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).
Todd Haynes was president of the Official Section Jury here back in 2013 and this year he is presenting his latest film Wonderstruck in the Pearls section. The subject matter – the world of children in two parallel stories set in the 1920s and the 1970s in New York surprised some critics who thought it seemed lightweight for a director like Haynes, but he said that he really had a lot of esteem for children and he stressed how twelve-year-olds had such wisdom and clarity: “if twelve-year-olds ran the world, we’d be in better shape.”
He also revealed that the film reacquainted him with feelings he had as a child, a period he doesn’t have particularly fond memories of, when he was always being told that this was the happiest time of his life. He thought that children weren’t especially sentimental and that what he was interested in showing was the dark, weird side of childhood which films about children don’t usually focus on.