Tabakalera and the Koldo Mitxelena Kulturunea, with the collaboration of the San Sebastian Festival and the Elías Querejeta Zine Eskola, present a joint annual programme to talk about and from the cinema. From November 2023 to June 2024, some twenty plus moviemakers from the local and national arena will bring their creations and the work processes involved in making their cinematic proposals to the general public.

The recent winner of San Sebastian Festival’s Golden Shell, Jaione Camborda; the moviemaker Isabel Coixet and the writer Sara Mesa; filmmakers Isabel Herguera, Juan Antonio Bayona and his producer Belén Atienza or Itsaso Arana will feature on the long list of speakers participating in this programme.
 

Talks and discussions

In addition to being a shared public screen, the Tabakalera cinema has functioned since the outset as a classroom for citizens. In 2020, as an endeavour to increase its pedagogical slant, the centre launched the season ‘Spoken Cinema’, inviting filmmakers to take control over the cinema and reveal their internal work processes. Since 2020 and until 2023, twenty-two moviemakers have participated in Tabakalera’s ‘Spoken Cinema’ sessions. In the coming months, some 10 directors will once again explain the details of their films in the Tabakalera cinema. These talks can be attended in person and once recorded, will also become available in the ‘Spoken Cinema’ audio content found on the Tabakalera website.
 
Parallel to this, the Koldo Mitxelena Kulturunea cultural centre, with its long history of generating spaces for discussion, creation and knowledge, joined the San Sebastian Festival’s Z365 area and the Elías Querejeta Zine Eskola to create the course ‘Filmmakers Dialogue’, which turns the spotlight on the intra-history of cinematic creation through discussion between a filmmaker and their regular collaborator in the different film departments: screenplay, production, editing, music and actor directing, among others.
 
This year, ‘Filmmakers Dialogue’ will move to Santa Teresa Convent in San Sebastian’s Old Town while work is underway at the Koldo Mitxelena Kulturenea. The course will stress its pedagogical slant by offering attendees the possibility of formal registration which, as well as attendance of the programme itself, will give access to a complementary programme of workshops, meetings and other educational proposals. This registration will be free of charge and open to all citizens, from students to film buffs. To encourage people to attend in person and make the gatherings feel like a proper meeting place, the sessions won’t be streamed. However, their recordings will be available on the Koldo Mitxelena and Festival websites at the end of the season.

At the end of the day, both programmes are underpinned by strong strategical lines that constantly run into one another: the desire to transmit knowledge and artistic knowhow, to spread news of and continually support creation. Now that both initiatives have been on the go for three years, engendering a great deal of popularity, attracting locals and users from the city, the idea is to offer a joint programme, designed in coordination and with a calendar running throughout the school year. This coming together of the two programmes will offer an exhaustive analysis of the state of today’s cinema as well while helping to promote the film productions of the year made at local and national levels. 

Annual programme

The programme will start in November and end in June. It will include the participation of some twenty protagonists and those responsible for a wide variety of cinematic proposals:

• 11 November - Matías Piñeiro
• 16 November - Elena Martín
• 25 November - Mitxel Gaztanbide
• 17 December – Fermin Muguruza
• January - Jaione Camborda
• February - Isabel Herguera
• February – Ion de Sosa
• March - Celia Rico
• April - Alberto Martín Menacho

1. Collective directing: Negu Hurbilak
2. Cinema and other disciplines: Víctor Iriarte and Carlos Muguiro
3. Making a first film: Itsaso Arana, Laura Ferrés and Javier Macipe
4. Literary adaptations: Isabel Coixet and Sara Mesa
5. Producing a film: JA Bayona and Belén Atienza
6. Writing cinema: Belén Funes and Marçal Cebrián
7. Animation: Isabel Herguera and Pablo Berguer

The dates of the 'Filmmakers Dialogue', and how to proceed with registration, will be announced shortly.
 

Previous editions of 'Spoken Cinema' and 'Filmmakers Dialogue'

Since 2020 and until 2023, twenty-two filmmakers have participated in the 'Spoken Cinema' sessions in Tabakalera:

1. Maria Elorza. A los libros and a las mujeres canto / To Books and Women I Sing.
2. Paul Urkijo. Irati.
3. Marina Lameiro. Young and Beautiful and Dardara.
4. Estibaliz Urresola. 20.000 especies de Abejas / 20,000 Species of Bees.
5. Ruth Beckerman.
6. Mia Hansen-Løve.

1. Radu Jude. Un polvo desafortunado.
2. Arantza Santesteban. 918 gau.
3. Chema García Ibarra. Espíritu Sagrado / The Sacred Spirit.
4. Helena Girón and Samuel M. Delgado. Eles transportan a morte.
5. Carlos Casas. Cemetery.
6. Isaki Lacuesta. Un año, una noche / One Year, One Night.
7. Mikel Gurrea. Suro.

1. Maite Arrotajauregi and Aranzazu Calleja. Akelarre.
2. Nuria Jiménez Lorang. My Mexican Bretzel.
3. Dea Kulunbegashvili. Beginning.
4. Koldo Almandoz and Marian Fernandez. Hondar ahoak.
5. David Pérez Sañudo. Ane.

1. Jon Garaño, Aitor Arregi, José Mari Goenaga. La trinchera infinita / The Endless Trench.
2. Oliver Laxe. O que arde.
3. Carlos Marqués-Marcet. Els dies que vindran.
4. Itsaso Arana and Soledad Morente. La virgen de agosto.

For their part, 28 speakers have participated in the two editions of 'Filmmakers Dialogue':  

1. Lara Izagirre and Paula Olaz
2. Icíar Bollaín and Koldo Zuazua
3. Carla Simón and Ana Pfaff
4. Jonás Trueba and Javier Lafuente
5. Rodrigo Sorogoyen and Isabel Peña

1. Estibaliz Urresola, Irati Gorostidi and Maider Fernández Iriarte
2. Albert Serra, Ariadna Ribas and Artur Tort
3. Fernando Franco, Telmo Irureta and Valèria Sorolla
4. Pilar Palomero and Sofía Escudé
5. Alauda Ruiz de Azúa and Carlota Pereda
6. Alberto Rodríguez and Rafael Cobos
7. Aitor Arregi, Jon Garaño and Jose Mari Goenaga