On 21 September, the San Sebastián Festival, Tabakalera and the Elías Querejeta Zine Eskola (EQZE) will hold the fourth edition of Kabia, an initiative designed to encourage meeting, exchange and the creation of networks between emerging filmmakers and professionals from the global film industry. The event will take place from 17:00-19:00 at the Tabakalera Film and Audiovisual Lab followed by a cocktail party to continue until 23:00.  

This initiative, for which an invitation is required and which was attended by some 50 people last year, will enable contacts between the teams of the fourteen works selected for the Festival’s competition for shorts by film school students (Nest), the residents of the Ikusmira Berriak programme, Noka, 2deo Serieak and students at the Elías Querejeta Zine Eskola, as well as participants in other international training and development programmes. During the Festival, the developing projects from these calls can also make use of the video pitching initiative in the Online Industry – the Festival’s professional platform – thereby strengthening their international outreach and fostering new opportunities of collaboration.  

Through a dynamic of meetings and discussions, the participants can present their works, receive related feedback and hold direct talks with professionals from festivals, development programmes, labs and other institutions from the world of film. This year, among the invited guests, are representatives of the Torino Film Lab, Les Arcs, Sarajevo Festival, the Cannes Semaine de la Critique and Berlinale, among others, as well as proffesionals responsible for funding, production and international promotion.

Training and accompanying filmmakers holds increasingly more weight within the Festival activity in the endeavour to extend beyond its role as an exhibition space to become a meeting point for those who are now defining their professional careers. In this respect, Kabia is yet another line of action in said commitment to discovering new voices, which joins that of training, through the EQZE; the development of projects, thanks to the Ikusmira Berriak programme, and their dissemination, thanks to the Festival’s own sections during the event, such as New Directors and Nest.

A boost to talent throughout the year

The KABIA initiative reflects the unceasing work carried out by the Tabakalera Film and Audiovisual Lab to boost emerging cinematic talent.

The mission of the Tabakalera Film and Audiovisual Lab is to support audiovisual creation, with particular focus on finding new talents, creation in the Basque language, formal and technological experimentation and innovation, as well as dialogue between disciplines. It therefore  promotes a variety of programmes and issues calls to obtain support for the development of projects in collaboration with institutions and players in the sector. Outstanding among these are Ikusmira Berriak, a programme of film residencies and development promoted jointly by the San Sebastián  Festival and the Elías Querejeta Zine Eskola; NOKA, an initiative to accompany the feature film projects of emerging directors, and 2deo Seriak, directed at the development of new talents in the field of series.

Added to these calls, the Lab offers backing to projects at the editing and post-production stage by means of lending technical resources and spaces, also developing a year-long programme of workshops, training sessions, project pesentations, pitchings and networking activities.

If the Tabakalera Film and Audiovisual Lab provides year-long accompaniment to project creation and development, during the Festival itself this work acquires an even greater dimension and promotes the international projection of new talents.