The Elías Querejeta Film School publishes its report on the 2018-2019 Academic Year

The report describes the activities carried out during the school's first ever academic year

The Elías Querejeta Film School (EQZE) has recently presented its Report on the 2018-2019 Academic Year to the general public. The report describes the activities carried out during the school's first ever academic year, which began on 19 September 2018 and concluded on 20 December 2019.

The Elías Querejeta Film School (EQZE) has recently presented its Report on the 2018-2019 Academic Year to the general public. The report describes the activities carried out during the school's first ever academic year, which began on 19 September 2018 and concluded on 20 December 2019.

Between the teaching staff at the school (which includes experts from the Basque Film Library, the San Sebastián Film Festival and the Tabakalera ICCC), professionals from the world of film (filmmakers and representatives from festivals, institutions, film libraries, museums and collections, etc.) and guests attending the Critical and Analysis Sessions Seminar organised in collaboration with the San Sebastián Film Festival, approximately one hundred professionals visited the school during the 2018-2019 academic year.

The Report on the 2018-2019 Academic Year places special emphasis on 5 specific aspects:

1. Student promotion

The work carried out by students at the Elías Querejeta Film School during the academic year resulted in a wide variety of film-related projects, mainly falling into three broad categories:

  a. Creative projects (films, installations): 27 finished films and 30 under development.

  b. Curating projects (cycles, publications, exhibitions): 11 finished projects and 8 under development.

  c. Archive projects (restoration and conservation): 16 finished projects and 3 under development.

Another outcome of the work carried out during the 15-month academic year is the book entitled HIPOTESI(S) 1:, the first of a series of annual thematic publications edited by students on the Curation course. The theme chosen for the first volume was transformation.

The report also outlines the work carried out by students within the framework of the school's various research projects, in which they participate as researchers, making a significant contribution to the school's results and productivity in this field.

Finally, the report also charts the students' immediate professional evolution following their time at the EQZE, and provides information about the grants, artistic residencies and funds to which they have had access since their graduation. It also lists any employment contracts that have been signed.

2. Collaboration agreements

During its first academic year, the Elías Querejeta Film School reached an agreement with the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU) to become an associated centre of that university. The agreement establishes that, as of 1 February 2019, the UPV/EHU recognises the school's postgraduate courses as official university Master's degrees.

Moreover, the EQZE has also signed another three collaboration agreements with the Bienal Arte Joven Buenos Aires (Argentina), the Portuguese Film Library - Museu do Cinema (Portugal) and the French filmmaker Jean-Claude Rousseau, with the aim of articulating a research programme focusing on his first film Jeune femme à sa fenêtre lisant une lettre (1983).

In addition to the aforementioned institutions, the EQZE has also collaborated with the Iruña-Pamplona City Council, the Barcelona Centre for Contemporary Culture (CCCB), the London-based distributor Cinenova, the Cervantes Institute, the distributor LUX, the University of Calgary, the VGIK (All-Russian State University of Cinematography), the Jorge Oteiza Museum Foundation, the Istituto Internazionale Andrej Tarkovskij and the Olatu Talka, Zinebi, Punto de Vista, Zinetika, Euskal Zine Bilera and Viennale Festivals, either through its academic programme or its research projects.

3. A school that is open to the public

In September 2018, the Elías Querejeta Film School joined the joint film programming initiative (Pantalla compartida - Shared screen), along with Donostia Kultura, the Basque Film Library, the Tabakalera CICC and the San Sebastián Film Festival. Within the framework of this initiative, the EQZE organised a number of cycles (Eskolatik, Historias de Cine and one on avant-garde film) during the course of which it screened around thirty films. On a slightly different note, in collaboration with the San Sebastián Film Festival, the EQZE organised an open day in December 2019, during which it presented the initial results of the research project 'Zinemaldia 70. Todas las historias posibles' (San Sebastián Film Festival 70. All possible (his)stories), focused on the early years of the Transition (1976-1980). The school also participated in the city of San Sebastián's first Home Movie Day, a seminar with the writer Menchu Gutiérrez and workshops with Harkaitz Cano and the North American archivist, writer, film director and educator Rick Prelinger. In Pamplona, the school's Curation group organised a street videoart exhibition entitled Otras luces – Bestelako argiak (Other lights), in response to a commission from the City Council's Department of Culture.

4. Participation in other programmes      

The Elías Querejeta Film School joined and participated actively in the fifth Ikusmira Berriak residency programme organised by the San Sebastián Film Festival and Tabakalera. As a result, for the first time the agendas of the school and the residency programme coincided, enabling residents to access the school's academic programme and engage in individual tutorials. The sixth Ikusmira Berriak residency programme incorporated a fifth access option reserved exclusively for EQZE graduates. The EQZE student selected to participate in the initiative was Gabriel Azorín, who started the first part of his residency this March. Another 8 students from the school applied to the programme with their projects.

During the 2018-2019 academic year, the school also continued to participate with Tabakalera in Zinema (h) abian - Cinema en curs, an educational film project created by the cultural association A Bao A Qu, which is run in two schools (Oriarte High School in Lasarte-Oria and Usandizaga-Peñaflorida High School in San Sebastián) throughout the academic year.

5. Access to grant and subsidy programmes for future students

Another area of activity was the search for sources of financial support for future students. The Latin American financial aid fund Ibermedia made the decision to include the Elías Querejeta Film School in its Support for Training Programmes initiative, earmarking a total of 30,000 dollars to establishing 10 mobility and lifelong learning grants to be awarded to students in the school's third intake group. This is, of course, in addition to three grants offered every year, right from start, by the Gipuzkoa Provincial Council, through its Department of Culture, and the Paradiso Grant provided by the Olga Rabinovich Institute's Paradiso Project, which will be awarded to a Brazilian student during the next academic year.

Carlos Muguiro, director of the EQZE, believes that the report 'sums up the intense academic and cinematographic work carried out by the first intake of students at the EQZE', pointing out that 'the most important thing, which is difficult to measure in quantitative terms, is this project's power to bring about social and personal transformation in the medium term'.