The San Sebastián Film Festival will be a subject at EQZE

The “Festival in progress” subject will be structured as a debate format and, as well as passing on knowledge, will provide an opportunity for the Festival itself to rethink its approach, re-examine its distinguishing features and question its strategies

The San Sebastián International Film Festival will have a specific subject in the Elías Querejeta Film School syllabus, in which the process of preparing the Festival and the selection criteria to be followed for its programming will be shared with students.

The school, created by Gipuzkoa Provincial Council, offers a unique pedagogical project, consisting of the postgraduate courses in Film Preservation, Curating and Filmmaking that take shape based on the spheres of knowledge of the three film institutions that are taking part in its conceptualisation: the Basque Film Library, the San Sebastián International Film Festival and Tabakalera International Centre for Contemporary Culture, respectively.

Within the context of the Curating speciality, which focuses on the conceptualisation, management, development and dissemination of programmes, publications, interventions and exhibitions in which cinema and the audio-visual arts play the leading role, the San Sebastián International Film Festival will have a specific subject in which the process of preparing a film festival, the selection criteria followed in its programming in real time and the features that distinguish it from other film events will be shared with students and professionals at the school.

The “Festival in progress” subject will be structured as a debate format and, as well as passing on knowledge, will provide an opportunity for the Festival itself to rethink its approach, re-examine its distinguishing features and question its strategies regarding its audience, the industry or media professionals. The organisation of the Festival will be addressed with regard to communication, industry, production, marketing, technical aspects or public relations, and the models established by other festivals will also be analysed, and some of the people in charge of them will be attending the sessions.

The two-hour sessions will be held throughout the entire academic year, from October to September. The school course, which will start on the 21st of September, the same day as the Festival begins, and will end on the last day of the 2019 Festival, will last for 56 weeks of face-to-face teaching activity.

The months that run from the beginning of the Festival to mid-June will focus on the teaching part, the development of the personal Project and professional practical training sessions. The activity in summer will focus especially on the professional practical training sessions and the auteur filmmaking workshops, and finally in December students will defend their personal projects.