Radu Jude will be engaging in a residency at Elías Querejeta Zine Eskola

The first residency will be held this academic year as a pilot programme, and will last for four weeks, from 7 March to 1 April. The filmmaker in residence will be Radu Jude (Bucharest, 1977).

Jude will spend four weeks at the EQZE as part of the ‘Filmmakers in residence’ programme, which combines support for guest filmmakers’ projects with the creation of a space for practical and theoretical exchange with students

Starting this academic year (2021-2022), Elías Querejeta Zine Eskola will be inviting prestigious filmmakers to live and work with the school community for short periods, within the ‘Filmmakers in residence’ programme. Residencies will vary in length, but during them all guest filmmakers will have the opportunity to work on developing their new film projects with the support and resources of the school, while at the same time sharing their creative process with students on the Filmmaking Studies course, in accordance with a specific working plan. The aim of this second part of the programme is to establish a practical film experimentation project with students.

The first residency will be held this academic year as a pilot programme, and will last for four weeks, from 7 March to 1 April. The filmmaker in residence will be Radu Jude (Bucharest, 1977), who won the Golden Bear for Best Film at the 2021 Berlin Festival for Babardeală cu bucluc sau porno balamuc (Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn). Radu Jude debuted in the film world with the feature Cea mai fericită fată din lume (The Happiest Girl in the World, 2009), which was screened at many festivals all over the world. He has since made a wide variety of films, including Aferim! (2015), for which he won the Golden Bear for Best Director at the Berlin Festival; Inimi cicatrizate (Scarred Hearts, 2016), which won the Special Jury Prize at Locarno; and Îmi este indiferent daca în istorie vom intra ca barbari (I Do Not Care If We Go Down in History as Barbarians, 2018), which won the Crystal Globe at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival. The Romanian director and scriptwriter has also directed the documentaries Țara moartă (The Dead Nation, 2017) and Iesirea trenurilor din gara (The Exit of the Trains, 2020). During his residency he will be accompanied by Marius Panduru, who has served as director of photography for most of his films and regularly collaborates with other leading Romanian filmmakers, such as Cristi Puiu and Corneliu Porumboiu.

During his stay at EQZE, Radu Jude will provide students on the Filmmaking Studies course with insights into his work on the new film he is planning to shoot during the middle of this year (script, images of the casting sessions, locations, camera tests, etc.). He will also give a seminar on the dilemmas facing the film world when tackling issues linked to historical memory, offering a critical analysis of the aforementioned film Îmi este indiferent dacă în istorie vom intra ca barbari (I Do Not Care If We Go Down in History as Barbarians) and some of the materials (photographs, archive images and texts, etc.) on which it is based. The filmmaker’s proposal also includes the development of a film project made up of various short works based on adaptations of texts by either Thomas Bernhard or Anton Chekhov. The idea is that students will be actively engaged in the entire creative process.

Elías Querejeta Zine Eskola plans to invite two to three different filmmakers to engage in residencies at the school each academic year. The residencies will be incorporated into the syllabus at different moments and for differing durations, depending on the characteristics and stage of the projects in question and the point in the academic year at which the residencies are held. ‘Filmmakers in residence’ forms part of EQZE’s academic and research residency plan and aims to combine support for the creative process of the selected filmmakers, who will all be engaged in a specific project, with the generation of a space for mutual learning, intergenerational knowledge transmission and joint film research and exploration by students and established filmmakers.

SSIFF screening

In March, the San Sebastián International Film Festival (SSIFF) will screen Cea mai fericitã fatã din lume (The Happiest Girl in the World) at Tabakalera, in a session featuring Radu Jude himself. Last year, the Festival screened Babardeală cu bucluc sau porno balamuc (Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn) within the Zabaltegi-Tabakalera section. The screening forms part of the Festival’s Zinemaldia + Plus programme, which aims both to provide a space to filmmakers linked to the SSIFF and to support emerging talent.