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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Zabaltegi - Tabakalera
Films
Films
Zabaltegi Tabakalera
Zabaltegi Tabakalera
Ruben Östlund
Sweden
144 min.
Christian is a divorced father devoted to spending time with his two daughters. He's a curator at a contemporary art museum, and the kind of guy who drives and electric car and supports the big humanitarian causes. He’s currently working on his next show, entitled The Square, an installation inviting passers-by to altruism, reminding them of their role as responsible fellow human beings. But sometimes it’s hard to live up to your own ideals: Christian’s meltdown in response to the theft of his mobile phone doesn’t exactly leave him in the best light... Meanwhile, the museum’s PR agency has created an unexpected campaign for The Square: the response is overblown and propels Christian headlong into an existential crisis. Golden Palm at Cannes.
Raymond Depardon
France
88 min.
Every year in France, 92,000 people are placed under psychiatric care without their consent. By law, the hospital has 12 days to bring each patient before a judge. Based on medical records and a doctor's recommendations, a crucial decision has to be made - will the patient stay or leave? 12 days after which lives can change forever. Granted access to these hearings for the first time, celebrated filmmaker/photographer Raymond Depardon captures these extraordinary encounters between justice and psychiatry. Astonishing, enlightening - a film that gives a voice to those who have previously been voiceless.
Ilian Metev
Germany - Bulgaria
82 min.
Young pianist Mila prepares for an audition abroad. Her brother Niki distracts her with his unwanted talent for the absurd. Their astrophysicist father Todor seems incapable of dealing with his children's anxieties. A portrait of a family during their last summer together.
Clément Cogitore
France
49 min.
In the middle of the Siberian taiga, 450 miles from the nearest village, live two families: the Braguines and the Kilines. Not a single road leads there. A long trip on the Ienissei River, first by boat, then by helicopter, is the only way to reach Braguino. Self-sufficient, both families live there according to their own rules and principles. In the middle of the village: a barrier. The two families refuse to speak. In the river sits an island, where another community is being built: that of the children. Free, unpredictable, wild. Stemming from the fear of the other, that of wild beasts, and the joy procured by the immensity of the forest, unravels a cruel tale in which tensions and fear give shape to the geography of an ancestral conflict.
Gerhard Treml, Leo Calice
Austria
8 min.
Short film
Convicted of murder, Sergio Cassilas (48) lives in solitary confinement. One hour a day he works in Calipatria's desert prison garden. With the help of a guard he smuggles a truckload of earth from the landscape of his favourite movie into its grounds. While working there, Sergio reveals the secret meaning of the soil for his life sentence in prison. Based on a real life story, the film documents Sergio's slow walk across the prison's empty courtyard. The camera's static gaze follows him into the distant garden. While the vision stays imprisoned, Sergio's story leads beyond the prison walls into the iconic riverscapes of the Rio Grande and Alaska's uncharted Yukon territories, tightly connected to American myths of wilderness, lucky strikes, self-made men and the promise of land and liberty for all.
Ikusmira Berriak 2013
José Luis Torres Leiva
Chile
9 min.
Short film
Ana tells us about a dream she had with her partner, recently deceased. El sueño de Ana is the epilogue of the coming feature film project currently being prepared by José Luis Torres Leiva, entitled Vendrá la muerte y tendrá tus ojos (Death Will Come and It Will Have Your Eyes), about death, love and the start of a new phase.
Frederick Wiseman
USA
197 min.
Ex Libris: The New York Public Library takes viewers behind the scenes of one of the world’s greatest institutions of learning. The film examines how this legendary establishment has continued to go about its regular activities while adapting to the digital revolution. Ex Libris: The New York Public Library explains how libraries inform and educate in many ways: books, concerts, conferences, classes and much more. This library strives to inspire the study of advanced knowledge and to strengthen the community.
Jorge Jácome
Portugal
26 min.
Short film
When a natural crisis occurs, the entire population of the Azores is forced to evacuate due to an uncontrolled plague of hydrangeas, a common flower in the islands. Two young soldiers, impassioned by the beauty of the landscape, guide us through the tales of sadness of those forced to leave and the inherent desire to resist and stay on the islands. The filmic wandering becomes a nostalgic and political reflection on territorial belonging and identity, and the roles we assume in the places we come from.
Hong Sang-soo
South Korea
92 min.
Areum is about to tackle her first day at work. Bongwan, her boss, had been having an affair with the woman Areum is replacing. Their relationship has just ended. This day, like all the others, Bongwan leaves his family home for work long before dawn. He can’t stop thinking about the woman who has left. That same day, Bongwan’s wife finds a love letter. She turns up at the office without warning and mistakes Areum for the woman she was hired to substitute.
Tamyka Smith
USA
20 min.
Short film
Inspired by true events, this is the story of Gwendolyn Green, an elderly, widowed woman living out her days alone, inside a gated Palm Springs residence, as if she were stuck in another era. As Gwendolyn's lack of social graces and isolation start to close in on her, she picks up the telephone and dials 911 in search of human connection. Gwendolyn creates a special bond with the responding officer, finding in him the care and connection to the modern world she craves.Gwendolyn Green will also be presented as an immersive installation experience on the 2nd floor of the Tabakalera building. Here visitors can watch the film within a replica of Gwendolyn’s kitchen where much of the film’s action takes place. Viewers will be able to open kitchen drawers revealing a life of worn cutlery, pickup the telephone to hear Gwendolyn’s voice, and see Gwendolyn’s hand written notes providing clues of her private life. Installation in Tabakalera:Tabakalera, 2nd floor21 SEPT - 29 OCT10:00-22:00https://www.tabakalera.eu/en/gwendolyn-green-installation-tamyka-smith
Ikusmira Berriak 2012
Philippe Garrel
France
76 min.
A 23 year-old girl comes home after the breakdown of a relationship to find that a woman the same age as herself now features in her father’s life.
Damien Manivel, Kohei Igarashi
France - Japan
78 min.
Snow-covered mountains in Japan. Every night, a fisherman makes his way to the market in town. His 6 year old son is awoken by his departure and finds it impossible to fall back to sleep. In the sleeping household, the young boy draws a picture he then slips into his satchel. On his way to school, still drowsy, he strays off the path and wanders into the snow...
Gustavo Salmerón
Spain
88 min.
Muchos hijos, un mono y un castillo (Lots of Kids, a Monkey and a Castle) is about Julita's childhood wishes, and all three have been granted. When her youngest son realises that his mother has lost the vertebra of his murdered great-grandmother, kept for three generations, the family launches into an outlandish search among the weird and wonderful objects Julita has hoarded in her more than 80 years, revealing a very picturesque gallery of characters. In fact Julita is about to find the meaning of life. Winner of the Best Documentary Award at Karlovy Vary.
João Moreira Salles
Brazil
127 min.
Made following the discovery of amateur footage shot in China in 1966 during the first and most radical stage of the Cultural Revolution, No Intenso Agora / In the Intense Now speaks about the fleeting nature of moments of great intensity. Scenes of China are set alongside archival images of the events of 1968 in France, Czechoslovakia, and, to a lesser extent, Brazil. In keeping with the tradition of the film-essay, they serve to investigate how the people who took part in those events continued onward after passions had cooled. The footage, all of it archival, not only reveals the state of mind of those filmed - joy, enchantment, fear, disappointment, dismay - but also sheds light on the relationship between a document and its political context. What can one say of Paris, Prague, Rio de Janeiro, or Beijing by looking at the images of the period? Why did each of these cities produce a specific sort of record?
Koldo Almandoz
Spain
10 min.
Short film
Plague: From the Latin plague ‘blow’, ‘wound’. Meaning: Massive and sudden appearance of living beings of a same species which cause serious damage to animal or plant populations. Abundance of something harmful.
Helena Girón, Samuel M. Delgado
Spain
13 min.
Short film
Plus Ultra is Spain’s motto. It was used to encourage seafarers to conquer new lands, forgetting Greek mythology’s warning: Non Terrae Plus Ultra (No Land Beyond). The Canary Islands – test bench for the tactics used to colonise America – become the scene of a fable about the territory.
Félix Viscarret
Spain
95 min.
Carlos Saura, a living legend. Felix Viscarret, a director who wants to make a film portrait of the great master. He comes up with a plan. He thinks it’s brilliant. He’ll show the intimate side of Saura through conversations between the genius and his 7 children. Everyone accepts. But Saura doesn’t like talking about the past. Viscarret insists. Saura likes painting. And photography. Viscarret doesn’t give up. He tries again. Saura likes painting. And photography.
Manuel Abramovich
Argentina
73 min.
A young man decides to join the army. He becomes the drummer in the military band, and his everyday life is now a combination of military training and music. What does the Argentine Army do these days, more than thirty years after the dictatorship? What does it mean to be a soldier in a country without wars?
Filipa César
France
96 min.
In 2011, an archive of film and audio material re-emerged in Bissau. On the verge of complete ruination, the footage testifies to the birth of Guinean cinema as part of the decolonising vision of Amílcar Cabral, the liberation leader assassinated in 1973. In collaboration with the Guinean filmmakers Sana na N'Hada and Flora Gomes, and many allies, Filipa César imagines a journey where the fragile matter from the past operates as a visionary prism of shrapnel to look through. Digitised in Berlin, screened and live commented, the archive convokes debates, storytelling, and forecasts. From isolated villages in Guinea-Bissau to European capitals, the silent reels are now the place from where people search for antidotes for a world in crisis.
Petar Krumov
Bulgaria
24 min.
Short film
Macho is a poor boy who skips school to work on a construction site. The only ray of light for him is his girlfriend, Donna. But she's ashamed of his mother, who works as the janitor at their school. Forced to choose between his mother and his love, Macho finds his own way out of the situation.
Kantemir Balagov
Russia
118 min.
1998, Nalchik, the North Caucasus, Russia. 24-year-old Ilana works in her father’s garage to help him make ends meet. One evening, her extended family and friends gather to celebrate the engagement of her younger brother David. Later that night, the young couple is kidnapped, and a ransom demand delivered. In this close-knit Jewish enclave, involving the police is out of the question. How will the family raise the money to save David? Ilana and her parents, each in their own way, will go as far as necessary, whatever the risks to themselves…
Juan Cavestany, Álvaro Fernández Armero
Spain
250 min.
Jesús and Nuria have a problem: no matter what they do, they’re always the laughing stock of their family and friends, stupidly making a fool of themselves. He is a wedding and christening photographer, but believes he has a calling to show his true talent in ‘artistic’ photography. She believes that after her temporary crises she’ll start to have a more interesting life. Together they must decide whether being so pathetic is just a passing virus or if they actually have a chronic disease. Vergüenza is a ten-episode television series.
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