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).
Film noir has always been considered the ideal medium to reflect on the moral corruption that festers in our societies, but the Kazakh director, Adilkhan Yerzhanov, despite having made a textbook film noir in A dark-dark man utterly denied that his film was a reflection of the political and social reality of his country. “Corruption is something that you find in all societies, just like violations of human rights. When I made this film, my idea was to focus on someone who would personify situations like this, and at the same time show his transformation and passage from darkness to light. But I haven’t made a political film.” As for the political situation in his country, he said that it wasn’t up to him to judge the political period that his country was going through, although compared to the situation that they were in fifteen years ago, they had improved a lot.