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).
The Uruguayan director Germán Tejeira explains that his film Una noche sin luna was inspired by a concert in Montevideo where there was a power cut on stage but the Argentine musician, Daniel Melingo, carried on singing for another half an hour and created a really delightful intimate moment. It’s a film about love, loneliness and passage of time, set on New Year’s Eve when the lonely feel even lonelier, in a very rural Uruguayan backwater, and although Europeans associate New Year with the cold and South Americans with warm weather, on both sides of the Atlantic the theme of loneliness at New Year is the same.
The Swiss film Chrieg is also competing in the New Directors section. It’s director Simon Jaquemet’s first feature who explains that when he read about farms in Switzerland where youngsters with problems were sent to be rehabilitated, he thought it would be an ideal subject for a film, although the reality was far more violent than he had ever imagined.