Seventeen films – thirteen features and four shorts – make up the Basque participation at San Sebastian Festival’s 70th edition, distributed between the Official Selection, New Directors, Zabaltegi-Tabakalera, Nest, Zinemira and the Basque Cinema and EiTB galas.
Zinemira, the section specifically dedicated to Basque cinema, is organised by the San Sebastian Festival and the Basque Government Department of Culture. It is sponsored by Irizar and EiTB, and has the collaboration of the Filmoteca Vasca, the EPE/APV and IBAIA producers associations, and Zineuskadi. At this edition, Zinemira comes with seven fictions and non-fictions. Four of these, being a world premiere at the Festival, will compete for the Irizar Basque Film Award alongside another six works screening in other Festival sections. A total of ten productions will therefore compete for the award of 20,000 euros going to the producer of the film.
The world premiere of the co-production with Argentina El vasco / Dear Grandma will open Zinemira. Jabi Elortegi (Bermeo, 1969), who competed in Zabaltegi-New Directors with his debut movie, Zorion perfektua / Perfect Happiness (2009), directs Joseba Usabiaga, Itziar Aizpuru and Eduardo Blanco in this dramatic comedy.
The producer and screenwriter Izaskun Arandia (Tolosa, 1972) also makes her debut in feature films with My Way Out, a non-fiction reconstructing the story of London’s homonymous transgender nightclub through interviews and archive footage.
Xuban Intxausti (Donostia, 1982) explores in Gesto the background of the pacifist collective Gesto por la paz and its ethical principles, using archive footage and present-day testimonials serving as a framework for reflecting on its three decades of history.
In Karpeta Urdinak / Blue Files, the moviemaker Ander Iriarte (Oiartzun, 1986) launches an investigation based on the suspicion that his father was the victim of torture by police on their premises. His inquiries takes him to the results of the investigation into torture and abuse in the Country between 1960 and 2014 and to the Istanbul Protocol.
The Victoria Eugenia Theatre will provide the setting on Tuesday, September 20, for the Basque Cinema Gala, featuring the premiere of Gelditasuna ekaitzean / Stillness in the Storm, the debut film from Alberto Gastesi (San Sebastian, 1985), a love story starring Loreto Mauleón and Iñigo Gastesi.
A day later, the same setting will host the EiTB Gala with the screening of Kepa Junkera berpiztu / Kepa Junkera Come to Life Again, a feature-length documentary on recovery of the musician from Bilbao, victim of a stroke in 2018, and his legacy, directed by Fermin Aio (Algorta, 1973).
Also competing for the Irizar Basque Film Award are two films already announced in the Official Selection -Suro, by Mikel Gurrea (San Sebastian, 1985), and La consagración de la primavera / The Rite of Spring, by Fernando Franco (Seville, 1976)-, one of them in New Directors -A los libros y a las mujeres canto / To Books and Women I Sing, by Maria Elorza (Vitoria-Gasteiz, 1988)- and Black is Beltza II: Ainhoa, by Fermin Muguruza, which will have its premiere in the Velodrome.
Another three films will complete the Zinemira programme, this time out of competition due to having premiered prior to their screenings in San Sebastian: Cinco lobitos / Lullaby, by Alauda Ruiz de Azúa (Barakaldo, 1978), which will close the section after having been selected for the Berlin, Seattle and Karlovy Vary festivals, having won the major awards at Malaga Festival and having been shortlisted by the Spanish Academy for the Oscars; 918 gau / 918 Nights, by Arantza Santesteban (Pamplona, 1979), which, following the Ikusmira Berriak residency and screening in WIP Europa, bagged awards at Lisbon and Turin; and Bi arnas, by Jon Mikel Fernández Elorz (San Sebastián, 1983) looking at the consequences of torture through the story of Iratxe Sorzabal and her mother.
Also appearing in the Zabaltegi-Tabakalera section are two shorts from the Kimuak programme: Hirugarren koadernoa / The Third Notebook, by Lur Olaizola, to screen following its premiere at Cinéma du Réel, and Cuerdas /Chords by Estibaliz Urresola, after showing at the Semaine de la Critique in Cannes.
For the first time in Nest, the competition for shorts by film school students, two Basque productions in the Basque language will compete for the Nest Award: Erro bi, by Nagore Muriel Letamendia (Villabona, 2000), from the University of the Basque Country; and Noizko basoa / Where Does a Forest Begin, by Mikele Landa Eiguren (Bilbao, 1995), from the Elías Querejeta Zine Eskola.
Although not screening in cinemas, other Basque productions will be included in the Festival, at the project stage, giving an idea of the films they will become. The projects are by Helena Taberna (Nosotros / Us), at the Europe-Latin America Co-Production Forum and Karmele, by Asier Altuna, Una ballena / A Whale, by Pablo Hernando Esquisabel, and Baleazaleak / /Whalemen (At the Ends of the Earth), by Baltasar Kormákur, whIch will participate in the first meeting between international investors and talent agents with local producers in the framework of the Spanish Screenings initiative; and Irati Gorostidi will present her project Anekumen , developed at the Ikusmira Berriak residencies, to film industry representatives.
ZINEMIRA
Section dedicated to Basque film organised by the San Sebastian Festival and the Basque Government Department of Culture, with the sponsorship of Irizar and EITB; and the collaboration of the Baque Film Archive, EPE/AVE, IBAIA and Zineuskadi.
Mikel has decided to change his life and accepts a distant relative's invitation to travel to Argentina and settle there. However, it's not long before he realises that his uncle Chelo is nothing more than an affable gambler and drinker who has nothing to offer him. As if that wasn't bad enough, things become even more complicated when Chelo's mother Amuma Dolores awakens from a lethargy of ten years on hearing Mikel sing a lullaby in Basque and mistaking him for her brother Juanito, Mikel's grandfather. From then on, the whole village sets about making Dolores believe that she is still in her native Bermeo of the 50s. Mikel will have nothing better to do than act as peacemaker between Dolores' squabbling children, Chelo and Begoña, with the help and complicity of Inés, the eternally cheerful carer of Amuma Dolores.
Amaia has recently become a mother. Her partner is away for months at a time and she is overwhelmed, unable to take care of her baby and return to her work as a translator. She decides to hole up at her parents house in the hope that they will take care of both herself and her baby in the place where she grew up, a pretty coastal town in the Basque Country. But life has other plans; her mother falls ill and it is Amaia who has to look after them all. She finds herself obliged to live her mother's life of thirty years ago. She becomes a housewife, with an absent partner, in charge of a baby and an ailing grandmother. The family roles are reversed, forever changing their relations. The daughter becomes everyone's mother. Amaia, who had only loved her mother until now, will also start to understand her.
On October 4th, 2007 Arantza, the director of the film, was detained and taken to prison. She remembers a few things about those days: endlessly walking around the prison exercise yard, swimming competitions, Rasha’s prison journey… After 918 nights locked up, Arantza is set free. From then onwards, she recorded her memories and doubts, which are heard throughout the documentary as a kind of fragmented memoir.
This story is the tale of two breaths: that of Iratxe Sorzabal and that of Mari Nieves Díaz, Iratxe's mother. Both, each in their own way, have suffered the lack of breath caused by torture, together with many other kinds of suffering. Bi arnas is a testimonial on torture, the reflection of an injustice and a dialogue never offered before.
Gesto is a journey through the memory of the Basque pacifism that worked during 30 years for peace and against violence in the Basque Country. This voyage undertaken by the protagonists of Gesto por la paz through visualizing images of the past, invites the spectator to see how the grounds, the actions and the ethical principles of the pacifist organisation remain valid today. The film aims, above all, to pay homage to all citizens who peacefully demonstrated against violence and defended the respect for the Human Rights of all people.
Like many others, Ander suspects that what his father really suffered in that police station was torture. Seeking to clarify his suspicions, he will discover the Project of investigation into torture and abuse in the Basque Country between 1960-2014 drafted by the Basque Country as part of the Peace and Coexistence Plan. Appalled by the results published in the investigation, he meets the doctors, psychologists, psychiatrists and lawyers who participated in the project, who will introduce him to concepts such as "psychological torture", the "Istanbul Protocol" and "statistical approximation" and will show him the reality of torture in the global north.
The legendary transgender club The Way Out celebrated its 25th anniversary in 2018. The documentary looks back at the last three decades in the London trans scene, discovering the club's impact on the transgender community through interviews and archive footage. The club closed in March 2020 for the first time in 28 years due to the global Covid-19 pandemic. What does the future hold for this unique place?
BASQUE FILM GALA
Lara returns from Paris with her partner, Telmo, to settle in San Sebastian. Daniel has never left the city; today he lives with his girlfriend, Vera, and works for his mother's real estate agency. Lara and Daniel's lives cross while visiting a flat for sale; but this may not be the first time they have met. Halfway between the past and the present, Gelditasuna ekaitzean (Stillness in the Storm) explores the love story of two people whose lives, in other circumstances, in other times, could have taken other paths.
EiTB GALA
Kepa Junkera left the stage on 6 December 2018 in Ghent, Belgium. He disappeared, his accordion fell silent. The news mentioned a stroke, urgent admission to hospital, a recovery process, and then nothing. The Basque artist who took the trikitixa and popular Basque music to the highest level, who pretty much brought out an album a year for the 32 years of his career, the self-taught man who became the most international Basque musician and who invited artists all over the world to sing in Basque disappeared without trace. Later came two years of hard work, of physiotherapy sessions to recover his physical mobility, learn to talk, move his hands, turn his head, eat, stay alive. Because Kepa continues to live, continues to create, to enjoy the thrill of art, of music, of poetry, of painting, of photography. This documentary is the story of that emotion.
OFFICIAL SELECTION - In competition
Laura has just arrived in Madrid to study at University. One night, she accidentally meets David, who has cerebral palsy. The relationship with the boy and his mother will give Laura the push she needs to overcome her complexes and insecurities and confidently enter a new phase. A story about that vital moment when anything is possible and how the most unexpected encounters can change our lives.
Helena and Ivan decide to make a new life for themselves amongst cork trees, but their different points of view on how to live on the land surface, challenging their future as a couple.
NEW DIRECTORS
A woman was almost called Avioneta (Small Airplane) at birth. Another had a library in the back seat of her car. Yet another fractured her finger with the rebel shelves of her bookcase. Lectors read to cigar makers while they work. Women remember poems while they iron. And to them all I sing. Standing against fire, water, moths, dust, ignorance and fanaticism, an anonymous female army looks after books. An intimate resistance, lacking epic events, revolution or weapons.
ZABALTEGI-TABAKALERA
Rita belongs to a women’s choir on the point of breaking up because they have lost the municipal grant that allowed them to pay the rental on their rehearsal room. Now the group has to decide whether or not to accept sponsorship from one of the companies responsible for causing most pollution in the valley.
An actress and a filmmaker rehearse a movie script. The screenplay includes excerpts from the diary written by María Dolores González Katarain, Yoyes, during her exile in Mexico between 1980 and 1985, after having left ETA. As the script progresses, hints and references to other women appear amongst Yoyes’s words: Ulrike Meinhof, Simone de Beauvoir, Rocío Díazescobar, Alexandra Kollontai, Tina Modotti. Meanwhile, outside it grows darker.
NEST
It's a year since Ainhoa's father died. Since then, mother and daughter live in the farmhouse they shared with him. Ainhoa would rather leave the place, a space that reminds her of her father. The mother, on the other hand, wants her daughter to stay with her. When a cow dies on the farm, her mother will use it as an excuse to stop Ainhoa from going to the city.
A forest starts over. A town recalls the landscape it never saw. Hands, hoes, and boots that stir up the dry earth to bring to the surface the trees that once inhabited Ulla. Here the river is constantly born and murmurs an already forgotten language. Who will live in this forest when it exists? Can a forest be planted? Will someone give it a name? Where does a town begin?
VELODROME
Ainhoa was born by a miracle in La Paz (Bolivia), after the death of her mother Amanda in a simulated car accident. She grew up in Cuba and in 1988, at the age of 21, she traveled to the Basque Country to discover the land of her father Manex. In the midst of repression and political conflict, she meets Josune, a committed journalist, and her gang of friends. After one of them dies of a heroin overdose, Ainhoa and Josune set out on an initiatory journey that will take them across Lebanon, Afghanistan and the city of Marseille. These are the last years of the Cold War and they will delve into the dark world of drug trafficking networks and their close links to political plots.
Zinemira Award: Txema Areizaga, In memoriam
The Zinemira Award, presented at the Basque Cinema Gala, is the honorary award bestowed by the San Sebastian Festival and the EPE/APV and IBAIA producers associations upon the career of an outstanding figure, programme or institution in the field of Basque cinema. To date, the award has gone to Imanol Uribe (2009), Álex Angulo (2010), Elías Querejeta (2011), Michel Gaztambide (2012), Juanba Berasategi (2013), Pedro Olea (2014), Karmele Soler (2015), Ramón Barea (2016), Julia Juaniz (2017), Ramón Agirre (2018), Jose María Txepe Lara (2019), Sara Bilbatua (2020) and the Kimuak programme (2021). This year, the Festival and the producers association have decided to pay tribute to the collective of technicians, anonymous professionals without whose work Basque cinema would not be possible, personalised through the figure of the gaffer Txema Areizaga, who died last year.
Areizaga, manager of the company from Gipuzkoa Argilun Iluminación, started his professional career in the cinema with Ke arteko egunak (Antxon Eceiza, 1990), the first film in the Basque language to compete in the Festival’s Official Selection. In 1991 he founded Argilun, the company which has participated in around a hundred movies including Vacas (Cows), La ardilla roja (The Red Squirrel),Lasa y Zabala, Negociador (Negotiator),Loreak (Flowers), Ocho apellidos vascos (Spanish Affair), Amama, Oreina (The Deer), El hijo del acordeonista (The Accordionist’s Son), 70 binladens, Nora and La trinchera infinita (The Endless Trench). His last work was Irati.
Films spoken partially or totally in basque |
Children's films dubbed into Basque |
The Movies for Kids section offers a selection of five films for an audience of children to be screened in Basque, thanks to the collaboration of Zineuskadi as part of the Zinema Euskaraz (Cinema in Basque) programme.
Furthermore, and thanks to the collaboration with the Donostia International Physics Center (DIPC) and the Filmoteca Vasca, the Festival will run every morning a screening for Gipuzkoa school children at the Velodrome of Eric Tosti’s film Terra Willy: Planeta ezezaguna / Terra Willy: La planète inconnue (Terra Willy: Unexplored Planet) , dubbed into Basque.
Films in other sections with subtitles in Basque |
There will be two films with Basque subtitles at the Culinary Zinema section. The content of the programme will be released next Wednesday, August the 31st.
ZINEMIRA KIMUAK |
(Exclusively for Professionals)
The Zinemira section will include the short film selection for the 2022 programme of Kimuak, an initiative of the Basque Government Department of Culture and Zineuskadi, which has the vocation to disseminate the best Basque short films of the year. This year the Kimuak selection includes seven short films