Five films by Elías Querejeta Zine Eskola students to participate in the 70th San Sebastián Film Festival

Ana Cristina Barragán (Quito, 1987), a student from the third EQZE intake year, will close the Horizontes Latinos section with her second feature film, entitled La piel pulpo. This film was featured in the 2021 festival, in the WIP Latam section. Her first film, Alba (2016), won the Lions Film Award at the Rotterdam Festival and received a Special Mention from the Jury in the Horizontes Latinos section of the 2016 SSIFF. For the fourth year running, the film school students section, Nest Film Students, will include a film presented by EQZE. This year, the film in question is Noizko basoa, directed by Mikele Landa Egiguren (Bilbao, 1995), a student from the fourth intake year. This short film was selected, along with another thirteen films, from among the 350 candidates proposed by 160 schools from 44 countries. Noizko basoa and Erro bi, by Nagore Muriel Letamendia (a student at the University of the Basque Country - UPV/EHU), are the two first short films in the Basque language to compete in Nest since the section was first introduced 21 years ago. Carlota González-Adrio (Barcelona, 1996), a student from the third intake year at the school, will participate in the Made in Spain section with her opera prima, La casa entre los cáctus.

Another two ongoing projects will also be featured in the SSIFF, within the latest Ikusmira Berriak programme. The projects in question are Estrany riu by Jaume Claret (Sant Cugat, 1998), a student from the first intake year, and La hiedra, Ana Cristina Barragán’s latest initiative. The two filmmakers will explain the evolution of their projects to representatives from the industry, within the framework of the second residency period organised by the festival, together with Tabakalera and EQZE. Ikusmira Berriak is also the source of another four films that will be screened during the festival: Suro by Mikel Gurrea and Pornomelancolía by Manuel Abramovich, which will compete in the Official Section; and El agua by Elena López Riera and 918 gau by Arantza Santesteban, which will feature in Zabaltegi-Tabakalera and Zinemira (respectively).

Alumni and students from the school will also be participating in other areas of the festival (industry, programming, technical field, communications and public relations, to name but a few), through both the professional work experience programme and as the result of direct contracts with the SSIFF.

All possible histories

In 2018, in collaboration with the SSIFF, Elías Querejeta Zine Eskola created the project: ‘Zinemaldia 70: all possible histories’, which aims to conserve, study and open up to public consultation the Festival's historic archives, which contain a huge volume of different documents (including letters, photographs, posters, press and magazine cuttings and books), dating back to its foundation in 1953. The project was prompted by the transfer of the archive collection to the Tabakalera building in order to guarantee its correct conservation in the premises belonging to the Basque Film Archive. Over recent years, work has continued on cataloguing, digitising and studying the collection.

Various different research focuses have been defined since the start of the project, with each area being explored by a group of postgraduate students from EQZE, under the leadership of the researcher Pablo La Parra Pérez and in collaboration with the different Festival departments. These areas emphasise little-known or hitherto undiscovered aspects of the history of the Festival: film censorship during Franco’s dictatorship; its transformation and democratisation during the Transition years; a critical and feminist review of the Festival’s visual history through its photographic heritage; the participation of students and film schools in the Festival, and the Video Festival that was included in the competition programme between 1982 and 1985. Since 2019, the project has published its results in academic papers, conferences and specialist seminars, exhibitions, courses and educational meetings. Coinciding with the 70th anniversary of the SSIFF, 2022 marks the end of the first phase of the project and the opening up of the archive to public consultation.

The 70th San Sebastián International Film Festival will commence four days after the start of the 2022-2023 academic year at Elías Querejeta Zine Eskola. Students from the fourth and fifth intake years will follow a specific agenda, attending screenings, master-classes and the Nest International Film Students Meeting and engaging in other activities, as well as gaining a first-hand glimpse into the festival's inner workings and organisation.

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