In the next few weeks, Zinemaldia Plus+, the annual focus of the San Sebastián Festival in the programming on the shared screen at Tabakalera, will be bringing together filmmakers like the Argentinian filmmaker Benjamin Naishtat and the Guinean filmmaker Thierno Souleymane Diallo, together with a screening in collaboration with the Jeonju Festival (South Korea). As well as this, on the 8th of April, at the session devoted to the Ikusmira Berriak residents, Sameh Alaa, María Alché, Maddi Barber, Naomi Pacifique, David Pérez Sañudo and Hikaru Uwagawa will also be presenting their previous films.

Tomorrow, on Thursday the 23rd, there will be a screening of the film Cho-haeng / The First Lap (Kim Dae-hwan, South Korea, 2017), which won the prize for best screenplay at Mar del Plata and for best emerging director at Locarno, at a session curated by the Jeonju Festival programmer, Moon Sung, who will be presenting the film via a video link. This collaboration with the Korean festival forms part of the tenth anniversary of the Jeonju Cinema Project development programme.

The Ikusmira Berriak residents have been working in San Sebastián since the 6th, where they have had on-site support from the director Sergio Oksman, the consultant Olimpia Pont Cháfer and the consultant and San Sebastián Festival selection committee member Javier Martín, as well as on-line personalised tutoring from such prestigious filmmakers as Laura Citarella, Alexandre Koberidze, Elena López Riera, Damien Manivel, Kleber Mendonça Filho and Catarina Vasconcelos. In the next few weeks the editor, Ariadna Ribas (Pacifiction, Suro) and the script consultant, Anna Ciennik will be paying them a visit.

In this context, on the 8th of April the usual Zinemaldia + Plus session devoted to Ikusmira Berriak will take place, in which the residents show a previous film of their choice. The Egyptian filmmaker Sameh Alaa, who is preparing his first full-length film in San Sebastián, will be presenting the short film that won the Golden Palm at the Cannes Festival, I Am Afraid to Forget Your Face (2020). The Argentinian director María Alché, who won the Horizontes Award at the San Sebastián Festival for her debut film, Familia sumergida, will be doing the same with Noelia (2012), her first short, that has won prizes at Buenos Aires and IndieLisboa. The Japanese filmmaker, based in Madrid, Hikaru Uwagawa will be screening Ulysses: Telemachus and Penelope, a short that forms part of his full-length project Ulysses, that he is working on at the residency. The Swiss-Dutch director Naomi Pacifique will present after the room (2021), which competed in Nest and won the Silver Pardino at Locarno, and also provides the starting point for her full-length project after the night, the night. The Basque director David Pérez Sañudo, whose debut, Ane / Ane is Missing (2020), competed in New Directors, and won the Irizar Basque Film Award and the Goya for best adapted screenplay, will be showing the short La colcha y la madre (2021), written by Marina Parés. The filmmaker from Navarre Maddi Barber will be presenting her piece 592 metroz goiti / Above 592 Metres (2018), that formed part of the Zabaltegi-Tabakalera selection.

On the following day, on Sunday the 9th of April, the Argentinian filmmaker Benjamín Naishtat, the winner of the Silver Shell for best director for Rojo (2018), will also be presenting his film, Historia del miedo / History of Fear (2014) before it is screened in the cinema at Tabakalera. It competed at Berlin and was selected in the Horizontes Latinos section at the San Sebastián Festival.

On the 20th of May, the monthly focus of the Festival will be devoted to archive culture and the preservation of the heritage of cinema with the screening of Au cimetière de la pellicule / The Cemetery of Cinema, the first full-length film by the Guinean director Thierno Souleymane Diallo. This non-fiction film, shown recently for the first time in the Panorama section at the Berlin Festival, focuses on the search for a pioneering film from 1953, that has vanished and been forgotten. This session will be linked to the document of the month that Artxiboa will publish in May.

All the sessions will start at 19:00. Tickets cost four euros and can be purchased on the Tabakalera web page or at the Info Puntua ticket offices.

Furthermore, promoted by the Z365 area or all-year-round Festival in view of the fact that the Ikusmira Berriak residents are in San Sebastián, today, on Wednesday the 22nd, the second networking event will be held that will bring together residents with filmmakers and current students at EQZE.

ZINEMALDIA + PLUS PROGRAMME

• Cho-haeng (The First Lap) (Kim Dae-hwan, South Korea, 2017) 101'
  Su-hyeon, a teacher at a private art institute, and Ji-young, a contract worker at a small network enterprise have been living together for six years. To his surprise, Su-hyeon finds out that Ji-young is late for her period and, in view of the birth of his child, he seizes the opportunity to reunite with his family. The couple sets off for Samcheok, at the far end of the east coast.

* The Jeonju Festival programmer, Moon Sung, will present the film via a video link

• after a room (Naomi Pacifique, United Kingdom, Switzerland, Netherlands, 2021) 21'
  Nights are long inside Naomi and Ram's room. Tonight, they've invited Marina over and their messy space is under scrutiny.
• 592 metroz goiti (Maddi Barber, Spain, 2018) 25'
  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. Below the level, the water; above, life goes on.
• I Am Afraid to Forget your Face (Sameh Alaa, Egypt, France, 2020) 15'
  After being separated for 82 days, Adam travels down a rough road to be reunited with the one he loves, whatever it takes.
• La colcha y la madre (David Pérez Sañudo, Spain, 2021) 13'
  A mother goes to visit her daughter, just as she is about to leave. The daughter is in a hurry: She has quarreled with her husband and if she doesn't get to his new exhibition, the relationship is in danger. But the mother brings her a gift. And some bad news. If she gives her two minutes, she'll tell her.
• Noelia (María Alché, Argentina, 2012) 14'
  Dusk. Noelia says she was kicked out of her house. She euphorically walks around some places in Buenos Aires. She invents a city that suits her.
• Ulysses: Telemachus and Penelope  (Hikaru Uwagawa, Spain, 2022) 17'
  Telemachus awaits the return of his father, who has gone to the other lands. Penelope waits patiently for her husband's return, without complaint, maintaining her chastity and purity, while she is besieged by eager suitors for her beauty.

* The six residents will present the screenings at the cinema.

• Historia del miedo (Benjamín Naishtat, Argentina, France, Germany, Uruguay, Qatar, 2014) 79'
  A hot summer. An affluent housing development, a gated community with a gigantic park. An abandoned lot on the outskirts and an uncontrollable wave of smoke unleash uncertainty and chaos.

* Benjamín Naishtat will present the film at the cinema.

• Au cimetière de la pellicule (Thierno Souleymane Diallo, France, Senegal, Guinea, Saudi Arabia, 2023) 93'
  The 1953 film Mouramani by Mamadou Touré is believed to be the first film ever made in Guinea. Interested in the conditions of its production – and the whereabouts of a film print – Thierno Souleymane Diallo sets out to find people who can help him. Equipped with a video camera, microphone and headphones, he travels through the country, sometimes on the back of a donkey, sometimes barefoot, and films everything he experiences on the road and during his conversations with archivists and those who remember the period. The film turns into a journey through Guinea's film history that takes him to deserted cinema halls and abandoned film archives.

*  Thierno Souleymane Diallo will present the film via a video link.