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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).
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'La estrella azul', the second film by Javier Macipe, has been selected for New Directors
Today, the Academia de las Artes y las Ciencias Cinematográficas in Madrid hosted the event at which an announcement was made regarding the 14 titles of Spanish production (nine feature films, one medium-length film, one short and three TV series) to screen from 22-30 September in the Official Selection and in the New Directors, Horizontes Latinos, Zabaltegi-Tabakalera and Velodrome sections of the San Sebastian Festival’s 71st edition.
Following her feature debut with Arima (2020), which was selected for Made in Spain after receiving awards in Seville and Gijón, Jaione Camborda (San Sebastian, 1983) will compete for the Golden Shell with her second work, O Corno / The Rye Horn. The film, which is shot in Galician and participated in the Ikusmira Berriak residencies programme while still at the project stage, tells the tale of María (Janet Novás), a doula forced to flee from the island on which she lives after a something dreadful happens.
Isabel Herguera (San Sebastian, 1961) is a visual artist, animation producer and director whose films include the multi-award winning shorts Kutxa beltza (2016), Amore d'inverno (2015), Bajo la almohada (2012), Ámár (2010) and La gallina ciega (2006), for which she bagged a Best Animated Short Film Award at the Goyas. In El sueño de la sultana / Sultana’s Dream, her first feature film, Herguera brings us a tale based on a short story written in 1905 by Rokeya Hussain in which she tells her own story and that of Ladyland, a Utopian world governed by women.
For her part, Isabel Coixet (Sant Adrià de Besòs, 1960) will compete for the Golden Shell for the first time with Un amor, based on the book of the same name by Sara Mesa and starring Laia Costa at the head of a cast also featuring Hovik Keuchkerian, Hugo Silva, Luis Bermejo, Ingrid García-Jonsson and Francesco Carril. Coixet presented her first film, Demasiado viejo para morir joven (Too Old to Die Young,New Directors, 1988) at the Festival. Since then, she has competed at Cannes, Berlin and Venice, having landed a number of accolades including six Goya awards. At last year’s Festival, Coixet participated for the first time in the Official Selection with the special screening out of competition of the documentary El sostre groc / The Yellow Ceiling, winner of the RTVE-Otra Mirada Award and of a special mention from the Dunia Ayuso Award.
In addition, Javier Ambrossi (Madrid, 1984) and Javier Calvo (Murcia, 1991), members of the artistic duo popularly known as ‘Los Javis’, will make their Official Selection debut with the 7-episode thriller for all the family, La Mesías, which will screen out of competition and boasts a cast including Roger Casamajor, Macarena García, Lola Dueñas, Carmen Machi, Ana Rujas, Albert Pla, Amaia, Biel Rossell and Cecilia Roth, among others. Ambrossi and Calvo have directed and/or produced successful series including Paquita Salas (2016), La Veneno (2020) and Cardo (2021). In 2017 the Festival saw them release their first feature, La Llamada / Holy Camp at the RTVE Gala.
The Official Selection will also offer the special screening of a Spanish production: They Shot the Piano Player, directed by Fernando Trueba and Javier Mariscal, who join hands once again after their Best Animation Film Academy Award nomination for Chico & Rita (2011). In this latest animated collaboration they follow the figure of Brazilian musician Tenorio Jr. during the early days of the musical movement known as bossa nova. The film, narrated by the voice of Jeff Goldblum, comes with a soundtrack featuring the music of Caetano Veloso, Antonio Carlos Jobim, Joao Donato, Toquinho, Bill Evans and Vinicius de Moraes, among other artists.
Javier Macipe, in New Directors
The New Directors section, dedicated to first and second films, will include the premiere of the second feature film by Javier Macipe (Zaragoza, 1987), La estrella azul / The Blue Star, a fictional take on the story of the musician from Zaragoza, Mauricio Aznar, founder of bands including Más Birras and Almagato. His feature film debut, Los inconvenientes de no ser Dios (2014), earned him Best Film at the Zaragoza Film Festival. He has also directed shorts including Gastos incluidos (2019) and Os meninos do rio (2014), both of which were Goya finalists.
Martín Benchimol and Dolores Fonzi, in Horizontes Latinos
Horizontes Latinos, the section dedicated to Latin American cinema, will have the participation of the first solo documentary from Martín Benchimol (Buenos Aires, 1985), El castillo / The Castle, which will compete for the Horizontes Award after carrying off the WIP Latam and Egeda Platino Industria Award for the Best WIP Latam at the last edition of the San Sebastian Festival and having been selected for the Berlinale Panorama. With El espanto (2017) he landed the Best Film Award at the IDFA (Amsterdam International Documentary Film Festival).
The actress Dolores Fonzi (Buenos Aires, 1978) has visited the Festival several times, thanks to her roles in El aura (Official Selection, 2005), Truman (Official Selection, 2015), Paulina (Horizontes Latinos, 2015), La cordillera / The Summit (Donostia Award Special Screening, 2017) and Distancia de rescate / Fever Dream (Official Selection, 2021), although this year she will return to San Sebastian with her directorial debut. In Horizontes Latinos she will present Blondi, following the special relationship between a mother and her son starring Fonzi herself alongside Carla Peterson, Rita Cortese, Toto Rovito and Leonardo Sbaraglia.
Alberto Martín Menacho, An Pham Thien, Irati Gorostidi and Ion de Sosa, in Zabaltegi-Tabakalera
Zabaltegi-Tabakalera, the Festival’s most open competitive section, will screen the debut movie from Alberto Martín Menacho (Madrid, 1986), Antier noche / Nights Gone By, developed at the Ikusmira Berriak residencies and project development programme and which had its premiere at Visions du Reel. The film portrays a certain type of rural youngsters in southern Europe who live astride one disappearing world and another that forges ahead into modern times.
After winning the Caméra d’Or, the accolade going to best debut at the Festival de Cannes, An Pham Thien (Vietnam, 1989) will also compete for the Zabaltegi-Tabakalera Award with Bén Trong Vo Ken Vang / Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell. This international co-production tells the tale of Thien, a man who has to take care of his nephew following a family tragedy and who sets out to find his long-lost brother.
Ion de Sosa (Urnieta, 1981), author of titles such as True Love (2011) and Sueñan los androides (2014), has also been director of photography on a variety of projects and co-directed the short film Leyenda dorada / The Golden Legend (2019), which participated in Zabaltegi-Tabakalera after competing at the Berlinale. This time round, De Sosa returns solo to this section with the medium-length Mamántula, which is also the name of a giant spider cross-dressed as a human.
Also screening in the section is the short film Contadores, de Irati Gorostidi (Eguesibar, 1988), which participated in the Semaine de la Critique at Cannes and was included in last year’s Kimuak catalogue. Gorostidi is currently working on her first feature film, Anekumen, selected for Ikusmira Berriak 2022 and for other mentoring programmes and markets.
Two series at the Velodrome
The Velodrome, the Festival’s biggest venue with seating for almost 3,000 spectators, will this year host the premiere of two series. Directed by Santos Bacana (Madrid, 1991), Cristina Trenas (Madrid, 1987) and Rogelio González (Madrid, 1991), Esta ambición desmedida / This Excessive Ambition comes in three parts taking the process of creating and conducting the Sin Cantar ni Afinar tour to explore the creative process of artist C. Tangana.
Also having its presentation at the Velodrome is El otro lado / The Other Side, a new original Movistar Plus+ 6-episode series directed by Javier Ruiz Caldera (Viladecans, 1976) and Alberto de Toro (Barcelona, 1972), and created, co-written and starred by Berto Romero (Cardona, 1974). The popular TV comedian, author of series including Mira lo que has hecho, makes his first inroads to the horror genre with the story of Nacho, a journalist specialising in paranormal activity who is going through a hard time professionally and personally.
OFFICIAL SELECTION - In competition
Taking her inspiration from a feminist sci-fi short story written in Bengal in 1905, Inés sets out on a voyage of discovery around India in search of Ladyland, the Utopian land of women.
Illa de Arousa, 1971. Maria is a woman who earns a living harvesting shellfish. She is also known on the island for helping other women in childbirth with special dedication and care. After an unexpected event, she is forced to flee and sets out on a dangerous journey that will make her fight for her survival. Seeking her freedom, Maria decides to cross the border by one of the smugglers' routes between Galicia and Portugal.
Having escaped from her stressful life in the city, 30-year-old Nat holes up in the small village of La Escapa, in deepest rural Spain. In a rundown country house, with a crochety stray dog, the young girl will try to put her life back on track. Having dealt with her landlord’s hostility and the mistrust of the village locals, Nat finds herself accepting a disturbing sexual proposal made by her neighbour Andreas. This strange and confusing encounter will give rise to an all-consuming and obsessive passion that will completely engulf Nat and make her question the kind of woman she thinks she is.
OFFICIAL SELECTION - Not in competition
The viral video of a Christian pop group made up of several sisters has an enormous effect on the life of Enric, a man tormented by a childhood marked by religious fanaticism and the yoke of a mother with messianic delirium.
OFFICIAL SELECTION - Special Screenings
A music journalist from New York sets out on a frantic investigation into the mysterious disappearance of Brazilian pianist Tenorio Jr, regular accompanist of Vinicius de Moraes, among others. This animated thriller moving to the beat of jazz and bossa nova portrays the days immediately before the Latin American continent was enshrouded by totalitarian regimes.
NEW DIRECTORS
The 90s. A famous Spanish rock star travels around Latin America in the endeavour to reconnect with his vocation. There he meets an old musician down on his luck, prompting the birth of an unlikely duo with every chance of becoming an epic commercial failure.
HORIZONTES LATINOS
Blondi and Mirko are best friends. They love living together, listen to the same music, watch the same films, they like smoking grass, going to concerts, they share the same friends, everything is perfect between them… but even if they look almost the same age, Blondi is Mirko’s mother.
Having worked as a housekeeper all her life, Justine’s former employer leaves her an enormous mansion deep in the Argentinian pampa. The only condition is that she must never sell it. In this modern fairy tale, Justina and her daughter Alexia will face the challenges of keeping that promise alive.
ZABALTEGI-TABAKALERA
Juan Francisco is twelve years old and lives in a village in southern Spain, surrounded by ancient oak trees and solar panels. Through hunting with greyhounds, he discovers the close relationship between humans and animals. Santi and Antonio are part of a youthful modernity that coexists with the oldest of traditions. Pepa is a young mother who works as a seasonal worker. The choral portrait of this youth reveals a land of hares and donkeys, love stories, fires and rave parties.
A reluctant Thien must take the body of his sister-in-law, who died in a freak motorcycle accident in Saigon, and her five-year-old son Dao, who miraculously survived the crash, to their hometown in the countryside. Thien begins a search for his older brother who vanished years ago to hand Dao over to him. On the road, Thien has a series of sublime dreams and enthralling encounters that reignite suppressed memories and forbidden desires. Deep in the labyrinth of these phantom pursuits, Thien battles with his own existential crisis of what is worth living for.
During the 1978 negotiations for a new bargaining agreement in the metalworking sector, a group of militant libertarians defend their radical stance before their factory workmates while looking on crestfallen as the workers’ movement falls to pieces.
Mamántula is the boy everyone wants, but he is also, secretly, a giant spider cross-dressed as a human, fruit of a brief encounter in a far-off paradise. In an alternative past of brutalist saunas, never-ending subway corridors and detectives in trench coats and hats, each of Mamántula's lovers succumb to the insatiable lust of blood and semen; yet another thread in the stellar spider's web he is weaving so that he can return to the dimension to which he belongs.
VELODROME
Nacho Nieto, a journalist specialising in paranormal activity, is at a professional and personal low. After a failed suicide attempt he comes back to life accompanied by the ghost of his mentor, doctor Estrada, iconic communicator of mystery, who died more than 20 years ago.
Following the success of his album El Madrileño, C. Tangana is faced with the challenge of creating the most ambitious tour of his career and shaking up the concept of the live performance. A journey undertaken by the artist over more than four years. From the birth of the album in Cuba to the conceptualisation of the show, the hostility of the negotiations, the rehearsals, the awkward conversations, the behind-closed-doors events and the whirlwind of concerts throughout Spain and Latin America.
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