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).
Éric Toledano and Olivier Nakache are back at the Festival where they achieved international recognition in Intouchables, the film that closed the Festival in 2011. They returned in 2014 with Samba and in 2017 took part in the Official Section with C’est la vie. All these films were well received here and they hope to win over the public once again with Hors Normes, a comedy based on real events about a non-profit association that works with extreme cases of autism. This is a really personal project that both directors had thought about shooting before Untouchables: “the success of that film meant we could buy our freedom which is the greatest privilege that a creative artist can have,” Toledo says. “That’s why we decided to resume work on the Hors Normes project. We thought that this was the perfect moment, bearing in mind that we are living in a society that is more and more selfish, where people are delighted to indulge in navel-gazing.”