EQZE researches ZINEBI's film collection

ZINEBI, the International Festival of Documentary and Short Film of Bilbao, promoted by Bilbao City Council, has presented the initial results of the research project begun by Elías Querejeta Zine Eskola on their film collection, which includes 339 screener copies of 16 and 35 mm films produced between 1959 (the year the Festival was founded) and 2011.

The bulk of the collection is made up of films produced after 1974, the year in which the International Documentary and Short Film Contest of Bilbao, now known as ZINEBI, was recognised for the first time by the International Federation of Film Producers Associations (FIAPF) as a festival with the highest international competitive category. This recognition allowed contests in this category to include in their rules the possibility for awarded films to remain in the archive for the festival’s own purposes.

After two years of work at Elías Querejeta Zine Eskola, a database was created that included films which, in the majority of cases, won awards at the Festival. Such was the case with part of the filmography of Studio H&S (Walter Heynowski and Gerhard Scheumann, of the former German Democratic Republic (GDR), short films produced by the fundamental Cuban documentary maker Santiago Álvarez, and works by Basque filmmakers such as Begoña Vicario, Pedro Olea, Montxo Armendáriz, Ernesto del Río (director of ZINEBI from 1999 to 2017), Antton Merikaetxebarria, Javier Rebollo and Juanma Bajo Ulloa. The Archive also preserves the collection of the Spanish-Soviet Friendship Association, comprised of 56 documentaries and news reports shot on 16 mm film.

All these photochemical film materials were deposited at Filmoteca Vasca in March 2018 to ensure their proper storage and conservation. In 2020, work began on cataloguing the collection.

ZINEBI also preserves the Festival’s catalogues, copies of “Miqueldi/Mikeldi” (the journal published by the Festival), a collection of MiniDVs and DVDs with the Festival’s audiovisual journals –entitled “Zineberri” and created between 2003 and 2010–, as well as photographs, posters and internal administrative paper documentation.

“ZINEBI Collection”

As part of the 2022-2023 course, Elías Querejeta Zine Eskola launched the research project “ZINEBI Collection”, to carry out a critical exploration of the Bilbao festival. The project was structured around three lines of work: research on the history of the Festival, identification and cataloguing of the collection, and the creation of public programmes for disseminating the initiative.

Two years after the project launch, two-thirds of the 339 copies that made up the collection had been identified, inspected and catalogued. The work is expected to be completed by December 2025.

At the same time, research was carried out on local and state archives that served to document aspects such as the influence of political and diplomatic relationships on the early editions of the Festival, the relationships between the Festival and censorship bodies and the specialist press, the tensions between institutions and social movements reflected in the programmed films, and the response to the military dictatorships of Argentina and Chile. Other lines study the works of filmmakers who participated in the Festival, such as Manuel Otero, the Spanish animator exiled in France, and the aforementioned Heynowski and Scheumann. In addition, research has also been initiated on works from film schools and other technological issues. All of this work is being carried out under the supervision of the project’s lead researcher, Santiago Aguilar, with the support of work teams formed of EQZE researchers and students.

More details about the current situation of the cataloguing and analysis of the Festival’s film collection, and the objectives of the ongoing research, will be presented as part of the Bilbao Professional Film Forum, on 12 November at Bilbao AS Fabrik.

Public access

ZINEBI’s proposes that this work be extended beyond the academic sphere and be made available to the public. The most important initiative in this respect is the creation of an online platform that will include all the information related to the collections of catalogues, journals, posters and photographs; the catalogue of films deposited at Filmoteca Vasca; and the research carried out on the history of the Festival, together with other content. The ultimate goal is to create a meeting space for critical research and debate among archivists, researchers, cultural managers and the public in general, since the ZINEBI collection offers rich study material open to numerous perspectives of analysis and contemporary approaches.