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).
In Ciudad sin sueño / Sleepless City, director Guillermo Galoe presents a deeply personal exploration of identity and otherness. Over six years, Galoe immersed himself in the Cañada Real, a marginalised shantytown in Madrid, marked by loss and a deep sense of eviction, to confront the lives of its inhabitants as a way to encounter others to understand ourselves better. “My films are born from a desire to explore remote places and personal universes. Filmmakers should encourage a new way of seeing, bringing the marginalised to the centre of the narrative,” he says. The film, he explains, seeks to break down barriers of division and hate.
Featuring children of the Cañada Real as main characters, Ciudad sin sueño / Sleepless City challenges traditional representations of “social cinema,” opting for a poetic approach over political rhetoric. By empowering the residents of Cañada Real to film their own lives, Galoe invites us into a world where empathy and trust replace simplified narratives and messages. “Poetry and cinema are not about delivering a moral lesson, but about confronting us with human complexity, creating a stronger connection through the things we don’t understand.”