Programmers from 16 festivals in Argentina, Chile, Spain, Mexico, Paraguay, Peru and Uruguay will participate this year in the 9th Meeting of Ibero-American LGBTIQA+ Festivals, to take place from 25-27 September at the San Sebastian Festival. The event is organised by Gehitu (the Basque association of gays, lesbians, bisexuals, trans and intersexuals) in collaboration with the Festival and has the backing of eLankidetza-Basque Agency for Development Cooperation and the San Sebastian City Council through Mugen Gainetik.  

The Meeting, whose activities will run in the main on 26 September, will have workshops sharing new production and programming dynamics, as well as round tables.

The first of these will reflect on possible strategies for achieving a more inclusive and diverse industry. Starting from the experiences of professionals in the Latin American audiovisual sector who have succeeded, from other practices, other points of view and from activism, in crossing the threshold of industry, a debate will be held on work processes and the representation of sexual dissidences. Moderated by the filmmaker and researcher Anaís Córdova-Páez, the producers Bruna Haddad and Alice Stamato, and the programmer of the Asunción Lesbigaytrans Film Festival, Carolina Robledo, will participate in the discussion.

Deborah Williams, the Executive Director at Creative Diversity Network and consultant on matters of diversity, will participate in another round table prior to the presentation of the Programmers of Colour Collective (POC2), comprising programmers who are POCs, women and TSLGBTQ+. Outstanding among the workshops is the one focussed on the practical case of how to elevate a film festival to a LGBTIAQ+ cultural event and the talk by Jon Paul Arroyo, the director of Crossover Series, on the inclusion of series in LGBTIAQ+ festivals.

There will also be a meeting with the Conference of Ibero-American Audiovisual and Cinematographic Authorities (CAACI) in order to approve the conclusions of the analysis of the model questions making it possible to identify people according to their sex, gender, sexual identity, accessibility and ethnic group in Latin American film institutes.

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Twelve films compete for the XXIV Sebastiane Award

Gehitu, one of the organisers of the Meeting of Ibero-American LGTBIQA+ Festivals, is also the promotor of the Sebastiane Award, a national pioneer in this type of awards and which, since 2000, has gone to the film at the San Sebastian Festival that best reflects the realities, liberties and social progresses of the LGBTIAQ+ collective. Twelve productions will participate in the XXIV edition of this award.  

Among the candidates are two films included in the Official Selection (El sueño de la sultana / Sultana’s Dream and Ex-Husbands), another in New Directors (Les rayons gamma / Gamma Rays), two from Horizontes Latinos (El castillo / The Castle and Pedágio / Toll), three from Zabaltegi-Tabakalera (El auge del humano 3 / The Human Surge 3; Orlando, mi biografía política / Orlando, My Political Biography and Mamántula), one from Perlak (Monster), two from Zinemira (20.000 especies de abejas / 20,000 Species of Bees and Las buenas compañías / In the Company of Women). Also included for the first time is a film from the movies for kids section (Gabi: Between Ages 8 and 13).

At this edition, the jury will once again be mixed, with people associated to Gehitu serving alongside two filmmakers from the Basque Country: Arantxa Echevarría and Jose Mari Goenaga. The Sebastiane Award will be presented in the Kur gallery on Friday 29 at 19:00, the day before the end of the 71st San Sebastian Festival.

Transfariana, winner of the Sebastiane Latino Award

On the other hand, the French-Colombian co-production Transfariana, directed by Joris Lachaise, has been proclaimed winner of the XI Sebastiane Latino Award. The award has been decided by a jury made up of members of Gehitu who have chosen this title from among the five candidate feature films.

Transfariana is a documentary bearing a title that combines the terms “trans” and “fariana”, used to designate trans women members of the FARC. The jury decided to give this film its award as the best representative of the demands and values of the LGBTIQA+ community in Latin America. The award will be presented in November at the Lesgaicinemad.

Precisely, the film winning the Sebastiane Latino 2022 Award, Sublime, by Argentina’s Mariano Biasin, will be screened during the first week of the Festival in Errenteria, Irun and Deba.