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).
"At the age of 16, I was a part of rock'n'roll group in Newcastle. In the 1960s, Newcastle was like Liverpool, there were lots of good groups and excellent musicians. I left the group when I went to London to study music and where I found a part-time job: cleaning the Ronnie Scott Jazz Club in exchange for free entrance into the Club where I could listen to Roland Kirk, Ben Webster, Coleman Hawkins, Cecil Taylor, Art Bakley and many more of my heroes. I became an actor by accident and spent ten years travelling over the world with The People Show. Working in the United States marked an important turning point for me, and my trip through Poland really gave me a much more decisive awareness. That's where I discovered just how isolating the English culture is.
When I decided to write and film Stormy Monday, all of theses elements were naturally implicated within the framework of a jazz club in Newcastle, where a Polish jazz orchestra was playing during an American festival, where the young guy cleans the club and falls in love with a beautiful American woman, exprofessor of the gangster who wants to buy the club".