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).
Suro, the debut feature film by Basque director Mikel Gurrea was screened yesterday in the Official Selection. It is set in the Alt Empordà in Girona, where Iván and Helena, a young couple of architects from Barcelona, inherit a farmhouse and decide to make a new life for themselves in the countryside amongst the cork trees. To harvest the cork from these they hire a mixed team of local workers and Moroccan immigrants, but their different views on how to live on the land challenge their future as a couple.
Pol López, who plays the role of Iván, said that, “what defines these characters is the problem that they have in handling their own contradictions; it’s something we talked about a lot during rehearsals. Iván, in particular, is someone who comes from an urban environment and a cooperative culture and comes to a rural area where he has to act as a landowner. The film shows how there are social structures that are very difficult to overturn and this is something that makes my character really uneasy.”