This morning the San Sebastian Festival and Kontseilua presented a new edition of the short film competition “euskaraz bizi nahi dut”. The Secretary-General of Kontseilua, Paul Bilbao, and the Director of the San Sebastian Festival, José Luis Rebordinos, participated in the presentation.

Paul Bilbao started by explaining the “euskaraz bizi nahi dut” dynamic promoted by Kontseilua in recent years, a dynamic encompassing the short film competition of the same name. “The core aim of the competition is to spread the idea of “euskaraz bizi nahi dut, to narrate the idea using an audiovisual media. We want increasing numbers of authors to take up the idea and develop it in their future works” said Bilbao.

That’s the ultimate aim of the “euskaraz bizi nahi dut” dynamic; we want to see increasingly greater numbers of people make the idea their own; we want more and more people to live using the Basque language, for those who know it to speak it and those who don’t know it to learn it” added the representative of Kontseilua.

All of the competing works must respond to this objective. In the words of Bilbao “the works must talk about wanting to live in Basque: why we make the choice, the obstacles we come across, the joys we feel, the complicities that arise... we want the short films submitted to say all this and more”.

As regards the competition terms & conditions, the main new feature this year refers to the length of the short films: they must last for no longer than 15 minutes. As for the sections, there will be two again this year, one for professionals and another for amateurs. The authors themselves will decide which one they submit their works for. A total of more than 5,000 euros will be given in prize money (3,500 euros in the professional section and 1,750 euros in the amateur section). The submission deadline is 24 August 2015.

For his part, the Director of the San Sebastian Festival José Luis Rebordinos stressed the importance of this kind of initiatives in promoting the use and normalisation of Euskara, the Basque language. “As we saw at last year’s Festival, more and more films are being made in Basque and the number of people who watch films in the language is on the rise. We must continue to encourage this trend”.

“There is still a long way to go, but as we said last year ‘the road is made by walking’. Last year, for example, cinema in the Basque language took yet another step forward when two films in Euskara were programmed for the San Sebastian Festival official selection, one of which was made completely in Basque (Loreak). This is a sign that something is on the move” added Rebordinos.

The collaboration of the San Sebastian Festival in organising the “euskaraz bizi nahi dut” short film competition falls within this dynamic; it is one of many steps forward, and is yet another initiative taken by the Festival to promote filmmaking in the Basque language.

Thanks to the said collaboration, the best short films will be screened and receive awards at the 63rd San Sebastian Festival in September. Festival Management Committee member Maialen Beloki will sit on the competition jury.

Lastly, the organisers have revealed that, in addition to representatives of the San Sebastian Festival and Kontseilua, other important film directors will sit on the jury, such as Jon Garaño, one of the directors of Loreak.

Remember that all technical information for the competition can be found on:

http://www.euskarazbizinahidut.eus

Short Film winner of the professional category in 2014