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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Zabaltegi-Tabakalera
Zabaltegi-Tabakalera
Zabaltegi-Tabakalera
Films
Films
Catarina Vasconcelos
Portugal
91 min.
Beatriz married Henrique on the day of her 21st birthday. Henrique, a naval officer, would spend long periods at sea. Ashore, Beatriz, who learned everything from the verticality of plants, took great care of the roots of their six children. The oldest son, Jacinto (Hyacinth), my father, dreamed he could be a bird. One day, suddenly, Beatriz died. My mom didn't die suddenly, but she too died when I was 17 years-old. On that day, me and my father met in the loss of our mothers and our relationship was no longer just that of father and daughter.
Laida Lertxundi
USA - Spain -New Zealand
14 min.
Short film
Borrowing its name from the title of a literary genre, the film recognises the indeterminacy of both fiction and of the being. Film noir elements are reduced to inexpressive gestures under the bright Californian sunlight. Field recordings made in New Zealand can be heard while the women talk to one another about motherhood, abortion, break-ups and anxiety. A civil rights demonstration moves slowly along a street. The bodies appear in states of weariness, injured or relaxed, while the songs of Irma Thomas and Goldberg evoke the passing of time and an uncertain future.
Peter Strickland
Hungary - UK
6 min.
Short film
The repeated rituals of an autonomous sensory meridian response (ASMR) online performer and her viewers.
Carla Simón, Dominga Sotomayor
Spain - Chile
19 min.
Short film
Visual correspondence between Carla Simón and Dominga Sotomayor in which they share little pieces of their lives and what has led them to tell the stories they tell on the big screen and to become the creators they are today. Reflections on the cinema, the family, inheritance and motherhood that intermingle with realities which at times change the filmmakers’ perception of the world.
Hong Sang-soo
South Korea
77 min.
While her husband is on a business trip, Gamhee meets three of her friends. She visits the first two at their homes, and the third she encounters by chance at a theatre. While they make friendly conversation, as always, several currents flow independently above and below the surface of the sea.
Naïla Guiguet
France
20 min.
Short film
In an abandoned warehouse, a crowd is dancing as one to 145 BPM techno music. Among them is Dustin, a young transgender and crew: Felix, Raya and Juan. As the night draws on, collective hysteria morphs into sweet melancholy, and euphoria into yearning for tenderness.
Nicolás Pereda
Canada - Mexico
70 min.
Luisa and Gabino visit their parents in a mining town in northern Mexico after years without seeing them. Their relationship with one another and with their parents is distant, full of small and tedious disputes. To make the situation more bearable, Gabino imagines a parallel reality where he is a detective searching for a missing workers’ leader, only to find himself caught in the nets of the local narcos.
Bell Zhong
China
18 min.
Short film
Chao always wanders in the random streets of the city doing nothing. He has a home where his father is obsessed with women and drinking under the neon lights; his mother left the family a long time ago. Chao’s father unintentionally tells him a story about his mother’s past: how the two of them met, a mysterious hot spring and a mysterious woman. Out of curiosity, Chao decides to explore the secret about his mother, about his father’s lover or, ultimately, his own desire or yearning for love.
Sameh Alaa
Egypt - France - Belgium - Qatar
15 min.
Short film
After being separated for 82 days, Adam travels down a rough road to be reunited with the one he loves, whatever it takes.
Philippe Garrel
France - Switzerland
100 min.
A young man's first female conquests and the deep love he feels for his father. The story of Luc, a young man from the provinces, who visits Paris to sit his arts and craft college entrance exam. In the street he meets Djemila, with whom he enjoys a brief romance. Returning to his father's house, he begins a relationship with his childhood friend Geneviève, while Djemila longs to see him again. When Luc is accepted by the college he leaves once more for Paris, leaving Geneviève and the baby she is carrying behind him...
Camilo Restrepo
France - Colombia - Brazil
70 min.
Medellín, Colombia. Pinky is on the run. He has just freed himself from the grip of a religious sect. He finds a place to squat and a job in a t-shirt factory. Misled by his own faith, he questions everything. But as he tries to put the pieces of his broken life back together, violent memories return to haunt him, and they want revenge.
Pedro Peralta
Portugal - France
17 min.
Short film
Castuera, Spain, April 1939. During the night, two Falangist guards appear at the door of the home in which Paz is taking refuge with her family. They request her presence at the police station. Paz immediately understands the fatality of this visit. With no chance to escape, she asks to breastfeed her new-born daughter one last time.
Song Fang
China
93 min.
Lin is a documentary director in her early thirties. One winter, she breaks up with her long-term boyfriend and suffers an emotional crisis. During a festival visit to Tokyo, she makes a side-trip to Niigata, in central Japan. Strolling in the snow-covered town, she tries to confront her inner agony. After returning to Beijing, she moves to a new place and starts to live alone. During the Chinese New Year, she visits her parents in Nanjing and learns that her father is ill. She takes time to stay with them and doesn't tell them about the break-up. In spring, Lin travels to Hong Kong for the film festival and pays a visit to an old friend who has moved there. She takes long walks on Hong Kong's outlying islands, hoping to ease her doubts and inner pain. Back home after the trip, she is struck down by an illness. In the days that she spends alone on her sickbed, she begins to recover her physical and mental energy.
Tsai Ming-Liang
Taiwan
127 min.
Beset by the pain of illness and treatment, Kang finds himself living the life of a drifter. He meets Non in a foreign land. They find consolation in each other before parting ways and carrying on with their days.
Marta Sousa Ribeiro
Portugal
84 min.
It's last week at school, but Simon's not studying for his finals. His parents have divorced and seem to be waiting for a change that never comes. Simon gets tired of waiting. Could he get a one-way ticket to the USA? Would it be possible to make objects explode from afar? And what if time could be reversed? Or if freedom is only to be found in movies?
Leonardo van Dijl
Belgium
15 min.
Short film
Stephanie smiles as she's applauded by the crowd. The 11-year-old gymnast has just won her first international title. She's overwhelmed by the attention; everybody wants to have their picture taken with her and all express their high hopes. The more recognition she gets, the more she realises that the game has only just begun.
Ikusmira Berriak 2014
Sandra Wollner
Austria
94 min.
Elli is an android and lives with a man she calls her father. She can recall memories of vacations and anything else he programs her to remember. During the day they drift through the summer and at night he takes her to bed. Designed to resemble one of his memories, she seems very much alive, sometimes, she even seems to dream, and yet she remains a machine, a container for those memories that mean everything to him and nothing to her. These reminiscences seem to have a hold on him, indeed, they have developed a life of their own. One night she sets off into the woods, following a fading echo. She gets lost in the thicket and is found by someone else who takes her in, giving her new memories and a new identity. The story of a machine and the ghosts we all carry within us.
Juan Cavestany
Spain
80 min.
A couple from Burgos, Alfredo and Teresa, travel to New York where they intend to “switch off” and do all of the things listed in the guidebook. But the moment they land they start to notice signs, some subtle and others rather less so, that in fact they’re not in the city sold to them by the travel agency. So where are they?
Marina Palacio
Spain
22 min.
Short film
Ya no duermo is a family-made movie showing us Miguel and his Uncle Kechus, who want to shoot a film about vampires. In that endeavour to create something together, reality and fiction alternate, in a game which also shows the particular relationship established between boy and adult.
Zinemira Kimuak
Adilkhan Yerzhanov
Kazakhstan - France
90 min.
Ex-con Kermek and his beloved Eva want to leave behind their crime-infested lives on the Kazakh steppes. He has a dream: to build a movie theatre in the mountains. Will Kermek's love of Alain Delon be strong enough to keep them out of the violent clutches of the mafia?
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