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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Zabaltegi - New Directors
Films
Films
Philipp Stölzl
Germany
105 min.
A tragic car accident. Lilly's mother and Paul's wife are killed. Little Lilly, her father Frank and his friend Paul survive. Thirteen years later, Lilly is a teenager, and the two men have become failed characters who scrape a living working as barmen and bouncers in a strip club. Disaster unfolds when Lilly seduces Paul and gets pregnant. In the heat of the moment, her father shoots a boy he suspects of raping his daughter. As fate would have it, they end up back where the accident happend all those years ago.
Chiqui Carabante
Spain
91 min.
Living in a working-class area of Malaga, his father's death lands 25 year-old Carlos with the job of looking after his mother and his younger brother, plus having to face his mother's demands that he take up his dead dad's place at work. The problem is that, ever since he discovered it was impossible to be Spiderman at the age of 8, he has floated through life like a lost soul. Always hoping to find something he loves as much as that initial vocation, he simply can't come to terms with the fact that he's going to end up selling souvenirs with his cousin, taking his wages home to his mum for the rest of his life. So he invents himself a job, leaving home every morning with his father's old suit on as if he were going to work. But to meet his mother's financial demands, he has to keep the lie going day upon day, until it has swollen to the size of an enormous balloon about to burst...
Rodrigo Triana
France - Colombia
93 min.
The arrival of street lighting to the neighbourhood of La Estrella has everyone celebrating. Led by Cayetano Brochero and Miguel Cristancho, the locals illegally connect up their houses to the lamp-posts, all the while in opposition to the local councillor, Keneddy Corzo, who has a good idea of what'll happen if they do so. Suddenly, in full party swing, Miguel's wife realises that an electricity cable runs dangerously close to her clothes line and that it comes from the house of their best friends, the Brocheros. The two families start bickering in an escalating row eventually splitting La Estrella into two sides: those in favour of the Brocheros and those who back the Cristanchos.
Marina De Van
France
93 min.
Esther's life is at a turning point since she is about to settle down with her new boyfriend Vincent. She also works steadily to land a job in the market research company where she successfully carries out an assignment. Everything would look promising if Esther had not accidentally discovered she had a burning curiosity for her own body...
Alberto Rodriguez
Spain
102 min.
A suit, a tie, a pair of shoes: an image when it comes down to it. Patricio is an African living in Seville who changes his appearance for a few days thanks to a suit given to him as a gift by a famous basketball player for having changed the wheel of his car. Although breaking from the racism with which he was previously surrounded; an unexpected visit by the police means that he has to find a place to stay. Successful in his quest, he also finds his worst nightmare, not to mention the person who will become his friend, Miguel, a loner who insists that everyone call him ?Bread and Cheese?, who gets by on petty crime and swindling with not even an iota of remorse. The couple's adventures give rise to a tragicomic tale of friendship and lies.
Maria Von Heland
Germany
87 min.
Kati and Steffi have been best friends since they were six. Now they're both seventeen and are enjoying the ups and downs of becoming adults... Until Steffi's trust in her small and harmonious world is shaken to the core one evening in a nightclub when they spot her father in the arms of another woman. She can only think of taking revenge against her father, against his secret girlfriend, and even against the latter's daughter. Blind with rage, she starts playing a dangerous game, a game in which she soon involves everyone and anyone who has ever meant anything to her, almost inevitably beginning to lose control over the situation and the trust of her friends. Not even Kati knows how to react.
György Pálfi
Hungary
75 min.
An old man sitting on a bench has hiccups, a drunken youth snores on a cart, a kind old lady picks lilies of the valley, women sew in the dressmaker's shop, men play bowling in a pub, the beekeeper spins the honey, a mechanical harvester harvests the wheat, which will be ground into flour before being made into dumplings in grandma's kitchen. Meanwhile the police investigate a murder...
Lee Jung-Hyang
South Korea
85 min.
Born and brought up in the big city, 7 year-old Sang-woo is forced to stay with his grandmother in the small rural village she has never left. Being a city boy, used to the benefits and luxuries of the modern world, he clashes with a person whose soul is so close to nature. His grandmother, like Mother Nature, is silent and patient. She never argues and she gives in to others' demands; but she nevertheless has an inner strength and a shoulder to cry on in time of need.
Aldo Garay Dutrey
Uruguay
65 min.
A mother, a daughter, a neighbour. Alone yet together, these people cultivate frustration and reproach in anonymous, empty environments, weaving a dull, unhealthy relationship of dependence. There are ways out, particularly for the daughter, but she fails to take advantage of them in the routine and boredom ruling their lives. And by the time the explosion rips out from inside these lives, it will be too late: it's all three or nothing. La espera was selected as a result of its presentation in Cinéma en Construcción (Films in Progress, Toulouse, March 2002)
Christophe Ruggia
France
105 min.
Two children of twelve or so, a boy and a girl, brother and sister, run away from every home that they are sent to. Joseph and Chloé: two lost children, abandoned at birth. Chloé doesn't speak, flees the world and can't stand being touched. She always draws the same house. She also walks, straight ahead, as if her footsteps were leading her to a specific destination. Joseph organizes their escapes, then follows her and protects her, convinced that she wants to find their parents' home, that she has the power to do so. And that once she reaches that goal, she will get better. Joseph dreams of his own home, a family, a sister with whom he can communicate and play... A sister who will return a little of the unbridled love that he feels for her.
Todd Louiso
France - Germany - USA
93 min.
Incapable of opening the suicide letter left by his wife Liza, bereaved husband Wilson turns to his mother-in-law for support and guidance. But the letter becomes a source of conflict between them, and the tension of their relationship further disrupts their lives. Wilson attempts another method of escape by making friends with a group of remote-control model enthusiasts, bringing him a sense of peace that permits him to make an attempt at rebuilding his life. The balance however proves fragile, and a dramatic event sends him into a downward spiral ultimately threatening his life.
Lenka Hellstedt
Finland
90 min.
Milla is a young woman, hungry for life, slightly out of balance, stuck on the verge of adulthood and independence. Dreaming of leaving Finland and of finding her desired happiness, she nonetheless does nothing to fulfil her goal. She meets Aki, a single father a couple of years her senior. With a tragic and mysterious background, Aki is clearly a man who can make Milla's dreams come true. A passionate love story in which both obsessively cling to their shared dream. But the facade of their romance starts crumbling on realizing that they cannot mould reality at will based on a net of lies.
Nicolás Acuña
Chile
90 min.
For many, Paraíso is nothing but a quiet square in the Independencia vicinity; for others, Paraíso is a place where illegal bets, money, passion and betrayal are everyday occurrences. Leo and Pedro are childhood friends. Today, at the age of 27, they work under the orders of The Boss, the man who rules the district and its inhabitants' lives. One day like any other, Leo learns something that will change his life: Gloria, Pedro's sister and the love of his life, is returning to town. Emotions and harsh reality are about to clash, and only the strongest will win.
Patricia Cardoso
USA
90 min.
At 18, Ana has a bright future ahead of her. She's the first in her family who can dare dream of going to college; but, when work falls behind at her elder sister Estela's garment factory, Ana reluctantly pitches in to complete an order of beautiful dresses. She is indignant at the amount of work involved in making elegant gowns for women whose lives differ so greatly from her own, gowns into which, like her dreams, she will never fit. Through the long hours and sweat at the factory, Ana begins to appreciate her sister's hard work and talent. She also teaches the women at the factory to love every curve of their bodies and appreciate everything that makes them different from everyone else. On completing the last gown on the order, Ana is ready to find out what her future holds.
Chris Kraus
Germany
97 min.
In his mid-thirties, the leukemia suffering Jesko hasn't got much longer to live. Perceived by all as an unbearable cynic he, in turn, views himself as a ?fickle tailor who likes to wear skirts?. Lured to his bourgeois family's villa under the pretext of saving his life, Jesko rejects the suggestion that his mother may be a possible bone marrow donor due to the fact that he hasn't seen her since she had attempted to kill both himself and his brother years before. A bizarre yet tragic family feud unravels round dark secrets, psychic devastation and the horrible feeling of insoluble solidarity; a battle into which Jesko is ultimately drawn to find love.
Jean-Pierre Sinapi
France - Germany
Vivre me tue tells the moving and heartbreaking story of a relationship between two brothers: Paul, the elder, is a tortured soul in love with literature. Daniel, the younger, who lacks confidence in himself, sinks into the neurotic narcissism of the cult of his own body. Daniel occupies a great place, too great probably, in Paul's life. And the light-bringing love story of Paul and Myriam, the centre of gravity on which the story turns, suffers from it.
Alice Nellis
Czech Republic - Slovakia
100 min.
Almost six months on from his death, father's ashes are still in grandmother's cupboard. The whole family seems to be over the period of grieving and everybody has his or her own new problems: the younger daughter Zuzana is on the point of leaving her husband; her pregnant sister Ilona feels neglected by hers; their mother, Milada, constantly invades Ilona's household offering her any kind of help, driving her son-in-law almost crazy; and Grandmother silently dreams about visiting her hometown in Slovakia at least one more time before she dies. So it's probably no accident that she refuses to bury the ashes of her beloved son in the little Czech town where they all live. Finally, the whole family sets off to take the father's ashes back to Slovakia. They have no sooner left town than the boring family trip slowly starts changing into what will probably become the most important two days in their lives.
Rodrigue Jean
Canada
116 min.
Rubbed the wrong way by life, Max and Linda escape in the direction of the Canadian northwest. On the road from Acadia to Yellowknife, they meet up with a couple of twin strippers and make acquaintance with a faded nightclub singer and her manager. Among these rootless, drifting souls, complicated and fragile relationships are woven, which will take them to the edge of what remains of their desperate passion.
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