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SAN SEBASTIÁN 2020 San Sebastián Industry

Ikusmira Berriak gives a boost to five early-stage projects

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- The film development lab, a partnership between Tabakalera, Elías Querejeta Zine Eskola and the San Sebastián International Film Festival, supports promising films in development

Ikusmira Berriak gives a boost to five early-stage projects
(l-r) Filmmakers Gabriel Azorín, Elena Martín Gimeno, Diego Céspedes, Jessica Sarah Rinland and Jaione Camborda (© Alex Abril/Festival de San Sebastián)

The sixth edition of the Ikusmira Berriak film development lab, a partnership between Tabakalera International Centre for Contemporary Culture, the San Sebastián International Film Festival and (since 2018) Elías Querejeta Zine Eskola, has unveiled this year’s contenders: five promising new projects by emerging filmmakers.

Some of this year’s names may be familiar from their previous work. All five finalists will take part in a residential programme, benefiting from eight weeks of workshops and professional mentoring. They are: Elena Martín Gimeno, already an award-winning director thanks to her début feature, Júlia ist [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Elena Martín
film profile
]
, who also appeared in and directed various episodes of the TV series Vida perfecta and En casa; Jaione Camborda, who brought his first feature, Arima [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Jaione Camborda
film profile
]
to last year’s festival; Gabriel Azorín, founding member of the filmmaking collective lacasinegra and director of the documentary Los mutantes [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
; Jessica Sarah Rinland, whose first film Those That, at a Distance, Resemble Another [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
screened at Locarno last year; and Diego Céspedes, producer of titles including Land and Shade [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
and White on White [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Théo Court
film profile
]
.

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The selected projects are:

Creatura - Elena Martín Gimeno (Spain)
Production: Sergi Moreno Castillo (Vilaüt Films), Marta Cruañas Compes (Lastor Media), María Zamora (Avalon).
Through the eyes of Milla, whom we meet as a child of four and a woman of 30, and her relationship with her family and her environment, the film explores the normalisation of women’s sexual repression and the consequences that ensue, venturing into a world (child sexuality) riddled with taboos.

The Rye Horn [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Jaione Camborda
film profile
]
- Jaione Camborda (Spain)
Production: Andrea Vázquez (Miramemira), Jaione Camborda (Esnatu Zinema)
Camborda whisks us back to the 1970s and the Galician island of Arousa. Here we encounter a woman who attends all the births that take place in the community — and all the clandestine abortions — until her “profession” gets her accused of causing the death of a young woman, forcing her to flee to Portugal.

Last Night I Conquered the City of Thebes - Gabriel Azorín (Spain)
Production: Carlos Pardo Ros (Dvein Films)
The film tells the story of two groups of young people, close together in age but separated by over two thousand years: a group of Portuguese friends who decide to spend an evening at a thermal spa in present-day Ourense, and the Roman soldiers who built it.

Collective Monologue - Jessica Sarah Rinland (Argentina)
Production: Jessica Sarah Rinland
A zookeeper and a construction worker strike up a new friendship despite having worked in the same place for many years. Over the course of their long conversations swapping stories and experiences, the British-Argentinian director explores the world of the zoo and the notion of wildness so romanticised by humans.

The Mysterious Gaze of the Flamingo - Diego Céspedes (Chile)
Production: Giancarlo Nasi (Quijote Films)
A remote mining village is struck by a mysterious illness that has killed several men, and rumour has it that it’s transmitted when a man falls in love with another through a single gaze. A young girl sees how her brother, an obese gay man, is accused of carrying the disease, and is forced to confront the ignorance that has fed a myth, putting her family relationships to the test. The Chilean director reflects on contemporary social taboos and, more specifically, our response to the HIV pandemic, now and in the past.

During their time at the festival, the five projects are seeking co-production opportunities both nationally and internationally, as well as financing, international sales and national distribution partners.

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(Translated from Spanish)

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