The San Sebastian Festival, with the participation of the Argentine Film Academy, hosted the event in support of Argentine cinema in view of the endeavours under way to dismantle its cultural film industry. Teams of films from Argentina and other Latin American countries gathered on the stairs of the Kursaal Auditorium, the Festival's main hub, accompanied by institutions, programmers and jury members at the Festival who joined the call in solidarity with the exceptional situation affecting independent Argentine cinema, whose projects have been paralysed.

The gathering coincided with the Official Selection screening of the Argentine production El hombre que amaba los platos voladores, directed by Diego Lerman, and the international premiere of Traslados. The non-fiction investigates the so-called death flights, "the most cruel and effective way of killing and disappearing people executed by Argentina's last Civic-Military Dictatorship". The screening was accompanied by an introduction and talk with the film crew, headed by its director, Nicolás Gil Lavedra, and by the producer Zoe Hochbaum.

San Sebastian Festival's 72nd edition has programmed 16 films totally or partially produced in Argentina in both its Official Selection and in the New Directors, Horizontes Latinos, Zabaltegi-Tabakalera and Movies for Kids sections, as well as the aforementioned Traslados. In addition, the Festival's Industry section includes six Argentine projects selected for the Europe-Latin America Co-Production Forum, two works in progress in WIP Latam and one project in Ikusmira Berriak with the participation of an Argentine producer.

Movie events in Buenos Aires and Montevideo

In the framework of the exchange between Spanish cinema and the cinema of the Plate River region, we now introduce a new initiative to run in Buenos Aires and Montevideo this November and December, on the subject of which we will shortly give further details. The San Sebastian Festival and the Malaga Festival will join hands to programme six films with Spanish production in Buenos Aires from 27 November to 1 December, going on to repeat the screenings in Uruguay on the same dates as Ventana Sur, Latin America's biggest audiovisual market.

Full statement made by the Director of the San Sebastian Festival, José Luis Rebordinos

The Executive of the San Sebastian Film Festival wishes to voice its solidarity with the Argentine film industry in view of the exceptional situation it is suffering due to the paralysis of many of its projects, the emptying of content from the INCAA, and to the measures being taken by this government, which endanger the development, not only of its film industry, but also of other expressions of its culture.

The Executive of the San Sebastian Film Festival wishes to make it clear that this support is not intended as interference of any kind in the politics of Argentina. For years we have worked with an INCAA which has had numerous political colours corresponding to both conservative and liberal governments, as well as others of a Peronist nature. Under all of these, and each with their own characteristics which the people of Argentina themselves must define, the Argentine industry has been able to function normally and to become one of the most important in Latin America, projecting a positive image of the country and acting as its economic driving force. 

Today the San Sebastian Film Festival, as the cultural expression that it is, cannot simply sit back and watch the dismantling of a national film industry by a government which, in addition, justifies a military dictatorship responsible for murdering thousands of people.

Strength to Argentine cinema!