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).
32 films will be competing in the Zabaltegi section this year, which is once again divided into three sections: Pearls, New Directors and Specials. José Ángel Herrero-Velarde, a member of the Management Board explained that, “overall, there is a wide variety of subjects and styles that we think the public will like”.
The Pearls section will be officially opened today by Quentin Tarantino’s film Inglorious Basterds, which won the best actor award for Christopher Waltz at Cannes. It will be shown at 22:00 at the Victoria Eugenia theatre and Tarantino himself along with actor Brad Pitt and producer Lawrence Bender will be attending the screening.
As in previous years, except for certain Pearls that will be followed by a press conference, most of the films in Zabaltegi will be accompanied by a discussion between the team that made the film and the audience. Some have already been shown at major international festivals and have still not been released in Spain. Fourteen of the fifteen Pearls are competing for the TCM Audience Award, and among these it is worth mentioning Michael Haneke’s Das Weisse Band, which has won the Fipresci Grand Prix, voted best film of 2009 by critics from all over the world.
The New Directors section includes a comprehensive sample of international films by directors making their debut or second film, which along with four films in the Official Section are competing for the Kutxa New Directors Prize, worth 90,000 euros and shared between the director and importer of the winning film.
The Specials section features three documentaries by Michael Winterbottom, Tom DiCillo, and Hana Makhmalbaf; all of them have visited San Sebastián on several occasions.
The Zabaltegi get-togethers in the Sala Club in the Victoria Eugenia run by the journalist Juan Zavala at 14:00 each day are another regular feature of the festival thatv once again will allow the public to get to meet the teams who have made the films shown the previous day.