The Provincial Council of Gipuzkoa presents the new Film School

Work at the new school will start in March and be completed in September this year. The process to select the management of the Film School will be announced soon.

Itxaso: Itxaso: “This will lay the basis for one of the key political commitments of the legislature. We still have time to harness all of our potential in the world of cinema”

The Chief of Staff of the Deputy General’s Office and Regional Minister for Culture, Denis Itxaso, has unveiled the details of the new film school to be created at Tabakalera. To this end, the Provincial Council of Gipuzkoa and Tabakalera have signed a collaboration agreement to enable a space of 539m2 on the ground floor of Tabakalera to house the school. The Provincial Council has done this with an agreement to use this space for the next 25 years and can develop its film school project there.

Itxaso explained that this project fulfils one of the most important political commitments in terms of culture in this legislature and is strategic by contributing to the transformation of the cultural model for the region and adapting it to new realities. Gipuzkoa is a privileged environment in terms of cinema and the audiovisual, as it has top rate professionals, significant events and highly interested citizens, but it lacks the training to match. “The new Film School will also make Tabakalera a factory producing professionals specialising in the audiovisual and cinema and a key factor in laying solid foundations for the future of this sector in Gipuzkoa”.

Gipuzkoa, and the Basque Country by extension, is a region in which the audiovisual industry is undergoing an evolution that has made it one of the creative areas of most significance artistically and economically. The fabric of production agencies, the ecosystem that they form at Tabakalera, the International Film Festival, the Basque Film Archive, education services such as the UBIK media library and the projection room, or programmes such as Ikusmira Berriak indicate that there is room for a project that seeks to strengthen ties between the worlds of creation, training and heritage.Therefore, the natural place to locate this centre was considered to be Tabakalera, as that is where you will find practically the entire audiovisual ecosystem in the region.

“The aim of this school is to promote supplementary training and support to creators in the audiovisual field," said Itxaso.

Three institutions and one project

The pedagogical project which will be developed is based on integrating the areas in which the three institutions linked to the audiovisual in the building work, i.e., the Basque Film Archive, the San Sebastian Film Festival and the Tabakalera cultural project.

The proposal for the call for ideas that is open is structured around three areas:

1. Archiving, cataloguing and film restoration, which includes preservation, memory, history…

2. Film event planning and management: Scope of the San Sebastian International Film Festival, focusing on programming, organising festivals, criticism…

3. Film creation and direction: scope of the Tabakalera cultural project, which covers audiovisual language, image, sound, narration…

“This project should look at contemporary audiovisual creation by enquiring into the past (film archive, memory, origins), providing an insight into the reality of today’s audiovisual industry and its audiences and offering a space for the creative development of film projects that are yet to come. The three knowledge fields (film archiving, curating and creating) around which the programme should revolve make up the three mutually supporting professional scenarios which are required in today's audiovisual”, explained Itxaso.

In short, the department will approve a call for a competition to select the best project for the design, development and implementation of this Tabakalera audiovisual training centre, as well as choose the management of the centre.

Refurbishment work

The refurbishment work of this centre, which will be located in the southwest corner of floor 0 of Tabakalera, has already been put out to tender. The work that has already been put out to tender for €285,750.50 (VAT not included) and which is expected to be completed by August of this year will consist of remodelling the interior space to adapt it to its new use.

The space is currently in good condition, as a general refurbishment of the building was carried out recently and it has the basic infrastructures.

In accordance with the approved project, the space will be divided into various areas:

1. Reception and administration area: located at the entrance to the school

2. Teaching area: located in the central area of the school, this area includes three large classrooms for teaching, with room for 25 students in the largest and 15 in the other two and two small workshop classrooms intended in principle as a photography and equipment workshop for projection and editing.

3. Studies: four areas called studies, three of them closed and one open devoted to audio and video editing.

In general, the idea has been to design a layout that maximises the use of space and lighting in it.