ZINEBI TO SHOW 128 FILMS FROM 43 COUNTRIES AT ITS 65th FESTIVAL

ZINEBI – International Festival of Documentary and Short Film of Bilbao – organised by Bilbao Town Hall – will commence on Friday 10 November with the opening gala night led by La Dramática Errante (Ane Pikaza and María Goiricelaya), which will also present the closing ceremony featuring the 65th Festival awards.

The full schedule was presented this morning at a press conference attended by the Basque Government’s Secretary for Culture and Linguistic Policy and Spokesman, Bingen Zupiria, Bilbao Town Hall’s Culture and Governance Councillor, Gonzalo Olabarria, and the director of ZINEBI, Vanesa Fernández Guerra.

The event will feature 128 films from 43 countries. More than half of the films are State premieres, and more than half of the films were directed by women.

OFFICIAL SECTION

Film screenings at ZINEBI are in two parts: Official Section (including the two international competitions) and other screenings.

As part of the Official Section, the International Short Film Competition presents a selection of 58 films (chosen from over 3,900 viewed by the ZINEBI selection committee this year) from 35 countries, necessarily State premieres. These include seven Basque productions (or co-productions) to be shown at the end of the Festival’s opening ceremony: Agrio (David Pérez Sañudo, 2023), Betiko gaua (Eneko Sagardoy, 2023), In a Nearby Field (Laida Lertxundi and Ren Ebel, 2023), Memories of an Empty House (Bruno Carnide, 2023), La mujer ilustrada (Isabel Herguera, 2023), Todo lo cubre la sal (Joana Moya, 2023) and Ximinoa (Itziar Leemans, 2023).

Also, filmmakers such as Portuguese director Catarina Vasconcelos (director of the feature film La metamorfosis de los pájaros, which won awards at the Berlinale and IndieLisboa), Catalan Neus Ballús (director of feature films such as Sis dies corrents (2021), which won a prize at Locarno) and Austrian Lukas Marxt (winner of the 2020 ZINEBI Grand Prix) will be presenting their new short films for competition.

The other competition in the Official Section is the ZIFF – ZINEBI First Film event, for 9 opera prima feature films from 10 countries. They will all be screened for the first time in the State at ZINEBI, and they include the Basque production Zarata, directed by Tamara García Iglesias, which had its world premiere in July at FID in Marseilles (France).

MIKELDI OF HONOUR AWARDS

As has been its custom for the last twenty festivals, ZINEBI is paying tribute to the professional and artistic careers of some leading names in contemporary filmmaking. The 65th Festival will be making its awards to two directors – Frederick Wiseman and Rita Azevedo Gomes – and journalist and film critic Félix Linares.

ZINEBI is paying off a debt to the greatest living documentarian at the Arriaga Theatre on 10 November – Frederick Wiseman, who will be travelling to Bilbao from New York, where a few days ago he presented his latest documentary, Menus plaisirs – Les Troisgros. His career, which began in 1967, is full of awards such as the honorary lifetime achievement Oscar (in 2016), and features almost fifty documentary feature films. In Bilbao, he will also be presenting this joint France/US production, which had its world premiere in September at the Biennale in Venice.

In the case of Rita Azevedo Gomes, the Festival pays tribute to a career marked by talent to synthesise respect for the cultural legacy on which her work is based and non-conformist experimentation, always willing to question common locations and clichés. On this occasion the director, who previously came to Bilbao in 2016 to present her film Correspondências, will be talking to the ECAM Madrid Community Film and Audiovisual School’s coordinator of international seminars and events Cecilia Barrionuevo after the screening of her first feature film as director, O som da terra a tremer (1990). She will be collecting her honorary award at the Festival’s closing ceremony on 17 November.

This year ZINEBI is also awarding a third Mikeldi of Honour Aaward to Bilbao film critic Félix Linares, who, after 28 years without a break on the airwaves, this year left his slot as presenter of the ETB programme “La noche de…”. The award pays tribute to a long professional career which goes well beyond his appearances on television on the famous show (1,500 programmes), and to his active interest in cinema and culture.

AWARD WINNERS

ZINEBI will reveal the award winners on 17 November. The winners of the Official Section-International Short Film Competition will be decided by a jury panel, which this year features the coordinator of the Cannes Festival’s Short Film Corner Florian Fernandez; the director of the Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival (Japan) Haruka Hama; Bulgarian film critic and programmer Mariana Hristova; Basque director Estibaliz Urresola; and Galician director of animation, illustrator and drawing artist Alberto Vázquez.

The prizes in the Official Section – International ZIFF – ZINEBI First Film Competition will be awarded by a jury panel composed of Colombian producer and director Diana Bustamante; the head of programming at Arsenal – Berlin Cinema and Videoart Institute Birgit Kohler; and Spanish filmmaker Rocío Mesa.

BEAUTIFUL DOCS

ZINEBI’s parallel sections will be presenting some of 2023’s best documentary feature films in the section Beautiful Docs – An Overview of Documentaries from Over the World, a selection of ten films which have had their world premiere within the last twelve months. These include the winner of the last Berlinale Festival’s Golden Bear, Sur l’Adamant (Nicolas Philibert, 2023), the latest documentary by the 2019 ZINEBI Mikeldi of Honour award-winner Claire Simon Notre corps (2023) and the new film by Virginia García del Pino La estafa del amor (2023).

Also, six of the films have not yet been screened in the State, and will be premiered in Bilbao: in addition to the latest documentary by Frederick Wiseman, they include Callas – Paris 1958 (Tom Volf, 2023) – recalling an unforgettable performance by Maria Callas at the Paris Opera-, Viva Varda! (Pierre-Henri Gibert, 2023), Cinema Laika (Veljko Vidak, 2023) – with the 2015 ZINEBI Mikeldi of Honour award-winner, Aki Kaurismäki, as the featured director-, Bye, Bye, Tiberias (Lina Soualem, 2023) and Anselm – Das Rauschen der Zeit (Wim Wenders, 2023), on German painter and sculptor Anselm Kiefer.

BERTOKO BEGIRADAK. VIEWS FROM THE BASQUE COUNTRY.

ZINEBI’s commitment to the most recent Basque cinema is bolstered every year in the programming of the Bertoko Begiradak. Views from the Basque Country section, where the Festival rounds off the panorama of the Official Section (which this year includes seven Basque short films and a Basque feature film). This year the section includes 20 short films and six documentaries – new films with Marta Etura (Lucía), Lara Eizagirre (Pelikula baten bila), Irati Gorostidi (Contadores), Bertha Gaztelumendi and Rosa Zufía (Arnasa betean, emakume zinegileak [A Deep Breath, Women Filmmakers]), Gentzane Martinez de Osaba (Aire!), Ainhoa Gutiérrez del Pozo and Olatz González Abrisketa (Pizti bat again [Somewhat Wild]) and the documentary feature film by José Alberto Andrés Lacasta Manolo Kabezabolo (Si todavía te kedan dientes es ke no estuviste ahí), an up-close-and-personal look at the iconic punk musician.

ZULUETA INÉDITO

The year 2023 marks eighty years of the birth of Basque filmmaker Iván Zulueta. That is why ZINEBI is teaming up with activities in remembrance of the director of the celebrated feature film Arrebato (1980), and will be screening all the material from the Zulueta archives restored by Spanish Cinemathèque. This will be in five sessions: the first four on 2 and 3 November at the Golem Alhóndiga cinemas, and the last on 15 November, during the Festival.

By way of an epilogue to its 65th Festival, ZINEBI will be celebrating Zulueta’s work with a performance by J from Los Planetas at the Arriaga Theatre on 18 November. This is a first-time performance in Euskadi of Plena pausa, the musicalisation project for part of the Gipuzkoa director’s film archives, premiered at Madrid’s Cine Doré. J will be accompanied by guitarist and vocalist Natalia Drago, with Miguel Martín on keyboards, Roberto Escudero on drums, and guitarists David Rodríguez and Jaime Stinus. Plena pausa came out in vinyl and on DVD in September, but for the live performance J has reserved some songs composed to be – for the moment – performed exclusively live. Tickets are now on sale on the Arriaga Theatre website (arriaga.janto.es/es).

SPECIAL PROGRAMMES

Music will also be on the ZINEBI programme by Zabala, the Bilbao composer and producer (and former member of We Are Standard), who will be providing live music on 16 November at Bilborock for the film by Nuria Giménez Lorang My Mexican Bretzel (2019).

In addition, Akira, the classic Japanese manga and anime, will serve as inspiration for Juan Pablo Orduñez, Mawatres, and Igor Rezola for a collective exercise of revision and reinterpretation from the perspective of contemporary cultural and artistic production in the performance Ez Bultza Egin! EBE!, which will host the BBK hall on Saturday the 12th.

The next day, ZINEBI will host the screening and performative reading of Black Bach Artsakh (2021), the documentary by artists Ayreen Anastas and Rene Gabri, interested in the cinematic experience as a space to review our worlds.

On this occasion, and in collaboration with the Bilbao art and knowledge office Bulegoa z/b, in the Sala Bastida of Azkuna Zentroa, they pay attention to the current situation in the Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh (or Artsakh), just two months after what they denounce is an “ethnic cleansing” of the native Armenian population.

INDUSTRY

For the sixth consecutive year, ZINEBI organizes, with funding from the Institute of Cinematography and Audiovisual Arts (ICAA) through the fundsNextGenerationEU, EITB MEDIA S.A.U. (EITB), Zineuskadi and Europa Creativa Desk MEDIA Euskadi, and in collaboration with Cannes Docs, the Scottish Documentary Institute and the School of Cinematography and Audiovisual of the Community of Madrid (ECAM), a new edition of ZINEBI Networking: Dokumentalen Sorgunea, the Professional Documentary Film Forum of Bilbao.

As in the previous edition, emerging projects from all over the State have been admitted. Thus, ZINEBI Networking: Dokumentalen Sorgunea has two cash prizes valued at 10,000 euros each: the award for the best documentary feature film project in the Basque Country (ZINEBI Networking EITB Award 2023), and the award for the best project from the rest of the State (ZINEBI Networking Award 2023).

In addition, ZINEBI will host a professional meeting to reflect on the place that documentary cinema occupies in different audiovisual content platforms of the State; also a second edition of Cantabria-Euskadi Networking; and a meeting of regional distribution catalogues of short films (Dissemination and Internationalisation of Short Films: Networking Between the Autonomous Communities), with delegations from the programs of Catalonia, Navarra, Madrid, Cantabria, Andalusia, Valencia, Extremadura and Castilla y León.

ZINEBI MEETINGS

In addition to the meeting between this year’s ZINEBI Honorary Mikeldi prizewinner Rita Azevedo Gomes and Cecilia Barrionuevo (Thursday 16 November) at Bilbao’s Guggenheim Museum, and addition to the screening of films, the Festival also promises a packed agenda of professional and specialist events. Even before ZINEBI starts, Bira Kulturgunea (Ronda, 2) is the venue on Thursday 26 October for Euskal zinema eta literatura, an event featuring representatives of Basque literature and cinema: writers Katixa Agirre and Txani Rodríguez will be talking about film adaptations with directors David Pérez Sañudo and Asier Altuna.

ZINEBI will also feature an “Editing Table” event (Mesa de montaje) (12 November), with some of contemporary state cinema’s leading female editors: Julia Juániz, Ana Pfaff, Ariadna Ribas, Diana Toucedo, Carolina Martínez Urbina and Virginia García del Pino; the round table Production models in the art of animation: artisanship and industry, on the current status of animation films in the Basque Country and the State.

Trabajar con (y desde) el archivo [Working with (and from) the archives] will be held on 15 November, with the director of Filmoteca Española Valeria Camporesi; co-curator of the “A/Z Zulueta inédito” cycle Miguel Fernández Labayen; the chief researcher on the joint research project with Elías Querejeta Zine Eskola (EQZE) in the ZINEBI deposit at Filmoteca Vasca Santiago Aguilar; Pablo La Parra Pérez, advisor to the San Sebastián Film Festival archive project; and Pablo Maravi and Libe Belandia, representing the research project VideoFlux (UPV/EHU – University of the Basque Country), focusing on Basque videoart audiovisual archives.

ENTRANCE TICKETS

Once more this year the Festival has several venues: Arriaga Theatre, Bilbao’s Guggenheim Museum, Sala Bilborock, Sala BBK and the Gólem Alhóndiga Cinemas, and the Azkuna Zentroa Auditorium.

Screenings at the Azkuna Zentroa Auditorium and the Gólem Alhóndiga Cinemas

• Individual admittance (4.50 euros) and 10-session vouchers (35 euros) as of 5 November at the Gólem ticket offices.
• ZINEBI will issue special 20-euro vouchers for the unemployed and pensioners (and those over 60), who can also buy ordinary tickets at the lower price of 3.50 euros. These vouchers will also be available to students and young people under 26.

ZINEBI FROM HOME TOO

By way of a new feature this year, ZINEBI will be extending its screenings to the free EITB digital platform Primeran, to offer all members of the public a selection of Basque-produced films, already screened at previous Festivals. This year ZINEBI will also have a special collection on the audiovisual content platform FILMIN, with dozens of films already screened at previous Festivals.

The Festival’s press materials can be consulted at this link.