Production
Cinema of tomorrow
The creative production area focuses on the materialization of projects developed by EQZE students, either during their time at school or later, once they graduate. The department supports the materialization of projects of both Creative students, as well as Curatorial and Archival.
The school behaves in this phase as a motor producer that allows studying the viability of the projects, looking for external partners and leading the materialization of these initiatives.
Rosina Prado, filmmaker in exile
Rosina Prado (Cartagena, 1935) was a Spanish filmmaker who lived in exile in the USSR and Cuba following the civil war. On June 9, the EQZE cinema hosted a gathering around her figure and her work, within which the new digitization of Prijodiat y ujodiat poezda (Trains Will Come and Go, 1961) was screened, the short film she shot during her years at Moscow's VGIK.
Aztarnak
Aztarnak proposes cinema as a space for exploration, a way to imagine possible futures from the traces and signs that run through our present. Curated by students on the 2025-2026 Film Curating Studies programme, it unfolds across ten sessions divided into three blocks and began on 15 February.
Courtisane Festival 2026
For the third year running, Film Curating Studies students at the EQZE organised programmes at the Courtisane Festival. During the 25th festival, students from the 2024-2025 intake year presented their proposals within Undercurrents, the section dedicated to emerging practices in the field of the moving image.
Natalia Orasanin curated two programmes: ‘A Motion Study’, about cinematic movement, and ‘Tonight Will Be the End of Meaning’, which questions the conventions of narrative cinema; and Elisa Juri organised ‘In Their Semi Off-Hours’, a double feature about the tensions between busy time and free time.
Zinebotanika
Zinebotanika, a workshop created by Cristina Neira at EQZE, proposes the collective creation of a 16mm film using botanical elements —petals, leaves, stems— fixed directly onto the celluloid.
Hypothesis 2025
"The Time of Hypotheses" is the event in which the Master's students of the three specialties of Elías Querejeta Zine Eskola —Film Archive Studies, Film Curating Studies and Filmmaking Studies— exhibit the works they have developed throughout the course.
ZINEMA GOXOA
ZINEMA GOXOA, a proposal developed by students on the 2024-2025 Film Curating Studies programme, sought to rekindle the joy of the cinema experience. The programme ran across six free sessions between May and December, with films kept secret until the moment of screening.
Zine izarak
Workshop promoted by the Tabakalera audiovisual laboratory and EQZE, in which ten participants developed a collective work alongside Harkaitz Cano. The workshop addressed topics that form part of creative processes: image rights, cinematographic references, types of narrative or the editing of archives, among others.
Courtisane Festival 2025
Domestic memory and musical writing were the focus of the two programmes organised by Film Curating Studies students from the 2023-2024 intake year at the EQZE during the 24th Courtisane Festival.
Juliana Arana Toscano curated the programme ‘Domestic_graphies, about the importance of memory in domestic gestures; and Ana Júlia Silvino curated ‘Interwoven Scores: A Symphony of Correspondence’, which takes an interdisciplinary look at the work of composers such as Beatriz Ferreyra and Éliane Radigue and the filmmaker Lis Rhodes.
Hypothesis 2024
"The Time of Hypotheses" is the event in which the Master's students of the three specialties of Elías Querejeta Zine Eskola (Film Archive Studies, Film Curating Studies and Filmmaking Studies) exhibit the works they have developed throughout the course.
En la otra isla
Films restored at EQZE made up the programme of ‘En la otra isla’ [On the other island], organised jointly with the SSIFF and the Basque Film Archive. The season, which forms part of the festival’s Klasikoak programme, included a selection of Cuban films made between the 1960s and the 1980s that featured little-known works by filmmakers such as Sara Gómez and Nicolás Guillén Landrián, films by key figures such as Santiago Álvarez, and works by amateur movie makers working on the fringes of the institutional structure.
Abrazo inmaterial
Curated by Lorena García Espino, a Film Curating Studies student at the EQZE, this project brought together in Bilbao the work of four LGBTIQ+ artists from Latin America who are immersed in migration processes. The works exhibited addressed the link between image and self-representation through digital media, using technology as a form of activism and advocacy.
España y guadaña. Espectros de un pueblo por venir
This season, held at the Filmoteca Española, featured films that explore the relationship between peoples and the image of death, through rituals, celebrations and theatre. The main focus of the programme was Los ángeles exterminados (Michel Mitrani, 1968), although it also featured films by Luis Buñuel, Jacinto Esteva and Glauber Rocha.
The season emerged from the graduation project carried out by Isaac Tejedor Martín, a student at the EQZE.
Map of the institutional and legal labyrinth of the audiovisual industry
Coordinated by Adriana Moscoso, CEO of GESAC, the seminar focused on the laws and policies that govern and promote the audiovisual industry. Participants included Sydney Borjas, director of Scenic Rights; Patricia Motilla, partner at the firm Andersen and specialist in the audiovisual sector; Marta Rincón Areitio, head of visual arts at Acción Cultural Española; Elena Manrique, producer; and Borja Cobeaga, filmmaker.
A desert island
Arriving on a deserted island is a particular experience. What awaits us far from the mainland? The anguish of loneliness? The dream of liberation? An island, whether real or imaginary, is a place to begin again. This new beginning is the starting point for this film programme. After all, the cinema screen is also an island that welcomes and unites – that opens the way to new possibilities. The curated films explore the notion of residing in a space, forging collective existence, and transcending isolation for self-discovery.
Courtisane Festival 2024
Three Film Curating Studies students from the 2022-2023 intake year at the EQZE received an invitation to organise three separate programmes at the 23rd Courtisane Festival in Belgium.
Sara Domínguez López curated the programme ‘There Is Nothing To Celebrate, My House Is Empty’, about the shared history of Mexico and Peru; Alejo Duclós curated a double queer feature entitled ‘Shameless Memories from Latin America’; and Mireia Montané curated ‘What Is Irony, If Not Melancholy?’, about ironic gestures in cinematic language.
Gipuzkoa lost and found
Workshop led by Rick Prelinger as part of the ‘Diálogos de cineastas’ [Filmmaker dialogues] programme organised by the Koldo Mitxelena Kulturunea, the San Sebastián International Film Festival and Elías Querejeta Zine Eskola. Participants created a film using local film archives provided by Filmoteca Vasca.
A collector of advertising, industrial and educational films since 1983, in 2000, Rick Prelinger created the Prelinger Archives, a collection that currently includes more than 7,800 films available for free download and reuse online. His personal collection, which comprises more than 60,000 films, was acquired in 2002 by the US Library of Congress.
Seminar with Laura Mulvey
Seminar given by filmmaker, essayist and academic Laura Mulvey, a seminal figure in feminist film theory. The encounter, held on 14, 15 and 16 December 2023, formed part of the activities of EQZE's research project Genealogies of Learning. The visit also included two public screenings at the Tabakalera cinema.
Colección privada. The Super-8 and 16 mm Scene in Spain
Programme dedicated to Spain's recent analogue cinema, presented at the Museum of the Moving Image and the Anthology Film Archives in New York, on 13 and 14 May. Over the course of three sessions, the season explored the work of 24 filmmakers who continue to work in 16mm and Super-8. The programme was supported by the EQZE, the Martin Scorsese Department of Cinema Studies, the NYU Moving Image Archiving and Preservation Program, the Orphan Film Symposium and the Consulate General of Spain.
Curated by Carlos Saldaña, a student at the EQZE, and Francisco Algarín, the programme featured works by Laura Moreno, Aldara Pagán and Laura Ibáñez López.
Dejemos que la casa se ensucie
EQZE and Centro Joven Kontadores co-organised 'Dejemos que la casa se ensucie. Ciclo de Cineastas argentinas' (Let the house get dirty. Female Argentinian filmmakers), an exploration of Argentina's contemporary cinema from a feminist and intergenerational perspective. The programme brought together the work of filmmakers such as María Alché, Melisa Liebenthal and Clarisa Navas, and established a dialogue with works by key figures such as María Luisa Bemberg, Lucrecia Martel, Albertina Carri, and Narcisa Hirsch. 'Dejemos que la casa se ensucie' was curated by Lucía Dellacha.
exÓRBITA. Liminal cinema, bodies and spaces
exÓRBITA explores the absence of limits, transitionality and fluidity in contemporary identities, and how they are formed through the transit of bodies across spaces. It also raises questions about the forms that this transit can take through rituality, dance, the body in movement and the cinematographic space itself. The programming oscillated between three different forms: cinema screens, audiovisual installations and live dance.
Arming the camera
A(r)mar la cámara moves through different flashpoints where film was placed at the service of a cause that led to a violent conflict. The programme traces a cartography illustrating these battles, outlining a path to reflect on the connections between social and political conflicts and the mechanisms of divergent film production, both in aesthetic and narrative terms.
Public presentation of the San Sebastian Festival archive
Closing seminar of the ‘Zinemaldia 70: All possible histories’ research project, carried out by the Elías Querejeta Film School and the San Sebastian International Film Festival, organised to coincide with the celebration of the Festival’s 70th anniversary. The meeting examined the archive from three different perspectives—its preservation and cataloguing, its accessibility and consultation, and its use for research purposes—and marked the moment when it was first opened to the public. The presentation concluded with a screening of ¿Cuáles son nuestros años? (Clara Rus, 2021).
Festival in transition: the San Sebastian Festival during the years of change
An exhibition presented at Kutxa Kultur Plaza as part of the research project ‘Zinemaldia 70: All possible histories)’, carried out by the Elías Querejeta Film School and the San Sebastián International Film Festival. Using photographs from the Festival's archives and the Kutxateka collection, the exhibition focused on the upheavals of the decade following Franco's death (1976-1985), a period of experimentation and democratisation for the festival, but also one of profound instability.
Moving away from the usual narrative, which is mainly centred around the withdrawal of the FIAPF's A-list accreditation between 1980 and 1985, the exhibition proposed that these years be interpreted as the periodin which the foundations were laid for many of the defining characteristics of the Festival as we know it today.
Another way of telling the story: presences, absences and representations of women at the San Sebastián Film Festival (1953-1978)
Third public conference organised by the research project ‘Zinemaldia 70: All possible histories’, carried out by the Elías Querejeta Zine Eskola and the San Sebastian International Film Festival and dedicated to the way in which women were represented and concealed throughout the first three decades of the Festival.
Using photographs from the Festival's archives and the Kutxateka collection, the conference challenged an imaginary built almost exclusively around the presence of actresses on the red carpet, seeking to highlight the presence of other women in professional roles far removed from the media spotlight, beginning with the first female directors to compete in the Official Selection. The event concluded with a screening of Kilenc hónap (Márta Mészáros, 1976).
Cine Cauce
Cine Cauce is a professional gathering focused on alternative film exhibition, with a special emphasis on the work of women. Directed by Eloísa Suárez López-Zuriaga, a Film Curating Studies student from the 2021-2022 intake year at the EQZE, it is held in the La Vera region (Cáceres) in collaboration with the La Vera Film and Culture Festival.
The gathering, which is structured around working groups and screenings, has been held four times so far, focusing on issues ranging from recovered cinema to animated films and children's audiences.
First steps. Other perspectives on the visual history of the San Sebastian Film Festival
An exhibition presented at Kutxa Kultur Plaza as part of the research project ‘Zinemaldia 70: All possible histories’, carried out by the Elías Querejeta Zine Eskola and the San Sebastián International Film Festival. Using a selection of thirty photographs from the festival's early years (1953-1970), preserved in the Festival's archive and the Kutxateka collection, the exhibition focused on what lies outside the dominant imaginary (i.e., that of the great directors and the stars who pose on the red carpet), shining a spotlight on a series of political, gender and class tensions that have generally gone unnoticed in the Festival's classic narratives.
Umbracle: three examples of censorship at the San Sebastian International Film Festival (1960-1971)
Second public conference organised by the research project ‘Zinemaldia 70: All possible histories’, carried out by the Elías Querejeta Zine Eskola and the San Sebastian International Film Festival, dedicated to exploring the complex relationship that existed between the Festival and the censorship imposed by Franco’s dictatorship.
The case studies focused on three examples: the controversy that surrounded the First Encounter of Film Students in 1960; the problems experienced by the New American Cinema retrospective in 1968; and the tension surrounding the 1971 festival, characterised by the prohibition of the films Canciones para después de una guerra (Basilio Martín Patino, 1971)—scheduled to close the festival—and Liberxina 90 (Carles Duran, 1970).
The Festival has been held 24 times: we don't like it
Exhibition organised by the Elías Querejeta Zine Eskola, the San Sebastián International Film Festival and Artium, the Basque Museum-Centre of Contemporary Art in Vitoria-Gasteiz. The exhibition focused on the 1977 San Sebastián International Film Festival, the first one held after its management was transferred to the city. The exhibition included materials from the Festival's archives, such as letters, documents, photographs and magazines, many of which had never before been published.
This exhibition forms part of the research project ‘Zinemaldia 70: All possible histories’ carried out by the EQZE and the SSIFF.
Critical perspectives on film festivals: history, culture and politics
This course, co-organised by the Elías Querejeta Zine Eskola and the San Sebastián International Film Festival as part of the EHU Summer Courses, served as an introduction to festival studies, establishing dialogues between the past, present, and future. The presentations offered a historical analysis of international film festivals and their relationship with major contemporary social and political transformations, while the panel debates gave participants the opportunity to discuss the present and future of these events.
This course forms part of the research project ‘Zinemaldia 70: All possible histories’ carried out by the EQZE and the SSIFF.
Zinemaldia 70: All possible histories
First public conference organised by the research project ‘Zinemaldia 70: All possible histories’, carried out by the Elías Querejeta Zine Eskola and the San Sebastian International Film Festival, dedicated to exploring the Festival's archive since it was first created in 1953.
The seminar, which focused on the Transition period in Spain (1976-1980), explored three issues from the archive: the climate of political and cultural upheaval that existed during those years; the ‘Neighbourhoods and Towns Commission’, which, from 1977 onwards, took the Festival's screenings to neighbourhoods and towns throughout the Basque Country; and the 1978 ‘Women's Film Series’, designed by the San Sebastián Women's Assembly in collaboration with directors such as Věra Chytilová, Cecilia Bartolomé and Agnès Varda. The event concluded with a screening of Expediente (Carlos Rodríguez Sanz and Manuel Coronado, 1977).
Lost lessons of Andréi Tarkovski 2
Second session of the programme dedicated to recovering the film lessons given by Andrei Tarkovsky in various places in the Soviet Union between 1975 and 1981. This session featured the filmmaker's observations on Ingmar Bergman, Robert Bresson, Aleksei German, Otar Iosseliani, Grigori Kozintsev, the Lumière brothers, Sergei Parajanov and Andy Warhol, with particular attention paid to his considerations on the films of Luis Buñuel. The session was based around listening to a selection of previously unpublished sound fragments.
Histories of Cinema
What would a history of cinema look like if it revisited its sources again and again so as to be continually rewritten? EQZE asked Santos Zunzunegui —professor, historian and writer on cinema— to compile his own personal selection of films from the history of cinema. From that list, a common ground was assembled to keep reflecting on the possible and impossible histories of cinema.
P. Adams Sitney. A Half-Century of Showing Avant-garde Cinema
EQZE invited the American historian P. Adams Sitney to choose an ideal programme illustrating his 50 years as a programmer, curator, critic and spectator. The result is at once a crash course in experimental cinema, an autobiographical journey through the life of a key figure of contemporary cinema, and an anthology of the very best experimental cinema, with works from 1968 to 1998.
Lecciones perdidas de Andréi Tarkovski 1
First session of the programme dedicated to recovering the film lessons given by Andrei Tarkovsky in various places in the Soviet Union between 1975 and 1981. This opening session focused on The Mirror (Zérkalo, 1975), based on audio recordings of classes that the filmmaker gave at the Centre for Advanced Cinematography Studies of the USSR in 1977. Topaketan zinemagileari entzun ahal izan zitzaion filma sortzeko prozesuaren hainbat alderdi azaltzen: proiektuaren sorrera, biografikoa izatearen ondorioak, aktoreekiko harremana edo gidoiaren idazketa.
Stories (and aesthetics) About Anonymous and Orphan Cinema
International seminar organised by EQZE around the idea of anonymity and the exploration of film archives. "Historias (y estéticas) del cine anónimo y huérfano" (Stories — and aesthetics — of anonymous and orphan cinema) focuses on amateur cinema, films "without names" and the concept of authorship.