The extensive programme of conversations in the Film Talks section of San Sebastián Festival’s 73rd edition will elaborate on the creative processes of filmmakers including Jaume Claret Muxart, Gia Coppola, Claire Denis, Harris Dickinson and Archie Pearch, Joachim Trier, Jonás Trueba and José Luis Guerin, as well as enabling a get-together between the musicians Alexandre Desplat and Alberto Iglesias. Other sessions will discuss feminist diagnostics on the audiovisual industry, series of the 2000s and the distribution and internationalisation of Latin-American LGBTQIA+ films. Also programmed are meetings on the subjects of audiovisual residencies and laboratories, inclusive technologies in the sector and the cinematic writings of the   dictatorship. The Film Talks will similarly host the I Meeting of ACCIÓN, the Association of Film Directors from Spain, with the participation, amongst other personalities, of Pablo Berger, Isaki Lacuesta, Daniela Fejerman and Julio Medem.

The Film Talks compose a section organised by the Thought and Discussion area, thanks to which the San Sebastián Festival emphasizes its condition as a meeting place in which to generate and transmit knowledge, to question itself and to find answers for the future in the face of a changing cinematic panorama.

Film Talks

On Saturday 20th, the Tabakalera cinema will host a film talk at which the actor and director Harris Dickinson, known for his parts in films such as Triangle of Sadness (Ruben Östlund, Perlak, 2022) and Baby Girl (Halina Rejin, 2024) and the producer Archie Pearch will discuss their experience at Devisio Pictures, the production company with its headquarters in London and New York founded by both in 2023 and from which they have produced the former’s directorial debut, Urchin, a film now programmed in Zabaltegi-Tabakalera after winning the FIPRESCI Prize and the Best Actor Award at Un Certain Regard in Cannes. The talk will focus on the challenges of putting together a first film, on their creative process and on the company they aim to build.

That same day, two of the most highly regarded composers of film music in recent decades will meet for a conversation in Tabakalera’s Z Room. San Sebastián’s Alberto Iglesias (Hable con ella / Talk to Her, La piel que habito / The Skin I Live In, Madres paralelas / Parallel Mothers) and Alexandre Desplat (The Grand Budapest Hotel, The Shape of Water, The King’s Speech) will discuss their careers and the creative process behind their scores. The session will be moderated by Paula Olaz, also a composer.

On the 21st, in the Tabakalera cinema, María Zamora, producer of titles including Alcarràs, La virgen roja / The Red Virgin and Romería, will interview the Danish filmmaker Joachim Trier, this year’s winner of the Grand Prix at Cannes for Affeksjonverdi / Sentimental Value, programmed in the Perlak section.

On Monday 22nd, the Z Room will host Feminist Analysis of the Current Audiovisual Industry, a session jointly organised with the Interterritorial Work Group on Equality in Audiovisuals 50/50 by 2025 (GTI 50/50), umbrella body encompassing the associations AMMA, AAMMA, Cima, Dones Visuals, Hemen, Dona i Cinema and Mia; the RTVE Equality Observatory and the Málaga Film Festival. A complete day with the following participants: the writer and researcher Jule Goikoetxea and the theatre actress and director Silvia Albert Sopale; the President of AAMMA (Andalusian Association of Women in the Audiovisual Sector), Pilar Crespo; Co-director of the Bienal Internacional Dona I Cinema, Deborah Micheletti, and the stop motion director and producer Sonia Estévez; the Head of Unit at the RTVE Equality Observatory, Beatriz Aparicio; and the director and producer of the film La furia, Gemma Blasco and Mireia Graell, respectively. The full programme can be found here (LINK).

Supporting creation: an overview of residencies and laboratories in Spain is the title of the film talk scheduled for the 24th in Tabakalera’s Cinema and Audiovisual Lab, with the participation of Inés Enciso, Coordinator of the Development Area at the Spanish Film Academy; Rafa Alberola, Head of ECAM Industry; Mariona Claveria, Coordinator of the Screenplay Residency at the Catalan Film Academy; Juan Zavala, Head of Content at DAMA, and Maialen Franco, Head of Training Programmes at the San Sebastián Festival.  

On Thursday 25th, the Z Room will host the I Meeting of ACCIÓN, the Association of Film Directors from Spain, a full-day event with the participation of Pablo Berger, Isaki Lacuesta, Daniela Fejerman and Julio Medem; Belén Macías, Ramón Salazar and Juana Macías; Helena Taberna, Manuel Martín Cuenca and Paula Palacios, and Bill Anderson, Marine Francen, Jérôme Enrico and Pilar Pérez Solano.

Taking place the following day, in the same space, is the talk on The Cinematic Writings of the Francoist Dictatorship, moderated by Carmina Gustrán, Commissioner for the Holding of the 50th Anniversary of Spain in Freedom. The participants are the Professor of Contemporary History Santiago de Pablo, the Professor at the Université Grenoble Alpes Nicolás Sesma Landrin, and the Director of the Filmoteca Española, Valeria Camporesi.

Film Talks: Nest

The programme will also include four film talks programmed in the framework of Nest, the San Sebastián Festival’s international competition for shorts by film students. All of these meetings will take place in the Tabakalera cinema.

On Monday 22nd, the film talks will open with the French director Claire Denis, who competes for the second time in the Official Selection this year with Le cri des gardes / The Fence. Considered to be one of the best known and most singular voices of contemporary cinema, Denis will look back over a personal and influential career particularly including titles such as Beau travail (1999), Trouble Every Day (2001) and White Material (2010). 

The following day, Gia Coppola, winner last year of the Special Jury Prize in San Sebastián for her film The Last Showgirl, will return to the Festival. The North American filmmaker, who will also sit on the Official Jury this edition, will share her manner of approaching, creating and inhabiting the cinema with the audience and Nest students.  

Precisely a filmmaker who already participated in Nest and studied at the Elías Querejeta Zine Eskola, Catalunya’s Jaume Claret Muxart, will take part in the Film Talk programme on Wednesday 24th to discuss his training and the production of his debut film, Estrany riu (Strange River). This project was developed at the Elías Querejeta Zine Eskola (EQZE) as part of the Ikusmira Berriak program. After its world premiere in the Orizzonti section at Venice, it will be screened at Zabaltegi-Tabakalera. 

On Friday 26th, the last Nest film talk will feature filmmakers José Luis Guerin and Jonás Trueba, who this year compete in the Official Selection as director and producer, respectively, of the non-fiction Historias del buen valle / Good Valley Stories. Guerin returns to the San Sebastián competition after winning the Special Jury Prize for En construcción / Work in Progress (2001), whilst Trueba, who will preside over the Nest Jury, also participated in the Official Selection with La reconquista / The Reconquest (2016) and Quién lo impide / Who’s Stopping Us (2021), winner of the Silver Shell for Best Supporting Performance and of the FIPRESCI Prize.   

Film Talks: Industria

Together with the Festival’s Industry Department, the Thought and Discussion area organises the traditional day of series, this year entitled Y2K Effect. A Portrait of a Generation. Moderated by the filmmaker Isabel Vázquez, and ttaking place on the 20th in Tabakalera’s Z Room, the event will be attended by the screenwriter and producer Xabier Zabaleta, Original Content Manager at Movistar Plus+ Cristina Merino, and the producer Andrea Herrera Catalá.

On the 23rd, the San Telmo Museum will provide the setting for the Film Talk on Distribution and internationalization of Latin-American LGBTQIA+ films, to be attended by the Brazilian producer Sandro Fiorin, the Chilean filmmaker Ignacio Juricic and the Director of Marketing and Communication at Filmin, Pilar Toro.

In the framework of Zinemaldia & Technology, the Festival section seeking to strengthen connections between technology and the audiovisual sector, on Thursday 25^th Tabakalera’s Prisma gallery will host the conversation Beyond AI: Inclusive Technologies in the Audiovisual Sector. The participants will be the filmmaker and researcher Anna Giralt Gris, the producer Selva González and the Director General of GESAC, Adriana Moscoso.

In addition to these film talks, the Industry Department will organise several talks and round tables on subjects such as the present and future of European audiovisual media. For the fourth year running, it will also organise the Creative Investors' Conference (Spanish Screenings: Financing & Tech). This event will encompass a series of conferences and conversations on topics including the new European studio model, private investment priorities and the rise of Latin American content.

FILM TALKS PROGRAMME