The 2022-2023 Academic Year begins for the fifth intake year at Elías Querejeta Zine Eskola

The students accepted onto the course for the 2022-2023 academic year were selected by the school’s Academic Management Team (made up of representatives from the Basque Film Archive, Tabakalera, the San Sebastián Film Festival and EQZE) from among the 165 applications received during the admissions period. Successful candidates include 25 women and 20 men, 4 from the Autonomous Community of the Basque Country, 12 from other parts of Spain and 29 from other countries, including Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, France, Mexico, Nicaragua, Peru, Portugal, Romania, Switzerland and Uruguay. The mean age of this year’s students is 30 years.

EQZE students have a wide range of different profiles: filmmakers, scriptwriters and editors of short films, feature films and installations that have been premièred and received prizes in many different festivals and exhibitions; authors of pieces shown at museums and galleries; and graduates in Visual Anthropology, the Visual Arts, Media Science, Audiovisual Communication, Fine Art, Law, Literary Studies, Philosophy, Humanities and Journalism from universities throughout the world (Art Faculty at the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, Faculty of Art and Design at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, Faculty of Social Communication at the UFRJ - Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, the Lisbon Advanced School of Theatre and Cinema, King’s College, Sorbonne Nouvelle, the Autonomous University of Barcelona, the University of Lima, Carlos III University in Madrid, the University of Cordoba, the University of Texas, the University of the Basque Country, the National Autonomous University of Mexico, the Polytechnic University of Valencia, Pompeu Fabra University, and the University of the West of Scotland, among others). Students are also graduates from film schools (Bande à Part, ECAM, ESCAC, Lisbon Advanced School of Theatre and Cinema, San Antonio de los Baños International School of Film and Television (EICTV), Mexico International School of Film Arts, Multidisciplinary School of Dramatic Art (EMAD), National School of Filmmaking and Experimentation (ENERC), TAI School, Madrid Film Institute, the Film Programme at Di Tella University and the Film University (FUC), among others); university lecturers; film production and distribution specialists; curators with experience in production, management and programming at film festivals, film archives, film seasons, artistic programmes, exhibitions and installations; film critics; members of independent film groups; specialists in conservation; researchers; and professionals with extensive experience in fields such as editing, photography, sound and design.

The academic year begins today, four days before the official opening of the 70th San Sebastián International Film Festival, in which students from the fourth and fifth intake groups will have the chance to participate in a specific agenda that will include screenings, master-classes, the International Film Students Encounter (Nest) and other activities, as well as gaining an insider's view of how the festival works and is organised. Regular classes will commence on 26 September, after the end of the Festival.

Scholarships

A total of 18 students will benefit from the scholarships awarded by the institutions that directly support the Elías Querejeta Zine Eskola project.

14 students will each receive a grant totalling $3,571 from the Latin American Support Fund, Ibermedia, which has once again selected EQZE within its initiative for Supporting Training Programmes (2021 call). The programme is open to film and television schools, universities, specialist professional education centres, private companies and professional organisations and associations from the entire Latin American audiovisual industry. The committee charged with awarding grants to training and education programmes highlighted (among other aspects) the ‘ambition and ingenuity’ of the EQZE project, which ‘approaches the contemporary problems of the film world in a unique way’. It also underscored the high quality of the school’s ‘teaching model and the possibilities it offers participants in terms of exploring their own creative processes’. Elías Querejeta Zine Eskola is one of only two Spanish institutions (the other being the Community of Madrid Film and Audiovisual School, ECAM) to have received support from the fund within this category. Three students from the province of Gipuzkoa will each receive one of the ‘Izango Zara’ grants awarded by the Culture Department of the Provincial Council, which bestows three €2,500 scholarships to cover registration fees; and one Brazilian student will be the recipient of the grant awarded by the Paradiso Project’s Olga Rabinovich Institute (Brazil).

The number of students receiving scholarships may increase at the end of the application process for the ‘Stimulating capacity-building’ grants that form part of the ‘2022 economic stimuli for cinematographic and audiovisual activity’, awarded by the Peruvian Government’s Ministry of Culture, and which aim to help train specialists in the audiovisual and film fields. Elías Querejeta Zine Eskola is one of 4 priority centres in this programme, along with ECAM (Madrid), ESCAC (Barcelona) and EICTV (Cuba).

Important presence of EQZE films at festivals

Many works by students and alumni from the school have featured in film festivals during the summer months. Curtas Vila do Conde (Portugal), the Cannes Festival, the Locarno Festival, FIDMarseille, IndieLisboa and the Sheffield Doc Fest have all featured films made by students from the school’s first four intake years. Some of the films and projects also won awards. This is the case with Se van sus naves, a film currently under development by Óscar Vincentelli, which won the Camargo Prize at FIDLab, the development lab established within the framework of the FIDMarseille Festival, and was selected for the residence programme by the Locarno Festival, alongside Ana Cristina Barragán’s film Sopor y Ave. Other films featured during the FIDMarseille include Zehn minuten vor mitternacht by Mario Sanz, Vermelho Bruto by Amanda Devulsky and O banho by Maria Ines Gonçalves, who also presented the same film at IndieLisboa. Curtas Vila do Conde screened Trazos de silencio, by Valentina Pelayo, and the Sheffield Doc Fest, the Shorts International Film Festival and the Gollut Festival screened Podul de piatrâ by Artur-Pol Camprubí. Finally, Un viento roza tu puerta, by Jorge Castrillo, formed part of the New Spanish Shorts section at the Cannes Festival.

As for the SSIFF, which starts on 16 September, 5 films by students at the school are due to be screened in different sections: La piel pulpo by Ana Cristina Barragán, La casa de los cáctus by Carlota González-Adrio and Noizko Basoa by Mikele Landa will be featured in Horizontes Latinos, Made in Spain and Nest Film Students (respectively), and Estrany riu by Jaume Claret and La hiedra, another project by Ana Cristina Barragán, will form part of this year’s Ikusmira Berriak programme.

Created and funded by the Gipuzkoa Provincial Council, Elías Querejeta Zine Eskola is a unique educational initiative comprising three postgraduate courses (Film Preservation Studies, Film Curating Studies and Filmmaking Studies) which stem from the specialist knowledge areas of the three institutions involved in its running: the Basque Film Archive, the Tabakalera International Centre for Contemporary Culture and the San Sebastian Film Festival. Since 2019, EQZE has formally been a part of the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU).