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, which takes place in the Tabakalera cinema. 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.

The programme, developed collectively by the group of Film Curating Studies of the 2023-2024 promotion of Elías Querejeta Zine Eskola, consists of films by artists such as Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Sílvia das Fadas and Sharon Lockhart. Moreover, two installations centered on Isla Santa Clara and Isla de los Faisanes accompany the event: Lika by Deva Pereda and ODOYÁ IS NOT HERE!, by Ana Júlia Silvino.

Arriving on a desert 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. As Gilles Deleuze says in his text Causes and reasons for desert islands: “The island is the minimum necessary for this new beginning, the material that has survived from the first origin, the nucleus or the radiant egg that must suffice to reproduce everything.”

This new beginning is the starting point for this film programme, which takes place in the Tabakalera cinema. After all, a cinema is also an island that welcomes and brings together – that opens the way to new possibilities. The films in this programme ask how to inhabit a place, how to propose a life in common, how to leave isolation and find ourselves.

Blissfully Yours by Apichatpong Weerasethakul (2002) draws a line between everyday life and a hypnotic and sensual forest, the setting for a love story. From another forest — or could it be the same one? — a group of people recite a text in Operai, contadini, by Danièle Huillet and Jean-Marie Straub (2001), invoking a contemporary utopia. Nor do Maximilian Bungarten’s The Age of Innocence (2022) and Luis Esguerra’s Tú me hiciste ver el cielo (2023) abandon the forest: in both films it becomes a place for desire and fantasy, where borders disappear, and bodies regain their freedom. The mysterious island of San Borondón, close to the Canary Islands, is present — and absent — in Bloom, by Helena Girón and Samuel M. Delgado (2023), which proposes a reflection on myths and the desire for conquest. Sílvia das Fadas covers five places and five works that wonder about a community to come in A casa, a verdadeira e a seguinte, ainda está por fazer (2018), where revolutionary architecture represents a diverse but connected imaginary. After suddenly falling silent, all the inhabitants of an island adopt the same voice in the mysterious Vole, vole tristesse by Miryam Charles (2015). The return to the home and community once left behind raises several questions about belonging in Ste. Anne, by Rhayne Vermette (2021). The cycle fades to black with a sunset, with Sharon Lockhart’s Eventide (2022), which, far from concluding anything, points to what is most fundamental: the search for the unknown, collective work, and the possibility of coexistence.

There are also islands outside the cinema, though close to it. This programme will bring us two of them, two real islands, in order to propose a sensitive exploration of a number of symbolic elements linked to the territory of Donostia and its surroundings. The audiovisual installation Lika, by Deva Pereda, leads us towards the river Bidasoa and the border, with our attention focused on Pheasant Island, which appears and disappears from the administrative limits of Spain and France. And the sound installation ODOYÁ IS NOT HERE!, by Ana Júlia Silvino, traces a phantasmagorical journey around the island of Santa Clara and through its history, which holds a mystery there for all to see.

This programme, produced in community by the group of Film Curating Studies belonging to the 2023-2024 promotion of Elías Querejeta Zine Eskola, explores an uncertain but inescapable territory: a place where we project an island that is not so deserted.

Programme:

April 9

19:00 Blissfully Yours (Apichatpong Weerasethakul, 2002)

April 10

17:30 Presentation of the audiovisual installations Lika (Deva Pereda, 2023) and ODOYÁ IS NOT HERE! (Ana Julia Silvino, 2024)

19:00 Operai, contadini (Danièle Huillet y Jean-Marie Straub, 2001)

April 11

18:00 The Age of Innocence (Maximilian Bungarten, 2022) + Tú me hiciste ver el cielo (Luis Esguerra, 2023)

20:00 Bloom (Helena Girón y Samuel M. Delgado, 2023) +  A casa, a verdadeira e a seguinte, ainda está por fazer (Sílvia das Fadas, 2018)

April 12

18:00 Vole, vole tristesse (Miryam Charles, 2015) + Ste. Anne (Rhayne Vermette, 2021)

20:00 Eventide (Sharon Lockhart, 2022)

* After its inauguration, the installations will remain open until Sunday, the 14th from 10:00 to 20:00 (ODOYÁ IS NOT HERE!) and 16:00 and 20:00 (Lika)

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