The San Sebastian Festival blew out its 70th anniversary candles and sung Zorionak zuri (Happy Birthday) at its opening gala, presented this evening at the Kursaal Auditorium by the actress Loreto Mauleón and the actor and director Paco León. The ceremony, focused on the Festival's anniversary, also paid tribute to an audience that has unfailingly supported the event over its seven decades.

In a "gentle comedy" tone, as promised by the gala director, Santiago Tabernero, Mauleón and León appeared in a video montage transformed into the characters of a NODO (the news flashes shown under Franco), after which they invited up onto the stage four women who participated in the first edition of the Festival in 1953 as danzaris (dancers) with the Goizaldi group: Milagros Zatarain, Mariví Montes, María Arbizu Corpus and Mila de Salustiano.

The journalist Edurne Ormazabal, until now the regular host of many of the Festival galas and currently director general of Tabakalera-International Centre for Contemporary Culture, invited the audience to visit the exhibition Imagine a Film Festival which, running throughout the summer and until the 24th, serves to celebrate the event's 70 years at the centre.

The actress Cayetana Guillén Cuervo referred to the important presence of Spanish cinema in all sections and her colleague Belén Cuesta presented the FIPRESCI Grand Prix of 2022 going to Drive My Car, by Ryūsuke Hamaguchi, voted best film of the year by members of the International Federation of Film Critics, FIPRESCI.

Live music was also provided by the musician from San Sebastian, Mikel Erentxun, and the Andalusian singer-songwriter Rocío Márquez, who performed with the musician Bronquio following the 'In memoriam' dedicated to four people who passed away recently, former members of the Festival organisation, and to whom the edition is dedicated: Alfredo Knuchel, member of the Selection Committee between 1991 and 1992 and delegate in Germany, Austria, Switzerland and the Netherlands from 1993 to 2010; Mariano Larrandia, member of the Management Committee in 1978 and of the Board of Directors in 1985; Tony Partearroyo, who sat on the Selection Committee in 1993 and 1994, and José Ángel Herrero-Velarde, whose connections with the Festival lasted for more than 40 years as a member of the Management and Selection Committees, among other responsibilities.

The Festival also welcomed the members of the Official Jury: the casting director and filmmaker Antoinette Boulat (France), the director and screenwriter Tea Lindeburg (Denmark), the writer and journalist Rosa Montero (Spain), the filmmaker and visual artist Lemohang Jeremiah Mosese (Lesotho), the director and screenwriter Hlynur Pálmason (Iceland) and the producer Matías Mosteirín (Argentina), who presides over the jury and has defined the cinema as a "multitude of voices, of ways of seeing the world, in black and white, in colour, in silence or in uproar".

"Those of us who belong to the cinematic community have today, more than ever, the task of fighting intolerance using lively critical thought. Doubting ourselves and remembering that we may sometimes be wrong. I invite you at this edition of the San Sebastian Festival to join us in celebrating freedom and contradiction and the ability to engage in discussion from different stances", said Mosteirín.

Having presented the film Modelo 77 / Prison 77, which opened the Official Selection out of competition in the presence of Alberto Rodríguez, its director, together with the actors Miguel Herrán and Javier Gutiérrez, the gala hosts invited the audience to sing Happy Birthday in Basque and to blow out two giant candles with the number 70 that appeared on the screen.

This festive atmosphere marked the beginning of a new edition of the event which, until Saturday 24, will see the screening of 193 titles including feature, short and medium-length films and series distributed over 604 showings, not to mention a good number of industry activities.