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).
Accompanied by producer Julie Lynn and director Ro-drigo Garcia, Glenn Close, who later in the evening was to pick up this year’s Donos-ti Award, gave a press conference after the screening of Alfred Nobbs, out of competition in the Official Sec-tion yesterday.
She confessed she was incredibly moved to be receiving an award at such a distinguished Festival: “When you start out in a career like this you never know where your next job’s coming from so to be honoured for something as fragile as the life of an actor is incredibly humbling.”
As for Albert Nobbs, a film she not only stars in but for which she has also coauthored the script and helped to produce, she explained how she first played Albert off Broadway 29 years ago and had always wanted to turn the play into a film. She had first tried to make the film with István Szabó but unfortunately things fell through so finally it had taken her 15 years to fulfil her dream She had warm words for the Irish novelist John Banville, who worked on the script with her and helped her enormously to authenticate the dialogue, as well as for director Rodrigo Garcia, “an extraordinary director who has written beautiful parts for women.”
She felt that the story of Alfred Nobbs, who disguises herself as a man to work at a posh hotel in 19th-century Dublin still had huge resonance today. “It’s a story about survival, and there are still many people who are invisible and disenfranchised and that’s the world that Albert lived in as an innocent struggling to survive in Victorian Ireland.”
As for her next project she revealed that she was going to finish another season of “Damages” on TV and then she’s like to write something from scratch, which would be a real challenge.
A.O.