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

Films made by Elías Querejeta Zine Eskola students will once again be well represented at the San Sebastián International Film Festival (SSIFF). A significant number of productions created at the school by students and alumni—a total of five films and three projects under development—will be included in the programme of the 73rd SSIFF.

Presence in Horizontes Latinos and Zabaltegi-Tabakalera

Horizontes Latinos opens its doors to the latest work by Ana Cristina Barragán (Quito, 1987), an alumna from the third intake year who closed the section in 2022 with La piel pulpo and received a special mention from the jury with Alba in 2016. Her new work, Hiedra, focuses on a woman obsessed with a younger boy who lives in an orphanage. This new film by the Ecuadorian filmmaker was selected for the eighth Ikusmira Berriak development programme (2022) run by the San Sebastian Film Festival, the Tabakalera ICCC and the EQZE, and recently won the prize for best screenplay in the Orizzonti section of the Venice Film Festival.

The Zabaltegi-Tabakalera section will host the national premières of Estrany riu by Jaume Claret Muxart (Sant Cugat, 1998) and Duas vezes João Liberada by Paula Tomás Marques (Porto, 1994).

Estrany Riu tells the story of a bike trip along the Danube taken by two brothers, Dídac and Biel, and their family, during a holiday that is disrupted by the appearance of a mysterious young man. Like Hiedra, the world première of the first feature film by this student from the first intake year at the school took place in the Orizzonti section of the Venice Film Festival. The project was also selected for the eighth Ikusmira Berria programme.

In Duas vezes João Liberada, João, an actress from Lisbon, stars in a biographical film about Liberada, a gender non-conforming woman who the Inquisition persecuted in 18th-century Portugal. The production becomes a battlefield when João confronts the director over how Liberada's legacy should be portrayed. This début feature film by a student from the school’s third intake year premièred at the Berlinale within the Perspectives section and has since been screened at (among others) the Uruguay Film Festival, the Taipei Film Festival and the Karlovy Vary Film Festival.

The Klasikoak and Nest sections

The Klasikoak section of the San Sebastian International Film Festival will present the restored version of En el balcón vacío (Jomí García Ascot, 1961). Shot in Mexico and based on the memories of Navarran-born María Luisa Elio, the film is a key example of republican exile cinema. This film restoration project, which was completed at the Elías Querejeta Zine Eskola, is the end result of the graduation assignment carried out by Luis Alberto Juárez Pineda, a student from the school’s sixth intake year. The new version of En el balcón vacío was selected in June to feature at the Il Cinema Ritrovato festival in Bologna.

The film school student section, Nest, will once again feature a film by a student at the Elías Querejeta Zine Eskola. On this occasion, the film is A solidão dos lagartos by Inês Nunes (Lisbon, 1993), a student from the fifth intake year. The film, which premièred in the short film competition at the Cannes Film Festival, is set in a spa that transforms when night falls. This short film was selected, along with another fourteen films, from among the 473 candidates proposed by 220 schools from 57 countries.

Only Making Out by Marlon Weber, a student from the seventh intake year, will also compete in Nest. This short film was made while Weber was studying at the HFBK Academy of Fine Arts in Hamburg.

Projects under development

Another three film projects that will be screened at the SSIFF, in this case as projects under development, are Sirenas by Alexandra Latishev Salazar (Costa Rica, 1987) and Retorno al valle by Jaime Puertas Castillo (Puebla de don Fadrique, 1996), from the sixth and third intake years, respectively, and residents during the latest Ikusmira Berriak programme; and Una Thermomix en el desierto by Inés Calero (Alcoi, 1993), from the fourth intake year, which will be presented during the Lau Haizetara Documentary Co-production Forum. Alumni and students from the EQZE will also participate 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 a result of direct contracts with the SSIFF. Students from the seventh and eighth intake years will follow a specific agenda, attending screenings, masterclasses and the Nest International Film Students Meeting and engaging in other activities.