal with the conflicts besieging the people working for his SME in the Argentina of the 90s. In claustrophobic surroundings, harassed by debt, an economic crisis breaks out, creating an surroundings in which the entire population is at loggerheads, an environment neither wanted nor expected. They are beseiged by a neo-liberal, brutal and unjust system. Pablo's son Gustavo may be the only person able to make it through this door that opens and closes without letting in the daylight.
Sarah Rogacki
USA
85 min.
Rena Juarez is a beautiful fifteen-year old Latina from New York's Washington Heights. While Rena's mother, Mariela, works the night shift at a local hospital, Rena spends her nights on the streets trying to avoid her abusive stepfather, Ricky. When his advances become more than she can handle, she turns to her best friend Wanda Love, a true believer of the mystical practice of Santeria. Wanda Love decides to take matters into her own hands by casting a series of spells on him, but Ricky's violence towards Rena quickly escalates and Rena's friends, led by Zane, decide to teach Ricky a harsh lesson. In a chilling turn of events, the plan to scare Ricky goes very wrong.
Joel Cano
Cuba-France-Italy
106 min.
Three Cuban women see their lives turned upside down at the same time. María, a peasant, lost her daughter in unclear circumstances. Norma is a TV news broadcaster who refuses to announce false government news. Nieves, who kills pigs in a clandestine slaughterhouse, is sacked by her boss. The destinies of the three women cross to weave a story as fragile as their lives amid dying communism.
Carlos Sama
Mexico
114 min.
Neurotic B-movie dubbing director Orlando lives with Sonia, a ?new age? woman seeking interior peace. Orlando is undergoing a crisis, suffocated by Sonia's love, and is tempted by the novelty of another woman. Mauricio is a young hermit, clumsy in relationships, who lives a complicated life with René, a ?post-modern? woman tired of Mauricio preferring his computer. Orlando dubs the voice of Kenneth Flamingo, presenter of an American sensational series on the tracks of Mamá Rosa, a charming old nurse who finds her true vocation as a serial killer dedicated to destroying happy couples. Ariel is a seer who helps with the investigation and falls telepathically in love with Sonia. They are all caught up in a maze of murders and gunshots where everything, even love, can happen, like on television.
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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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