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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New Directors
Films
Films
New Directors
New Directors
Milad Alami
Denmark
100 min.
Charmøren / The Charmer is an intense psychological drama about Esmail, a young Iranian man who is desperately trying to meet women who can secure his stay in Denmark. As time runs out, he falls in love and his past catches up with him. The film deals with themes of race, class, and the struggle for a better life.
Lai Kuo-An
Taiwan
91 min.
Yian, who has just started kindergarten, often asks his parents to help him find his past life parents. However, the doctors and his parents believe him to be suffering from psychosis. Meanwhile, his parents are negotiating their separation. His mom, Yaji, decides to move out with him while his dad, Haoteng, decides to look after Yian's sick grandfather...
Nicolás Combarro
Spain
80 min.
Alberto García-Alix. La línea de sombra is the portrait of one of the most important photographers on the Spanish artistic scene, reference of an entire generation. A direct testimony of the lights and shadows through which Alberto García-Alix has had to make his way in order to find his path. Narrated from the intimacy of his studio, the film takes the shape of a voyage between the present and the past. A dialogue between his life and work.
Daniel Kokotajlo
UK
96 min.
As devout Jehovah's Witnesses, sisters Alex and Luisa and their mother, Ivanna, are united in The Truth. Alex looks up to her confident older sister, while striving to follow in Ivanna's footsteps as a 'good Witness'. But when Luisa starts to question the advice of the Elders, she makes a life-altering transgression that threatens to expel her from the congregation. Unless Ivanna and Alex can persuade her to return, they must shun her completely. This challenge becomes more painful when their family is faced with another heartbreaking test of faith. Written and directed by Daniel Kokotajlo, a former Jehovah's Witness, Apostasy provides rare insight into the complex nature of faith, family, duty and love.
Lisa Brühlmann
Switzerland
97 min.
Just before the summer vacation, 15-year-old Mia and her parents move to the suburbs of Zürich. She has long felt estranged from her parents, and when she asks whether she might be adopted her mother becomes offended - but doesn't reply. While Mia plunges into a wild teenager existence in an attempt to cope with it all, her body begins to change oddly. First hardly noticeably, but then with a force that threatens to drive her out of her mind. In her despair she attempts to numb herself with sex and drugs, hoping to halt the tidal wave that is overwhelming her. But nature is more powerful.
Gilles Coulier
Belgium - Netherlands - France
91 min.
In the cold waters of the North Sea, Leon Broucke falls overboard his fishing boat right before the eyes of his eldest son, Jean. The old man slips into a deep coma, leaving his son behind with a huge debt and the responsibility of the family business. The absence of his father sets off an aftershock of conflicts between him and his two brothers. Francis is torn between his family and leaving with his secret lover. William returns home to escape his life of crime, and redeem himself. Desperate to build a future for his 8-year-old son, Jean recriminates his brother for his criminal past. Cargo is a story about how desperation can bring a family to the edge of destruction.
Wang Feifei
China
100 min.
It's past midnight. Zhao goes down to smoke, leaving his drunken wife to murmur her erotic dream upstairs.Neighbour Lee jumps off the building in front of Zhao, and his suicide reveals a secret sex video taken by phone. Sanqing falls in love with her tutor. She wants to strengthen her relationship with Professor Sun on a seaside trip, but finally realises her efforts are in vain. Hai Long is an old acquaintance of Sun. He tries to bring Sanqing and his client Wang together, giving Sanqing the opportunity to take revenge. In the dark tunnel on the island, Wang tells Sanqing a nightmare that reveals the whole story...
Jens Assur
Sweden
110 min.
A hard-working farmer, desperate due to the harsh reality of his daily struggle, is determined to have his son take over the farm and continue his legacy. The mother tries her best to keep the family together, but with increasing horror the son witnesses his father's psychotic behaviour escalate. He seeks refuge elsewhere but he can't escape the inevitable.
Teddy Lussi-Modeste
France
92 min.
Brahim is a successful stand-up comedian from a working-class family. His swift rise to fame has a price: Brahim is constantly under pressure, torn between his elder brother Mourad, who is also his manager, and Linda, his girlfriend and artistic director. Everyone has high expectations of him, from his family to the guys he grew up with. To fulfill his dream, write his second show, and find his own path, Brahim must break free of his brother’s grip, even if it means paying an even higher price.
Marine Francen
France
98 min.
Violette is old enough to marry in 1852 when her mountain village is brutally deprived of all its men following the repression of the Republicans ordered by Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte. The women spend months in total isolation. Desperate to one day see their men again, they take an oath: if a man comes, he will be for everyone. Life must continue in the belly of each and every one of them.
Laura Mora
Colombia - Argentina
95 min.
Paula, a 22 year-old student, witnesses the murder of her beloved father, a popular political sciences professor at a public university in Medellin. From the distance, she catches a glimpse of the murderer as he beats a hasty retreat on a motorcycle. Devastated by the pain of their loss, Paula and her family will have to deal with official lethargy. The authorities will make no effort to clarify the events and the case is soon archived and abandoned. When Christmas comes round, a couple of months after the murder, Paula accidentally bumps into Jesús, the young man who killed her father. So what happens when revenge becomes a real possibility? Paula decides to approach the man, initially motivated by an almost primitive instinct to get answers and eventually to find the courage to cross the moral and ethical line of killing a man, thereby avenging her father’s death.
Daniel Palacio
Filipinas
84 min.
Bangis is a poor gravedigger living inside a cemetery mausoleum with his family. Everyday he fears being evicted by the government for illegally settling inside the cemetery. When his daughter falls ill, getting her checked in a hospital becomes a dilemma. The illness lingers for weeks and Bangis' desperation grows stronger. He knows he must do something or his daughter won't survive her ordeal. He decides to steal a newly buried corpse and sell it to a funeral parlor. He only hopes that everything goes well and that it's not too late for his beloved daughter.
Lim Tae-gue
South Korea
82 min.
Jooyong, a soldier serving his duty in the Korean army, attempts to expose the abuses of a senior soldier but fails. On the day Jooyong's platoon goes on a night out as a group, the senior soldier tries to find the culprit who attempted to report him. Yet another violent situation results in breaking a tooth of a second private soldier, and Jooyong takes him to his brother-in-law's dental clinic...
Marialy Rivas
Chile - Spain - Argentina
78 min.
In a far-off country at the end of the world Tamara, aged 12, lives under the wing of charismatic cult leader Miguel, a man she adores. That summer the girl will be given a mission: to have a holy child with him immediately she has her first period. Tamara realises that the life she wants for herself is not the same as the fate imposed on her. Her disobedience will lead to her violent development from child to woman, forcing her to gain her freedom in a way she had never imagined.
Films in Progress 28
Silvina Schnicer Schlieman, Ulises Porra Guardiola
Argentina
92 min.
After a long period of absence, Rina returns to her island deep in the Tigre river Delta. There she spent a large part of her life and raised her son. Now she wants to recover her home and return there with Facundo, who also left the island. Both, mother and son, will learn that nothing is like it was. Machines on the river are about to destroy everything. A girl is lost in the forest. The water is rising.
Rima Das
India
87 min.
Ten year-old Dhunu lives in a remote village in Assam, India, amidst raging deprivation. She is a free spirit, while her widowed mother struggles daily to put food on the table and raise her children. But this doesn't prevent her from having dreams, like owning a guitar for the tiny band she wants to put together with some local boys, the 'Village Rockstars'. Dhunu considers herself to be as capable as guys her age. When the boys eventually relinquish their dream, Dhunu refuses to give up on her ambition to own a guitar.
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