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 Finnish director, Aki Kaurismäki held a characteristically relaxed conversation with the press shortly before receiving the FIPRESCI award for The Other Side of Hope, the film which earned him the Silver Bear for Best Director at this year’s Berlin Festival. He jokingly claimed that he didn’t think that he really deserved the award, and that The Other Side of Hope, if we are to believe what he says, may be the last film he’ll ever make. He understood that people didn’t believe him, but when he said that he wanted to give up making films, he meant it seriously, and that was why he hoped that each new film he presented would be his last. The problem was that he was no good at doing anything else; he was incapable of doing an honest day’s work. Adopting a more serious tone, he said that in actual fact winning this prize had been really important for him, particularly because when the film came out in Finland it got really savaged, especially by young people. “For them I’m a filmmaker from the old guard, but what can I do? Die? No, thanks, I’m still too young for that.”