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 first two episodes of the first season of “The Plague” were screened at the Festival yesterday, which made it the first time that a TV series was shown in the Official Section. Director Alberto Rodríguez said that he wanted the audience to travel to 16th-century Seville at street level. “I’m interested in the common everyday characters; not the big names that appear in history books,” he explained. Current events such as the recent economic crisis and corruption are also reflected in the series, as are questions such as the abuse of power, neglect of the poor, the clash between reason and superstition, or the empowerment of women. “It helps us to understand the present much better,” the actress Patricia López Arnaiz says.
One of the stars of the series, Paco León, felt that the fact that this series had been included in the Official Section at San Sebastián was symptomatic of the blurring of boundaries between formats, while Alberto Rodriguéz stressed that he still made a story so it could been seen in a dark room or on a decent monitor, not on a mobile phone. “Watching a film or a series on a mobile phone is like drinking a good wine in a plastic cup.”