72nd San Sebastian Festival - 20/28 September 2023
71SSIFF - 22/30 September 2023
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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).
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Agenda
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Made in Spanish
Films
Films
Ventura Pons
90 min.
Anita looks on as her over three decades of work as a cinema ticket office attendant literally crash to the ground when they demolish the building to make way for a multiplex and give her early retirement, adducing her unsuitability with the company's new image. Unable to get over the shock, she spends her days at the site of the old picture house, where sheer chance throws her into an affair with the married driver of the excavator. A tender yet bittersweet relationship unfolds in the darkness of the caravan serving as the company office. Thanks to their secret daily meetings, the lovers succeed in opening a door to the future. Although it's a relationship with no perspectives, it marks a turning point in 50-year-old Anita's life.
Eterio Ortega Santillana
84 min.
Any day in a pretty country town. The approaching spring is already showing signs of arrival in the nearby mountains. Two men are walking to work. One is the Socialist Deputy Fernando Buesa; the other is his bodyguard, Jorge Díez Elorza. A bomb puts an end to their lives as they make their way through a park with hundred-year-old trees. Why? Who? What for? Asesinato en febrero is about the lives of these two absent people who gradually take on a new existence through the memories of their wives, their friends and relatives, the exceptional witnesses of these lives brutally cut short.
Josecho San Mateo
106 min.
Two twenty-year-olds fed up of convention, David and Carlos take to the streets, deciding to get by any way they can. In a rare moment of musical inspiration while playing in the tube, David discovers a girl who gradually becomes an obsession with him: Maria. She too hates her job and run-of-the-mill life. Anxious to escape, it isn't long before she takes to the streets with David. From then on life pulls them along with all of its wicked twists and turns, like a whirlwind propelling them helplessly towards the void. Or maybe not. Friends are made along the way. Others manage to escape. But whatever happens, David is never going to leave Maria.
Jaime Chávarri
111 min.
Far from home in the Cadiz of 1965, Ramón, Alfonso and Nicolás share a rented chalet and the promise of passing their Faculty of Medicine exams. It's not however long before Alfonso and Nicolás break their undertaking on appearing with Vicky and Marian, two dancers who jump at the chance of refuge from their miserable boarding house and move in. Troubled by the girls, Ramón turns to father Esparza, who introduces him to the daughter of a good family with whom he attempts to lead a formal relationship. The problem is his increasing obsession with Vicky who, similarly attracted, tries to find the right moment for seduction. They've all changed by the end of the year: the boys' vocation is up in the air and the girls don't know how they're going to earn a living, but together they've learned to stand up to the world and to defend what they want to be.
Adrián Israel Caetano
76 min.
Freddy has left in Bolivia what he loves most, his family. He has come to Buenos Aires as an immigrant with no papers, aiming to find a good job and a roof under which to shelter his relations. He gets a job cooking in a bar thanks to Enrique, the owner, who tries to lend him a hand. Freddy shares his working time with the locals: El Oso, a taxi driver with terrible problems, his friend Marcelo, also a taxi driver, and Hector, a street salesman from Córdoba. He also meets Rosa, a young waitress from Paraguay who brings them all closer together. El Oso, whose money problems are on the point of losing him his taxi, turns his fury on the unfortunate Freddy, so that the young illegal immigrant ends up paying with his own life.
Fernando Trueba
105 min.
54th Street is above all a musical film featuring the greatest Latin jazz performers of our time. Shot with six cameras, through live performances of pieces specially composed for the film or their greatest hits, these artists show the wealth of this musical current, born from crossbreeding and invention by the Latin community from New York to Miami or Sao Paulo, passing through Havana, Puerto Rico or Seville. But rather than leaving each of these actors-musicians to tell their own stories to the heat of the music, Trueba uses their voices and images to give us a look at the universe of the starring celebrities.
Miguel Albaladejo
107 min.
Miguel, a young hospital psychiatrist, is unexpectedly ditched by his wife Sara, on top of which he has to look after his mother-in-law, who naturally blames him for her daughter's flight. As if that wasn't bad enough, one of his patients, Paquito, a pleasant enough drug addict unable to keep his fingers out of other people's pockets, steals his wallet at one of their sessions. But the theft turns out to be a godsend for Miguel's depression when the search for his missing belongings leads him to Jasmina, Paquito's sister, a working-class girl struggling fiercely to support her family thanks to whom he starts to see his problems in a different light.
Alfonso Ungría
91 min.
Wandering around Tangiers, not knowing what to do with his life, Martin meets another pill-popper twice his age: Abel, an adventurer who lives life to the limit. In the course of a crazy night they decide to blow up a nuclear power station: doing this will be the only light in their dark future. But it's only when Ana, Abel's young lover, joins them on the trip (along the coast and towars the interior) that their fate is sealed. She will be the catalyst of their love, their confrontations, their ideals and the inevitable, enormous final explosion.
Guillermo del Toro
106 min.
Spain, late 30s. Twelve year-old Carlos is abandoned by his tutor in Santa Lucía orphanage, a grim building standing alone on a desolate plain. From his very first day at Santa Lucía, the terrified Carlos starts seeing the emaciated ghost of a child who persistently tries to communicate with him. It doesn't take Carlos long to suspect that this whispering childlike spectre of none-too-honest ideas, is in fact the ghost of a past student called Santi, who disappeared years ago in mysterious circumstances. Thirsty for vengeance, Santi's spirit uses the new boarder to settle the bloody debt with his assassin.
Beatriz Flores Silva
Uruguay - Argentina - Cuba - Spain - Belgium
96 min.
27-year-old Elisa's dreams of opening a beauty parlour in the poshest part of Montevideo go up in the air on finding herself with no roof, no lover, no job and no cash. Her best friend, Lulú, gets her a place in Doña Jaqueline's whorehouse, where she meets Plácido, head of the same setup in Spain. Elisa convinces Plácido to take her to Barcelona, where she realises she is being exploited. Marcelo, a young police superintendent, decides to arrest Plácido for the death of a Brasilian transvestite. At the trial, Elisa gives evidence against Plácido and returns to Uruguay with Marcelo. Stopped at Montevideo airport for falsifying documents, Marcelo manages to get her free by convincing the Spanish ambassador to put in a good word for her with the President of the Republic.
José Luis López-Linares, Javier Rioyo
84 min.
The directors of this documentary spent two years interviewing tens of men and women volunteers for far-off battles who have actually been to the real scenes of these dramas, from the frozen waters of the Wolchov to the beautiful and harsh Alcarria steppe. The personal stories of some of the members of those heterodox legions of epic figures, of deserters, of adventurers, of daydreamers full of burning passion or of orthodox revolutionaries. Young Communists or anti-Communists. Young people who, from opposing ideologies or social classes, fought with the conviction that they would change the world: although they knew neither how, nor when, nor for whom. Thousands of young people who became strangers to themselves. The voluntary or involuntary seekers of a journey full of unforeseen adventures. The greatest adventure of their lives.
Miguel Hermoso
98 min.
Tony and her boyfriend Juanjo bring off a hold-up with two pals, Maxi and Moco. Abandoned by her father at the age of 15, Tony has grown up in the hard, outcast environment of suburban delinquency. After the heist, Juanjo skedaddles, leaving Tony with no option but to hit the road with the cops and her own sidekicks hot on her trail in the obligatory company of Juanjo's strange 7-year-old niece, Laura. On the run with their pursuers close behind them, the two girls struggle to survive among strangers, until on the far off shores of the extreme south they find the welcoming light of unexpected friendship.
Pablo Llorca
132 min.
Based on a true story, this is a film about Rosa, a woman who fell in love with the wrong man. And about how she left the safety of her previous life to be with Iván and set up a bar. Iván's accumulated gambling debts oblige Rosa to rent out her house by the hour to prostitutes, before she lands herself in jail for pumping a bullet into him when she can't take any more of his nonsense. La espalda de Dios tells of the road to love-induced decline, demonstrating the irrational behaviour, way beyond the bounds of all logic, of a woman in love and how passion makes balanced, sensible people into beings who do things causing them hurt and suffering.
Barbet Schroeder
After an absence of thirty years, Fernando Vallejo returns to Medellín only to find that there's not a lot left of things the way he knew them: his parents are dead and the drug kings are spreading terror with their gangs of thugs. At a gay brothel he meets Alexis, a 16-year-old skid-row denizen who belongs to these paid assassins who are in turn murdered by other kids with no future. Love grows between them, a love with no future, condemned from the very beginning by their surrounding reality. When Alexis is killed, Fernando desperately wanders the street until finding another boy like him, of the same age and with a similar criminal background. A new love story starts for Fernando.
Emilio Martínez-Lázaro
120 min.
Bilbao, 1980. Sullen thirty-year-old Charli works as right-hand-man to a shady businessman of Portuguese origin, Oliveira, in a climate of corruption and terrorism. Alarmed at a wave of threats and assaults, Oliveira's decision to put his teenage daughter, Marta, under Charli's protection, is followed by a series of complications: love arrives unasked, the violence engenders more violence, friends aren't what they seem to be and money changes hands.
Gerardo Herrero
93 min.
Friends since University over fifteen years ago, when they shared all sorts of great hopes and dreams, Santiago, Marta and Carlos still meet once a month for lunch although their lives have gone completely different ways. At one of these meals, Carlos asks Santiago and Marta to lend him four million pesetas each to get his computer business back on its feet. Months go by and Carlos is unable to pay them back. Santiago and Marta assure him it doesn't matter. But the truth is their lives have changed since the day of the famous meal: money has corrupted not only the ideals of their youth, but even worse, their friendship.
Fernando Fernán-Gómez, José Luis García Sánchez
97 min.
A mature Lázaro de Tormes is obliged to convince a court in Toledo that his way of life for the previous thirty years has been due to the need to overcome hunger rather than the desire to commit crime. During his fiery declaration, he mixes past, present and future events with the intention of amusing the audience, while weaving a web of characters and customs from the period and referring with similar irony to the clergy, the powers-that-be and the people. Lázaro de Tormes contains one of the last performances by the great Paco Rabal.
Gonzalo Tapia
108 min.
18-year-old, motherless Lena lives in the Vigo estuary docklands area of Bouzas with her poor, immature creature of a father who survives on dreams and getting into trouble. Even so, he is affectionate with his daughter and the pair of them stay together. The summer has just begun: Lena has been paid for her job at a frozen food store and her father finally seems to have found a job that will make a bit of money. Lena, like any girl her age, wants to let her hair down and have fun with her friends; but her father is beaten up by the local mafia who accuse him of having done them out of some money. Lena's life changes radically from then on. Her main preoccupation is now to defend her father.
Víctor García León
91 min.
David is a sensitive, daydreaming, poetical introvert of a teenager with a vast interior world who is suddenly hit by the force of reality. He discovers that his baker shop owning parents are not precisely the best he could have had. He discovers failure for the first time. He discovers that sex isn't the most romantic thing in the world. He discovers that he's more of a loser than a winner, that he was born to support Atlético and not Real Madrid. And above all he discovers his schoolmate, Gloria. In the course of first love almost everyone falls for the same girl. This is the story of the guy who doesn't get the woman he wants.
Jorge Zima
90 min.
Three people find that their lives have been built upon a fantasy or solely destined to fulfil external demands, but never in response to their most profound needs and desires. Paula, the central player in the triangle, senses the full significance of this conflict when a stranger connects with her in a special way. Eroticism is a constant in this movie, revealing itself at times to be a threatening and disturbing source of tension, while still conveying its ability to serve as a powerful vehicle for true communication via the sensual contact between two bodies.
David Trueba
115 min.
Benito Cañaveras and Carolo Suárez Perales are cinema enthusiasts. The former is a director and the latter an actor in his latest project, a musical in Super 8 entitled Un mundo para nosotros. They have decided to give the leading female part to national film star, Armanda Castro. Young, but already suffering from presumable decadence, the actress receives the offer with a mixture of contempt and disgust, still unaware that events will oblige her to accept the part and to coexist in total isolation with the buffs in question. None of the three will be quite the same at the end of shooting this ?masterpiece?.
Marc Recha
110 min.
Alex worked in the port of Barcelona, but one day he decided to leave it all behind to go and live in a Pyrenean small village. His brother Pau and mother Mercè have heard nothing from him. Now they discover that Alex has committed suicide. Travelling to the village where Alex lived out his last few months, Pau and Mercè meet his girlfriend Sara, who doesn't know that Alex is dead and is still waiting for him; his friend and boss Emili, who years ago also decided to change his life; and Toni, who works with Emili and is secretly in love with Sara. Each of them discovers a new Alex through the others, and his absence helps them to redefine their objectives and shortcomings. None of them will be the same when the time comes to say goodbye.
Vicente Molina Foix
105 min.
The film has three main characters: two mature friends, Rosa (a divorcee artist no longer able to paint), Jaime (an actor born like her under the sign of Sagittarius), and young Juan, an initially cocky fast-food delivery man who turns into sad case of human trash. These three lead the action, centered on the love affairs between Rosa and Juan and that of Jaime with a mysterious young man named Rafa. But a series of characters start weaving around their lives an alternately comical and tragic spider's web moved by both hazard and desire. They all have the same goal: to fill their lives in the throbbing and halfbred emptiness of a Madrid that could hold the entire human horoscope.
Jorge Aguilera
80 min.
After the death of six-year-old Dalia, the members of her family find ways of eluding the pain: Dulce, the mother, dives heavily into her work; the younger Damián forgets the traumatic episode with the help of therapy; Derek, the father, loses his mind thinking his daughter has only gone away for a trip. Eleven years later, Damián begins a relationship with Fabiana, a girl from school. He unconsciously finds in her a resemblance of his forgotten sister. Damian's confusion frightens off Fabiana, and he is faced again with the pain of the loss suffered years back. Derek, after several loving encounters with Dalia's ghost, can acknowledge that she has now said goodbye for ever. Dulce can no longer elude the memory that has taken over the family, and abandons the television show to be near her husband and son once again.
Montxo Armendariz
115 min.
In the winter of 1944, Lucía, recently turned 21, arrives at a small mountain village where she meets Manuel, a young blacksmith who collaborates with the guerrilla fighters known as the ?Maquis?, whom, refusing to accept the Fascist victory, have taken refuge in the mountains. Lucía is attracted by Manuel's smile and by the bravery of these men who continue to defend their beliefs, despite the risk to their lives. When Manuel goes into hiding with the Maquis, Lucía discovers just how inhospitable the mountains really are and that the empty streets of the town hold nothing but silence, horror and fear. But her passion for Manuel keeps her spirits up, as she waits for better days.
Joaquín Oristrell
116 min.
A screenplay based on a love affair that took place in the summer of 1979 accidentally falls into the hands of a drama teacher called Isabel. On reading it, she discovers that it is based on her romance 21 years ago with the script's author, director Mario Fabra. Although their liaison lasted only 17 hours, she has never forgotten it. Isabel calls Mario - whom she hasn't seen since - and they arrange to meet, but when the time she comes feels silly and pretends not to recognise him. Although Mario also recognises Isabel, he does the same thing. But, needing new actors for his movie, Mario ponders on the subject, finally deciding to use Isabel and her school to find them. The truth is that he wants to be near Isabel as much as Isabel wants to see him again.
Bigas Luna
One late summer's day, Ulises arrives to work as the new Literature teacher at the local college in a small coastal town. There he discovers the Mediterranean sensuality thanks to the sea, the smell of the orange trees and the delicious homemade chips made for him by Martina. Ulises can't help falling madly in love with the girl. And Martina is bewitched by the stories he tells her. One daybreak, having gone out to fish tuna, Ulises disappears. Martina marries Sierra, a rich local builder. When she feels at home in her life of luxury, Ulises reappears, unable to forget her. Martina hides Ulises at the top of an unfinished skyscraper belonging to her husband where the couple meet for passionate encounters.
Gabriela David
93 min.
The story of a thief told in confidence relates the events of a recent night when, driving round the city streets in a stolen taxi, he encounters a wounded teenage girl, the survivor of a violent incident. In a night-time, urban setting, Taxi, An Encounter tells a small, intimate story set against the counterpoint between individual survival and solidarity with others, expressed through the bond that develops between these two human beings and which to some extent tempers the neglect and desolation in which they live.
Santiago Segura
98 min.
Back from a wander around the Costa del Sol, Torrente decides to set up home in Marbella (where, we don't really know how or why, he feels at home) where he sets about doing the things he likes most: defending the locals, checking that justice is done and conning as many innocent people as he can. Enter a crazy but powerful arms runner, Spinelli, threatening to destroy the city if he isn't given the trifling sum of 2,000 million pesetas. Only one man can save Marbella, but he's away shooting another film, and the responsibility with all its weight falls on the shoulders of our man.
Carlos María Jaureguialzo
105 min.
He is a brilliant and ambitious young man, keen on succeeding in the business world. She is a girl of disturbing and savage beauty, who has lived fast and furiously as a prostitute handled by Salinas, a sordid pimp. Destiny brings them together in an arid and dusty border hotel, where Gustavo arrives, lost, with a suitcase full of money. Coming into play as from that moment are romance, betrayal, eroticism, adventure, some crooks who barge in and trigger events, with Gustavo attempting to return to his world where he feels safe and triumphant, but where there is no room for Mariel...
Alberto Arvelo
91 min.
The Andes, 1948. Upon the death of his wife, Tomás Alonso and his son Santiago are left alone in their mountain farm with a yoke of oxen and a field of wheat. Sometimes in the afternoon Tomás plays the violin. The arrival of a foreigner combined with an unexpected incident set the story in motion: on the one hand is the longing and anxiety that the father and son have invented for the sea and, and on the other, the indecision of Tomás as to whether he should be a conformist and a coward, or else prove by murderous violence that he can defend his son.
Alfonso Cuarón
105 min.
The life of two 17-year-olds is governed by their hormones, their friendship and their hankering to become adults. One public holiday afternoon with their families they meet Luisa, a 28-year-old Spanish girl on whom they flirtatiously lavish the style and witticism typical of kids their age. Between jokes, they invite her on a trip to the imaginary beach they call the Boca del Cielo. Luisa gently ignores them, they all go their own ways and everything seems to have been forgotten. But, on receiving devastating news, Luisa's need for a change of life sends her looking for the boys to accept their offer. The three set out on a journey that will have a tremendous influence on their lives, in which innocence, sexuality and friendship will clash with one another.
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