ZINEBI – International Festival of Documentary and Short Film of Bilbao – organised by Bilbao Town Hall, with the assistance of the Basque Government, the Bizkaia Provincial Council and the Ministry of Education, Culture and Sport’s Institute of Cinematography and Audiovisual Arts – ICAA – is joining in the celebration of the 80th anniversary of the birth of Basque director and designer Iván Zulueta, director and scriptwriter of cult film Arrebato, one of the most iconic exponents of underground cinema.
This is why ZINEBI will be screening all the material retrieved and 4K-digitalised by Filmoteca Española from Iván Zulueta’s own archives, which had still not been released until just under a year ago. With the title A/Z Zulueta inédito, this is a total of almost eight hours of material which was thought to be lost, or the existence of which there were practically no records. Their timeframe covers five decades: from the 1930s, when the films were being shot by Iván’s parents, up to the late 1980s.
In view of the quantity of material to be viewed, ZINEBI has decided to include only the last of the screenings of this cycle curated by Josetxo Cerdán Los Arcos and Miguel Fernández Labayen during the 65th Festival (specifically, Wednesday 15 November), and the rest will be screened at the Golem Alhóndiga Cinemas one week before ZINEBI officially begins.
The films by Cerdán Los Arcos and Fernández Labayen, “Las películas de Consuelo y Antonio”, (they include one of the first domestic short films shot by the young Iván, but starring the director’s parents, Consuelo Vergarajauregui Ubarrechena and Antonio de Zulueta y Besson), “Aloha” (a reference to the Zulueta family’s mansion overlooking San Sebastián’s bay on Paseo Duque de Baena) and “La celebración de la carne” (a programme featuring a number of encounters with sexuality with its many and varied manifestations) can be viewed on 2 November.
On 3 November there will be a screening of the programmes “Fugas y escapadas” (including material shot by Iván Zulueta in Morocco, California and Paris), “Viaje al final de la noche” (which retrieves footage of fiestas with girl friends and acquaintances, including Cecilia Roth, Luis Cobos, Javier Gurruchaga, Vicente Ameztoy, Jaime Stinus, Juan Cruz Unzurrunzaga and Antonio Gasset, among many others) and “Alrededor de Arrebato” (in which Zulueta portrays ideas and feelings developed when he was preparing the best remembered of his films).
TRABAJAR CON (Y DESDE) EL ARCHIVO
The last session in the cycle will also be screened at the Golem Alhóndiga cinemas on 15 November, as part of the 65th ZINEBI programme. This is called “Apuntes y bocetos”, and it includes material shot by Zulueta between 1969 and 1987.
This last screening will be put on after the encounter on the same day arranged by ZINEBI, Trabajar con (y desde) el archivo, to publicise and showcase the work of organisations which classify, research and retrieve audiovisual heritage material. It will be attended by the director of Filmoteca Española Valeria Camporesi; the co-curator of A/Z Zulueta inédito Miguel Fernández Labayen; the main researcher on the joint research project with the Elías Querejeta Zine Eskola School (EQZE) in the ZINEBI deposit at Filmoteca Vasca Santiago Aguilar; the filmmaker and academic director of EQZE Carlos Muguiro; the advisor of the San Sebastián Film Festival archive project Pablo La Parra Pérez; and Pablo Maravi and Libe Belandia, representing the research project VideoFlux (UPV/EHU – University of the Basque Country), focusing on the Basque videoart audiovisual archives.
PLENA PAUSA
The tribute to Iván Zulueta will conclude on 18 November at the Arriaga Theatre, with a live performance by J from Los Planetas, who will be presenting the Basque Country premiere of Plena Pausa, the musicalisation project for part of the Gipuzkoa director’s film archives, to be screened by ZINEBI. All film material is unchanged, just as it was found in Iván Zulueta’s archives, with the exception of some excerpts from Londres nocturno, Películas familiares (años 30 y 40) and Películas familiares (años 50), which form part of the archives, but were not shot by Zulueta, and were edited for the occasion by filmmaker Andrés Duque.
Coinciding with the 80th anniversary of the birth of Iván Zulueta, vinyl, CD and DVD editions of Plena Pausa went on sale on 29 September – the debut album of the leader of the historical Granada band Los Planetas, to be presented at the Arriaga Theatre. Tickets are now on sale on the Arriaga Theatre website (https://arriaga.janto.es/es).
