ZINEBI – International Festival of Documentary and Short Film of Bilbao, organised by Bilbao Town Hall, brought together representatives of nine regions for the second autonomous community short film distribution catalogue encounter.
In the wake of the initial experience in 2022, when ZINEBI arranged a meeting of representatives of a number of autonomous community short film distribution catalogues on the Cantabrian seaboard, this year the event was even larger and more ambitious. This made ZINEBI the venue for presentation of the catalogues Kimuak (Basque Country) – a State pioneer–, ShortCat (Catalonia), Shortzinema (Community of Navarra), Cantabria en Corto (Cantabria), Curts (Community of Valencia), Quercus (Castilla y León), Jara (Extremadura), Madrid en Corto (Community of Madrid) and Catálogo de Promoción del Audiovisual Andaluz (Andalusia).
With the same goal of providing a close-up of the practices and experiences of institutions with common objectives, the event, “Publicising and globalisation of short films: working online among the Autonomous Communities”, was preceded by a presentation of the Cannes Festival Short Film Corner by its most senior representative, Florian Fernandez.
KATHARINA HUBER AT ZIFF – ZINEBI FIRST FILM
The German film A Good Place (Ein schöner Ort, 2023) will be State-premiered in the ZIFF – ZINEBI First Film section. Its director, filmmaker Katharina Huber – who directed the short film The Natural Death of a Mouse (2020) – took the Cineasti del Presente prize for best up-and-coming director at the 76th Locarno Film Festival (Switzerland) with this obscure uchronia set in a dark oppressive rural environment which seems to be on the verge of disappearing. For the time being, people seem to be fainting away and the radio is constantly sending messages about the imminent launch of a space transporter, which it seems the protagonists (Céline de Gennaro and another Locarno prizewinner, Clara Schwinning) are going to miss.
The film has been scheduled in ZIFF – ZINEBI First Film, an event featuring works of fiction and documentaries by new directors competing for the 12,000 € ZIFF Grand Prix and the Young Jury Award (UPV/EHU – University of the Basque Country).
It will be screened at ZINEBI tomorrow, Sunday 12 November at 19:30 h in Room 5 at the Golem Alhóndiga cinemas; and on Wednesday 15 November at 21:45 h in the Guggenheim.
WIN WENDERS AND NICOLAS PHILIBERT IN BEAUTIFUL DOCS
In its documentary section Beautiful Docs, ZINEBI presents Anselm – Das Rauschen der Zeit (2023), the latest creation by celebrated German director Wim Wenders, director of Paris, Texas (1984), Tokyo-Ga (1985) and Pina (2011).
The German star of Wenders’ film, Anselm Kiefer, is one of the late 20th century’s leading artists. The Guggenheim Museum staged a memorable anthological exhibition about him 16 years ago in Bilbao, and this may well have made him even more famous there. This year he has agreed to examine his long career in a documentary which the director worked on for two years and which has become, according to Jonathan Romney, “possibly Wenders’ most personal film in a very long time”. It was premiered in the Official Section at the Cannes Festival and will be State-premiered at ZINEBI.
There will be two screenings of the film at ZINEBI: tomorrow, Sunday 12 November at 18:00 h in Room 5 at the Golem Alhóndiga cinemas; and on Wednesday 15 November at 19:30 h in the Guggenheim.
And the Beautiful Docs section will also be screening Franco-Japanese film On the Adamant (Sur L’ Adamant, 2023) by Nicolas Philibert, one of the French documentary maestros of the last few decades, and winner of the Golden Bear award for best film at the last Berlin Festival with this documentary on a unique centre known as Adamant: a floating structure in the Seine in the heart of Paris, used by adults with mental disorders seeking care, assistance and time to recover or keep their emotions under control. The director of the famous Être et avoir (2002) is also a contender for the European Film Academy award for the year’s Best Documentary Feature Film.
The film will be screened at ZINEBI tomorrow, Sunday 12 November at 21:00 h in Room 5 at the Golem Alhóndiga cinemas; and on Wednesday 15 November at 17:15 h in the Guggenheim.
BLACK BACH ARTSAKH, THE PERFORMANCE
In association with the Bilbao art and knowledge office Bulegoa z/b, ZINEBI will be screening a performance focusing on the Armenian film Black Bach Artsakh (2021), a documentary feature film based on interviews with people living in Nagorno-Karabakh, shot in 2007 during an interwar period.
During the performance the directors of the film, Ayreen Anastas and Rene Gabri, will not only present the film, but will also talk to Azar Mahmoudian, a curator born in Iran, with whom they have been working since 2020 on an educational project in the Armenian mountains.
The purpose of this dual event is to talk about art and censorship through films as a tool to provide a mouthpiece and publicise contemporary conflicts such as Nagorno-Karabakh which, until a few weeks ago, were far removed from the attention of western communication media.
