The Department of Culture of the Provincial Council of Gipuzkoa will host in 2026 the fifth edition of Filmmakers’ Dialogues at Koldo Mitxelena. The programme is created jointly with the Z365, the Festival all year round initiative organised by the San Sebastián Festival and the Elías Querejeta Zine Eskola, under which some twenty professionals from the film world will meet from January to June in the Santa Teresa Convent in San Sebastián’s Old Town. Thus, this year pairs of participants will join hands to discuss acting, in the case of Ion de Sosa and Christina Rosenvinge and Alauda Ruiz de Azúa and Blanca Soroa; forms of non-fiction in that of José Luis Guerin and Isaki Lacuesta, and Elena Molina and Alba Flores; international co-productions with Carla Simón, María Zamora and Olimpia Pont Cháfer, the director and producers of Romería; editing with Jaume Claret and Meritxell Colell and María Castán, and the connection between literature and film writing with Manuel Gutiérrez Aragón and Luis López Carrasco.  

This initiative offers film buffs new ways to achieve better understanding of what goes on behind the scenes when producing and making a film. Filmmakers’ Dialogues brings an enjoyable discussion format to explain the workings of film creation. All of the talks share the idea of the cinema as a collective profession. Each filmmaker will be accompanied by either one of their regular collaborators in different fields (editing, acting, screenplay, production) or by filmmakers who share their generation, initial premise or interests when it comes to format or subject matter.

The season will open on 15th January with the filmmaker and director of photography Ion de Sosa and the composer, singer and actress Christina Rosenvinge, following their collaboration in Balearic, the director’s second work, which screened at the Locarno and Sitges festivals.  

On 27th January, Asier Urbieta, who took to Göteborg the premiere of his feature debut, Faisaien irla / Pheasant Island (Zinemira), and Koldo Almandoz, who this year presented Zeru ahoak / Mouths of Sky, the first series in the Basque language to be selected for the San Sebastián Festival’s Official Selection, will take a closer look at gender use in fiction during the session entitled Generozko fikzioak.

José Luis Guerin, winner of the Special Jury Prize for his documentary Historias del buen valle / Good Valley Stories, and Isaki Lacuesta, two-time winner of the Golden Shell and explorer of the limits between fiction and non-fiction from the start of his career until his latest proposal, Flores para Antonio (Special Screenings), will discuss Forms of Non-Fiction on 15th February. Similarly on the subject of this latter film, its co-director, Elena Molina, and its protagonist, producer and instigator, Alba Flores, will address the subject of Autobiography and non-fiction on a date in June as yet to be decided.

The season will also include an analysis of Cinema and acting by the director and protagonist of the Golden Shell winner, the international critics’ prize, the Spanish critics’ accolade and the Irizar Basque Film Award, Alauda Ruiz de Azúa and Blanca Soroa, on 5th March, based on their experience in Los domingos / Sundays.  

Romería, the film by Carla Simón which competed in the Cannes Official Selection, is an example of international co-production, the subject on which María Zamora and Olimpia Pont Cháfer will bring their experience to the table alongside the Catalan filmmaker on 16th March. This session will begin at 6 p.m., while the rest of the talks will start at 7 p.m.

The meticulous and elegant editing of Estrany Riu / Strange River, Jaume Claret’s directorial debut, selected for Venice and San Sebastián, will provide on 14th April the main topic for the talk between the filmmaker and editors María Castán and Meritxell Colell – similarly a filmmaker and Claret’s fellow resident at Ikusmira Berriak 2022. 

The link between the cinema and literature, their similarities and differences, will provide the roadmap for the talk on 5th May between the filmmakers and writers Manuel Gutiérrez Aragón and Luis López Carrasco who, apart from their moviemaking vocation, share the fact of both having received the Herralde Prize for their respective novels La vida antes de marzo and El desierto blanco.

All of these talks will be open to the general public. However, the course has a decidedly educational aspect, and attendees are therefore invited to register beforehand (free of charge). In addition to attendance of the programme itself, they will also receive the publication accompanying the Festival retrospective and two invitations per person to some of the Official Selection or Velodrome screenings as well as having the option to attend a complementary programme of workshops at the Elías Querejeta Zine Eskola and screenings and talks running at the Crossover Festival. The Filmmakers’ Dialogues registration form will be available from tomorrow, 11th December, on the Koldo Mitxelena Kulturunea website. The 50 available places will be assigned on a first come, first served basis, whilst the remaining places will be reserved for free entry to each of the sessions making up the season.

To encourage physical attendance and celebrate the nature of these sessions as a meeting place, they will not be available in streaming mode. However, their recordings will be available on the Koldo Mitxelena and San Sebastián Festival websites at the end of the season.