The San Sebastián Festival (SSIFF) and the Tokyo Cervantes Institute strengthen their cooperation with the setting in motion of the programme ‘San Sebastián in Japan: SSIFF and the Tokyo Cervantes Institute’, an initiative encompassing film screenings in the Japanese capital as well as joint participation in the Tokyo International Film Festival (TIFF).
The collaboration, launched in 2024, extends this year to presentation of the film Soy Nevenka / I Am Nevenka, produced by Koldo Zuazua and written by Isa Campo, who are in Japan to participate in meetings with the audience. The film, which showed in the Official Selection in 2024 and carried off the Basque Country 2030 Agenda Award, will feature in a special showing on 30 October at the Tokyo International Film Festival, along with a Q&A with its creators.
The programme will also include a special presentation entitled San Sebastián in Japan: history of a festival, which will bring together the director of the San Sebastian Film Festival, José Luis Rebordinos, the deputy director Lucía Olaciregui, the screenwriter Isa Campo, the producer Koldo Zuazua and the Festival’s delegate in Japan, Daniel Aguilar, at the Tokyo Cervantes Institute. The event, construed as an open discussion with the audience, will give a rundown of the San Sebastián Festival and its background, its role in promoting Spanish films and its historical ties to Japan. At the meeting, the talk will focus on the transformations experienced by the event, its international collaborations and the growing interest of the Japanese public in films made in Spain, bringing the gathering to an end with a Q&A.
In the words of José Luis Rebordinos, director of the San Sebastián Festival:
“Japan is a country with which the Festival enjoys special affinity. Its sensitive approach to filmmaking, its respect for the authors and its connection with Spanish culture make this programme a unique opportunity to continue strengthening ties. The collaboration with the Tokyo Cervantes Institute and the TIFF underpins a steady presence of Spanish cinema in Japan, opening a space for exchange and dialogue between both audiences”.
For his part, the director of the Tokyo Cervantes Institute, Víctor Andresco, stressed:
“The cinema is a privileged instrument for mutual understanding. The presence of the San Sebastián Festival in Japan with creators Isa Campo and Koldo Zuazua reconfirms our desire to foster, from Tokyo, a critical and plural point of view, committed to human rights, democratic memory and equality”.
With this new edition of the ‘San Sebastián in Japan’ programme, the Festival and the Tokyo Cervantes Institute seal a collaboration which has become a benchmark of dialogue on the cinema between Spain and Japan, with the emphasis on drawing attention to contemporary Spanish films and the building of enduring cultural bridges between both countries.