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
Zinemira
Zinemira
Zinemira Award: Ramón Agirre
Zinemira Award: Ramón Agirre
Opening Film
Ana Schulz, Cristóbal Fernández
Spain
88 min.
Juan is a mediator who tried to achieve peace between ETA and the Spanish Government. Roberto is a spy with the secret services who infiltrated his life for years. Mudar la piel is the story of Juan, the director’s father, and Roberto, the man who spied on him. The two cultivate an unusual friendship despite the betrayal. Mudar la piel (The Spy Within) is also the chronicle of the filmmakers’ relationship with the spy and of how difficult they found it to trap his slippery identity.
Fermin Muguruza
Spain
87 min.
October 1965. The giant figures of San Fermín are invited to parade on New York’s Fifth Avenue, but not all of them can participate: for racial reasons, North American leaders have forbidden the black giants to participate in the event. Taking their inspiration from true events, Muguruza, Cano and Alderete tell the story of Manex Unanue, a fictional character given the task of carrying one of those black giants. Bemoaning the fact that his companions have accepted the decision imposed on them, Manex decides not to return home. Seen through the young boy’s eyes, we discover the events that revolutionised the society of the mid-'60s: demonstrations after the death of Malcolm X, the bizarre atmosphere of Warhol’s workshop, the relationship woven between the Black Panthers and the Cuban secret service and the early days of the hippy movement, enveloped in the psychedelic atmosphere of the first music macrofestivals.
Samu Fuentes
Spain
110 min.
Bajo la piel de lobo (The Skin of the Wolf ) tells the tale of a solitary trapper. Martinón is the last inhabitant of a remote mountain village. His only contact with other humans takes place in spring, when he comes down into the valley to trade with the skins of the animals he traps. However, with the arrival of a woman into his life, he will start to experience new feelings. This singular encounter will force him to choose between revealing his vulnerability or abandoning himself to his wildest side.
Joaquín Calderón
Spain
83 min.
Agus Barandiaran, ambassador of traditional Basque music and dance all over the world, is confronted with the worst thing that can happen to a Basque person: the demolition of his 1540 baserri (family farmhouse) to make way for a new road. Agus must fight the circumstances to try and protect his roots, because in the Basque culture "etxea" means much more than four walls. Basque Selfie is a sad but edifying story articulated around tradition, the tradition of keeping the signs of one’s own identity alive.
Juanmi Gutiérrez
90 min.
The year 1931. In Lois, a small Spanish town in the mountains of León, Julián López packs his belongings into an enormous trunk and, without telling his wife Candelas, sets out for Mexico. The year 1970. Candelas has been dead for three years. Suddenly a letter arrives in Lois from Mexico, announcing Julián’s death. In a corner of the family home in Riaño they find a trunk similar to the one Julián had taken to Mexico.
Paul Urkijo Alijo
Spain - France
99 min.
Eight years have passed since the First Carlist War of 1833. In a small Álava village, a government commissioner called Alfredo investigates an occurrence which will take him to a sinister smithery deep in the forest, home to a dangerous and solitary blacksmith called Patxi. The locals tell dark tales related to thefts, murders and pacts with the Devil. Until one day, by chance, a little orphaned girl called Usue sneaks into the mysterious forge, uncovering the terrible truth hidden behind Patxi the Blacksmith.
Antonio Díaz Huerta
Spain
80 min.
Aitor was born with congenital glaucoma which caused the loss of sight in his right eye when he was only fourteen. Although doctors recommended that he stop surfing, he decided not to listen to their advice and finally lost his sight completely in a fateful surfing accident. He was 39. Today, 5 years after the accident, Aitor wants to demonstrate that people with disabilities can beat any challenge they set themselves; however, to do it, he will have to prepare himself physically and mentally. He will above all have to overcome his doubts and fears in order to relive the accident that left him blind.
Oskar Alegria, Özcan Alper, Asier Altuna Iza, Mireia Gabilondo, Eugène Green, Itziar Leemans, Josu Martinez, Fermin Muguruza, Ane Muñoz Mitxelena, Maider Oleaga, Carlos Machado Quintela, Maialen Sarasua
Spain
96 min.
The countenance of Joseba Sarrionandia is multi-faceted, not only for having dabbled in all literary forms of expression, but for having been capable of creating his own imagery, composed of endless worlds. Thus, several of the elements appearing in the literary world will undoubtedly appear here: the sea, the port, childhood, trains, uprooting, war, destruction, love, drifting, pain, fantasy, mystery, initiation, torture...
Txuspo Poyo
Spain
63 min.
Izaro is a documentary/essay which updates a fragmented portrait of the identity, history and legacy of Izaro Island until its diaspora. The name ‘Izaro’ has germinated in practices of power, in legal claims to the Island ownership, in the shape of tile-throwing fiestas, in the film production company Ízaro Films Presenta, with its own lookout point, Windsor Tower, in the proper names of both women and men and in a state-of-the-art tuna fishing boat built in the Bermeo shipyards, fishing in waters of the Indian Ocean flying the flag of the Seychelles.
Josu Martinez
Spain
60 min.
Lezo Urreiztieta was a 16th-century pirate, born by mistake in 1907. Risking his life, he saved that of hundreds of people; he negotiated with foreign governments for a free Basque Country; he managed to slip 17 boats full of weapons into Bilbao during the Civil War; he was on the point of killing Franco... Forty years after his death, the tape recorder of writer Martin Ugalde reveals his incredible story told in the voice of the actual protagonist. Starting with unpublished conversations between the two held from 1975 to 1978, this film sheds light on the testimony of a key character in 20th century Basque history.
David González Rudiez
62 min.
Jorge was a professional basketball player until the age of thirty-five. Now he’s thirty-seven and doesn’t know what to do with the rest of his life. Every day he gets up late, plays at video games, stuffs himself with fast food and goes out to walk until nightfall. He has very little contact with other people and lives in a bubble he will try to burst when he realises that perhaps he has gone too far in his isolation.
David Rodríguez Losada
70 min.
Ana is a young actress who is unfortunately unable to professionally dedicate herself to acting. In fact, she must combine the small theatre productions in which she finds space with her part-time job as a shop assistant, working Monday to Saturday mornings. Now Ana is busy preparing a new role: she has been selected to play Lady Anne in a modest performance of Shakespeare’s Richard III, to run in a small off theatre in Madrid. Despite the humbleness of the production, Ana finds the opportunity exciting; but her excitement will soon clash with the steely vision of the play’s director, who conceives Lady Anne as nothing more than a toy that Richard must (metaphorically) asphyxiate, humiliate and even abuse on stage.
Oier Aranzabal
Spain
105 min.
This is the tale of a voyage which began one morning with a Skype conversation between the musician Mikel Urdangarin and the artist Alain Urrutia. The painter will give Mikel one of his paintings as a gift, but on one condition: the musician will have to go and fetch it in London, by ferry, crossing the sea. Taking the journey as an excuse, we will penetrate the everyday life of an artist committed to living from his work until coming to the key hidden in the centre of every artist’s labyrinth, since all searches are in fact a voyage; the creation process in itself is a voyage.
Maddi Barber
Spain
25 min.
Short film
What life chances are left when a territory is completely altered? On the slopes of the Navarrese Pyrenees, the construction of the Itoiz dam in the 1990s flooded seven towns and three nature reserves. A strip of bare land at the height of elevation 592 today marks a dividing line in the landscape of the valley. Below the level, the water; above, life goes on.
Zinemira Kimuak
Josu Martinez
Spain
7 min.
Short film
It is the summer of 1915. In a village in the French Basque Pyrenees, a woman lives waiting for a letter.
Zinemira Kimuak
Maria Elorza
Spain
14 min.
Short film
In 1972, in one of his best-known articles, Pier Paolo Pasolini spoke of the disappearance of fireflies. A few months later he was murdered. Since then the fireflies have continued to disappear. But there are still people who remember them.
Zinemira Kimuak
Iban del Campo
Spain
11 min.
Short film
Human beings want to be more than they are, more than stardust.
Zinemira Kimuak
Miguel Ángel Jiménez
Spain
19 min.
Short film
The centre of Athens. Surrounded by a world in crisis and generalised destruction, a small group of characters resist the end towards which they seem inevitably to be heading. The film looks at fraternity and the desire not to throw in the towel.
Zinemira Kimuak
Sara Fantova
Spain
21 min.
Short film
Bilbao, 2009. Jone is a teenager in the 4th year of secondary school. In her school there is a strong activist and Basque nationalist atmosphere. One day her father takes a political post in the Basque Government, which means the need to have a bodyguard and give up the life they had been living until then.
Zinemira Kimuak
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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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