Basque cinema is making its presence felt across San Sebastián this year. The festival’s 74th edition, running Sept. 18-26, features 31 titles with Basque production involvement, with 19 world premieres competing for the Irizar Basque Film Award. Spread across the Official Selection, New Directors, Zabaltegi-Tabakalera, Perlak, Zinemira, Made in Spain, the Velodrome and other strands, the lineup stretches from historical thrillers and intimate first features to animation, music documentaries and international auteur collaborations.
Among the established names, David Pérez Sañudo brings period thriller “The Harvester” (“Sacamantecas”), starring Goya winners Patricia López Arnaiz and Antonio de la Torre, while Koldo Almandoz returns with funeral parlor comedy-drama “The Last Goodbye” (“Azken agurra”). A newer generation is prominent too: Javier Giner follows his series “I, Addict” with feature debut “This Solitude” (“Esta soledad”), while Nitya López Saitua turns a childhood family rupture into an experiment in reconstruction and memory in Zinemira title “Family Drill” (“Simulacro”). The slate also points well beyond the Basque Country.
Tsai Ming-liang brings his slow-stepping Walker to San Sebastián in “Dust” (“Weichen”), a Spanish-Taiwanese collaboration selected for Zabaltegi-Tabakalera. Nanni Moretti’s “It Will Happen Tonight” (“Sucederá esta noche”), meanwhile, arrives in Perlak with Basque company Irusoin among its producers and a score by longtime Pedro Almodóvar collaborator Alberto Iglesias. Across many of the selections runs a concern with what survives — family memory, musical communities, cultural traditions and cinema itself.
Farewell films devoted to Basque rock band Gatibu and musician Fermin Muguruza sit alongside “Bringing Shadows to Light” (“Itzalak argitzen”), which follows the restoration of four Basque-language films from the 1980s. That conversation between generations extends to Klasikoak, where Ana Díez’s restored “Ander eta Yul” returns to the festival where it premiered way back in 1988. Taken together, the films chart a Basque industry working simultaneously outward and inward: building international co-productions and relationships with major auteurs while returning to local history, language, and how the place itself can conjure material.
We profile a selection of the titles below: “The Harvester” (“Sacamantecas”) Dir. David Pérez Sañudo (La Claqueta PC, Amania Films, La Cruda Realidad, Caviar) The director of “Ane” turns to a darker chapter of Álava’s history. As the Third Carlist War winds down, women are found strangled outside Vitoria and a victim’s sister demands justice.
Goya winners Patricia López Arnaiz and Antonio de la Torre lead a period thriller pitting her determination against depleted police resources and authorities keen to suppress the scandal. Pérez Sañudo’s third feature brings a woman’s struggle to be heard into the machinery of historical crime. Koldo Almandoz (Garabi Films, Txintxua Films) Running a funeral business offers little preparation for sorting out your own life.
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