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Films by José Luis Guerin, Alberto Rodríguez, and José Mari Goneagaand Aitor Arregi are among the 17 Spanish features selected for the 2025 San Sebastian International Film Festival (Ssiff), taking place from September 19-27.

Guerin’s feature documentary Good Valley Stories sees the return of the director 24 years after winning the festival’s special jury prize for In Construction. The Spain-France co-production documents a suburb in Barcelona where different generations of migrants coexist.

Competing in the main section for the fourth time are Basque filmmakers José Mari Goenaga and Aitor Arregi with Maspalomas, about an elderly gay man whose life takes a...

With Txintxua’s series “Intimacy” shooting to No. 1 on Netflix’s global non-English charts this summer and 17 Basque films of ever greater renown participating at the San Sebastian Festival, led by Mikel Gurrea’s feature debut “Suro” and Fernando Franco’s “The Rite of Spring,” the region’s film and TV industry has flashed signs of real growth and international recognition.

Further advances are expected next year with the launch of up-to-70 tax credits in Bizkaia.

Leading Basque production company Irusoin backed “Suro” and is producing Disney+’s most notable TV project in Spain, “Balenciaga.” “It makes perfect sense; Disney wanted to make it here because the character and the story originate from the region,” says Irusoin producer Xabi Berzosa who has observed an already crowded market with three to four shoots happening simultaneously, including The Mediapro Studio’s “Pelotaris.”

“We’ve had problems finding crew as they’re all caught up in movies,...

Packing its first full-on onsite edition since the pandemic, Spain’s San Sebastian Festival has never been busier or bigger. 10 Takes on what is shaping up as a vibrant edition:

Playing Off Powerful Market Forces

Nine of Netflix’s 20 Top 10 non-English-language films and TV series are sourced from Spain or Latin America. Platforms are battling to tie down talent.

This year, eight movies from Spain and Latin America play in competition alone at San Sebastian, the most important film event in the Spanish-speaking world. The fest’s main sidebar is its New Directors strand. San Sebastian’s focus on the Spanish-speaking world and new talent now aligns with powerful market forces. That fact plays out over the 2022 edition.

San Sebastian’s New Creative Investors’ Conference

CAA Media Finance is teaming with San Sebastian to organize the festival’s first Creative Investors’ Conference, running Sept. 19-20. Attendees take in international film...

The San Sebastian International Film Festival has long been one of the Spanish-speaking world’s most prominent film festivals and as the 70th edition of the festival is nearly underway, the much-loved European event has looked to beef up its industry components in a bid to attract a wider pool of delegates, notably from North America.

This year will see the launch of the new San Sebastian Festival Creative Investors’ Conference, which is co-organized with CAA Media Finance. The two-day conference, which runs September 19-20, will see a host of top global industry execs from companies such as 30West, A24, Anonymous Content, Focus Features, Mubi, Neon, Netflix and Wild Bunch International among others, touch down in the Basque Country.

“Something we’ve had in mind for some years now is to improve and enlarge our industry activities,” festival director José Luis Rebordinos tells Deadline, who says the initiative was organised...

Films presented include Baltasar Kormákur’s Whaleman (At The Ends Of The Earth) and Gerardo Herrero’s Raqqa.

Executives from Wild Bunch, A24, Netflix and Focus Features are among those who will attend the inaugural two-day Creative Investors’ conference taking place at the San Sebastian International Film Festival (Ssiff), organised in collaboration with CAA Media and running from September 19-20.

Participants will include A24 Europe’s head of film and head of TV, respectively, Rose Garnett and Piers Wenger; Netflix’s head of international original film Teresa Moneo; Focus Features’ president of production and acquisitions Kiska Higgs; Mubi’s VP...

Co-organized with CAA Media Finance, a new San Sebastian Festival Creative Investors’ Conference will see many of the good and great of the international film business descend on September’s fest edition to be pitched 10 higher-budget Spanish movies by their producers.

The Conference will run Sept.19-20. In a cosmopolitan lineup, titles pitched include international co-productions such as “Whalemen (At the Ends of the Earth)” from “Everest” director Baltasar Kormákur as well as the latest from “Amama” helmer Asier Altuna and “Raqa,” from Gerardo Herrero, an Academy Award wining producer for “The Secret in Their Eyes.”

The conference’s high-profile international investors, producers, agents and executives take in Mubi’s Bobby Allen, Piers Wenger at A24 Europe, Focus Features’s Kiska Higgs, 30West’s Trevor Groth, Vincent Maraval at Wild Bunch International and Netflix’s Teresa Moneo.

Also confirmed are the Elysian Film Group’s Danny Perkins, Neon CEO Tom Quinn,...

Narrowing down the best Basque projects on the horizon has become increasingly difficult in recent years, as the region is experiencing a boom in both the quality and quantity of local production that has made prognostication more difficult than ever.

Below, Variety has picked 20 projects from that crowded field which we will be tracking in the coming years.

“Almanac” (Jorge Moneo Quintana)

A Berlinale Talents project, “Almanac” challenges the limits of documentary cinema by revisiting the solar eclipse of July 18, 1860 through photos and records, speculating on the truth of the past in collective memory. Currently in development, the feature is backed by Kalakalab and Kleinen Filmak.

“And Thus it Will Go On” (Marina Palacio)

Likely to appear on Basque project lists for some time, production on this exercise somewhere between fiction and reality is scheduled to last five years, following a group of children through their formative years in the...

An emerging generation of new Basque filmmakers is making its mark in the San Sebastian Festival, building on the foundations of now consolidated creative and industrial infrastructures.

Only time will tell if the Basque Country can follow in the footsteps of Catalonia, another richer region of Spain, and launch a modern day new wave. Expectations however, remain high.

The new generation is widely represented at this year’s San Sebastian.

A prominent member of the group is David Pérez Sañudo, whose highly anticipated feature debut, mother-daughter social drama “Ane,” plays at the festival’s New Directors sidebar. Handled by Latido Films, “Ane” was developed at the Madrid Film School Ecam Incubator, then won three prizes at Málaga’s Wip in April.

Imanol Rayo, winner of the Zinemira Award with “Bi anai” in 2011, presents in New Directors his rural tale “Hil Kanpaiak” (“Death Knell”), produced by Bilbao-based Abra Prod.

Six of the 11 features at Zinemira,...

This quality in this year’s crop of home-grown productions at the San Sebastian Festival is no surprise to anyone following the region’s growth in recent years, but it is impressive.

Below, 20 Basque projects and finished films and series which stand out at this year’s event.

“Akelarre,” (Pablo Agüero)

A former San Sebastian Festival Co-Production Forum project, “Akelarre” is the latest from Cannes Jury Prize-winner Pablo Agüero (“First Snow”) and plays in this year’s main competition. Heavily influenced by Jules Michelet’s novel “The Witch,” Agüero’s period drama came from a “feeling of injustice that almost all works of fiction dealing with witch hunts perpetuate, clichés first created by the Inquisition.” Seven companies combined on the ambitious co-production.

S.A. Film Factory

“Patria,” (Aitor Gabilondo)

HBO Europe’s original series about two families caught up in the Basque Country’s armed conflict with the Eta organization,...

Basque cinema is booming, and director Asier Altuna is part of the vanguard leading it forward. The Spanish filmmaker, behind 2005 Youth Award winner “Aupa Etxebeste!” and 2015 Best Basque Film “Amama” at the San Sebastián Intl. Film Festival, attended this year’s Ventana Sur Proyecta sidebar with his next project, “Karmele, the Hour of Waking Together.”

The project is a cinematic adaptation of the novel “The Hour of Waking Together” by Kirmen Uribe, itself based on a true story, winner of the 2016 Critics Prize for Basque literature and best book of the year according to the Basque Academy.

Turning on titular character Karmele Urresti, the film kicks off as Franco’s forces are fighting their way across Spain in the mid ‘30s. Although most of her friends and family flee when the Civil War reaches the Basque Country, Karmele stays to care for the wounded and to try and free her father from incarceration.

Last year, Argentina’s Ventana Sur film and TV market and co-production forum launched its inaugural Proyecta feature project showcase.

Co-organized by Ventana Sur and the San Sebastian Film Festival, Proyecta was established to aid in facilitation of international co-productions between Europe and Latin America.

16 feature film projects will participate this year, four of which come from the Basque co-founder, one from Taller Eave Puentes-Europe Latin America Co-Production Workshop and the final title from Brasil CineMundi. The others were selected by Paulo Roberto de Carvalho, Esperanza Luffiego and Clara Massot for Ventana Sur.

From the 16 projects, nine are first or second features interspersed with established, multi-award-winning filmmakers such as Lucía Puenzo, director of 2007’s Cannes Critics’ Week, Golden Rail, Acid and Regards Jeunes Prize-winner “Xxy,” and who is fresh off Fabula’s Daniela Vega-starred series “The Pack.” Puenzo will be pitching “Los Impactados,” written by her friend Lorena Ventimiglia,...

Lucía Puenzo, Julio Hernández Cordón among participants

Six female directors and 11 female producers development projects in this year’s Proyecta co-production programme organised by Ventana Sur and San Sebastian Film Festival.

The event, set to take place in Buenos Aires on December 4, aims to match 16 feature projects at development stage from filmmakers in Latin America and Europe with financing and international distribution.

For the second consecutive year, producers will present selected projects at a pitching session to professionals from the international film industry, followed by a series of meetings to discuss the work and potential collaborations in greater depth.

Proyecta...

‘+90dB’

A Basque rock band travels the globe playing to diehard fans from Japan, the U.S., Germany and France. Marina Lameiro’s second film, produced by Arena Comunicación and Txalap.art.

‘918 Nights’

Arantza Santesteban writes and directs her first feature documentary in which she explores the experience of being incarcerated for what seemed to be 918 nights. Txintxua Films and Hiruki Filmak currently produce.

‘Bromo: Agent Gernika’

Directed by Gerard Escuer the documentary follows the tumultuous life of José Laradogoitia a Basque double spy that worked against the Nazis during the World War Two. Produced by Area Audiovisual the documentary that plays with fictionalized scenes was selected in the Co production Forum of Documentaries Lau Haizetara on the 67th edition of San Sebastian. Is currently in preproduction.

‘Bye, Bye, Mr. Etxebeste’

Asier Altuna and Telmo Esnal’s follow-up to their 2005 social satire “Hello, Mr. Etxebeste,” the first Basque-language feature in years,...

San Sebastian — Basque cinema is attacking the future with higher industrial and creative expectations than ever, playing off two motors: Co-production with other parts of Spain, international equity partnerships.

Two game-changers in the Basque film landscape, “Handia,” winner of 10 Spanish Academy Goya Awards in 2018, and “Loreak,” Spain’s 2016 Oscar submission, have contributed to consolidate local industry’s self-confidence in recent years.

The resurgence of Basque cinema is led by established production outfits such as Irusoin, Moriarti Produkzioak, Txintxua Films, Kowalski Films and Señor y Señora, whose managing boards combine in many cases talented creators and ambitious producers, which has proved a highly advantageous formula.

“There is an artistic and entrepreneurial ambition to make films that can reach the global market,” says Señor y Señora’s Leire Apellaniz, producer of San Sebastian New Directors player “Las letras de Jordi,” by Maider Fernández, and Aritz Moreno’s Sitges contender “Ventajas de viajar en tren.

San Sebastian — Filmax is handling international rights to Asier Altuna and Telmo Esnal’s “Bye Bye Mr. Etxebeste!,” produced by the Basque Country’s Irusoin, one of the main companies behind Jon Garaño, Aitor Arregi and José Mari Goenaga’s “The Endless Trench,” a main competition contender at the 67th San Sebastian Film Festival.

“Bye Bye Mr. Etxebeste!” will have its world premiere at San Sebastian Film screening as the Basque Cinema Gala Tuesday Sept. 24. Feature is a follow-up to “Hello Mr. Etxebeste,” the first Basque-language feature in many years when it was released in 2005, a black comedy turning on a bankrupt family without enough money to go on summer vacation.

“We feel very lucky to be on another adventure with the Etxebeste family, especially those of us who were there at the premiere of the first film, at the San Sebastian Film Festival, laughing and having such a great time!

San Sebastian – Barcelona-based Lastor Media and Malmo Pictures have teamed with San Sebastian’s Irusoin to produce “Suro” (The Cork), the feature debut of Mikel Gurrea and a product of San Sebastian’s Ikusmira Berriak program.

The film stars Laia Costa, who broke through with Sebastian Schipper’s “Victoria” and also serves as executive producer, and Pol López (Josep M. Fontana’s “Boi”). “Suro” is scheduled to start shooting next year.

Set in the Empordà region of Catalonia, close to the French border, “Suro” is a Catalan-language dramatic thriller with an auteurist voice but aimed at wider audiences, according to its producers.

The news comes as Irusoin, producers of “Loreak,” Spain’s international Oscar entry in 2015, world premieres in main competition section “The Endless Trench,” directed by Aitor Arregi, Jon Garaño and Jose Mari Goenaga. Another Irusoin production, Asier Altuna and Telmo Esnal’s “Agur Etxebeste,” a sequel of “Aupa Etxebeste!

The new projects by Asier Altuna, César Díaz, Pablo Giorgelli, Diego Lerman and Mariana Rondón are among those chosen to be presented to film professionals from 22 to 25 September. Sixteen projects from twelve countries have been selected for the 8th Europe-Latin America Co-Production Forum, San Sebastián International Film Festival's platform for promoting new audiovisual projects between European and Latin American film. Taking place from 22 to 25 September, the forum will host the pitching session of the projects selected, as well as the other five chosen for the fifth edition of the Ikusmira Berriak residencies programme, which will be followed by one-to-one meetings with their producers and directors, coinciding with Films in Progress 36 and the third edition of Glocal in Progress (read news). From among the projects selected, eleven will be first or second films, including The Judges (Los jueces), by Guatemala's César Díaz, whose debut film, Our...

Madrid — Diego Lerman’s “Literature Teacher,” Asier Altuna’s “Karmele,” Benjamín Avila’s “The Cardinal” and Mariana Rondón’s “Zafari” will pitch at the 8th San Sebastian Europe-Latin American Co-production Forum, now firmly established as, along with Ventana Sur, the key art film meet exploring that axis.

Featuring new projects from other name auteurs from the region- Pablo Giorgelli, Neto Villalobos, for example – as well as top producers working Europe Latin American production – Tu Vas Voir, Campo Cine, Patagonik, Malbicho Cine, Tarea Fina – the Forum, running Sept.22-25, will attract most of San Sebastian’s now 2,000-plus industry delegates, while offering a glimpse of the market trends now forging the regions’ filmmaking.

Here, for starters, are three:

1.Step Up In Scale Or Mainstream Ambitions

One is a step up in scale, or move towards the mainstream. After winning the Cannes Festival’s Camera d’Or for best first feature with “Las Acacias,...

San Sebastian — “Lobster Soup” scooped a €3,000 cash prize for best project at San Sebastian’s Lau Haizetara‘s Documentary Co-production Forum. It also won a second award for distribution.

Produced by Valencia’s Suica Films, Basque Country’s Rec Grabaketa Estudioa and Iceland’s Axfilms, “Lobster Soup” portrays a small community around Iceland’s Bryggjan café, where each morning its famous lobster soup is prepared. José Andreu and Rafael Molés will direct.

Other buzzed titles among the 14 projects pitched on Thursday were “Matrioskas, las niñas de la guerra,” “The Mystery of Pink Flamingos,” “There Was and There Wasn’t,” and “Niño de Elche”.

A Basque production from Haruru Filmak and Sincro Producción, “Matrioskas” plumbs into the lives of five seemingly ordinary 90-something women who hide their extraordinary lives. Fleeing northern Spain during the Civil War, they lived in exile in the Ussr and finally Cuba.

Produced by growing Basque company Sr.

A selection of Basque pictures, projects and productions in 2018:

70 Big Ones

Sayaka Producciones, Pokeepsie Films, La Panda Producciones and Setenta Invisibles L.P. Aie produce the next thriller from Basque genre specialist Koldo Serra (“The Backwoods”), starring Emma Suárez, Nathalie Poza and Hugo Silva. It features a desperate woman in need of $41,000, with two muggers in her way. Filmax handles world sales.

Above 592 Metres

Maddi Barber’s latest explores the life chances left when a territory is completely altered by the construction of the Itoiz dam in the Navarrese Pyrenees. Selected by prestigious shorts program Kimuak, “Above” screens at the 9th Zinemira Basque film showcase and competes for the Zabaltegi-Tabakalera Award.

Advantages Of Traveling By Train

Acquired by Entertainment One’s Seville International and produced by San Sebastian-based Sr. y Sra. and Madrid’s Morena Films, this film, starring Luis Tosar and Pilar Castro, marks Aritz Moreno’s feature debut,...

Pushing into international acquisitions, Bilbao-based distributor Barton Films has picked up Spanish distribution rights to three films playing at the 66th San Sebastian Festival’s New Directors sidebar.

Barton’s most recent international-title release slate is headed by “The Third Wife,” the feature debut by New York and Vietnam-based Ash Mayfair, which recently won the Netpac award at the Toronto Film Festival.

A second buy, “A Decent Man,” by Romanian Hadrian Marcu, highlighted at the first edition of San Sebastian’s Glocal in Progress showcase in 2017, toplines Bogdan Dumitrache, winner last year of a San Sebastian Silver Shell for best actor for Constantin Popescu’s “Pororoca,” another Barton Films pickup.

Ismet Sijarina’s “Cold November,” a Kosovo-Albania-Republic of Macedonia co-production world premiering at New Directors, is a family drama based on real events in the turbulent times after Yugoslavia abolishes Kosovan autonomous institutions in 1990.

“Increasing the volume of independent international movies acquisitions,...

Madrid — Asier Altuna’s “Karmele,” Liliana Diaz Castillo’s “Estela” and Carles Torras’ “The Paramedic” feature among six projects to be pitched at the 2018 Small is Biutiful forum, a highly popular Paris-based Spain-France networking event run now entering its 11th edition.

Small is Biutiful takes place Wednesday, June 27, run by Espagnolas en Paris and the Ile de France Film Commission.

Torras’ film is a welcome thriller. Beyond that, the five other projects take in, through personal stories, some of the biggest forces forging the past and present world: Political exile, disaffected youth, immigration, domestic abuse and globalization’s destruction of traditional rural ways. Notably, four of the films feature women looking to recreate their lives, families or communities after past suffering. Some do so with epic sweep down the decades, others in smaller stories. The female protagonists and large social forces endow the projects with undoubtable larger resonance.

Txintxua Films-produced “Karmele,...

Three Spanish titles will compete for this year’s Golden Shell.Scroll down for full line-up

This 64th San Sebastian Film Festival (Sept 16-24) has revealed the line-up of Spanish titles that will play across its sections.

There will be a total of 15 Spanish-produced films on show, including four shorts.

Competing for the Golden Shell – the festival’s top prize – will be Alberto Rodríguez’s El Hombre De Las Mil Caras (Smoke And Mirrors), Rodrigo Sorogoyen’s Que Dios Nos Perdone (May God Save Us) and Jonás Trueba’s La Reconquista (The Reconquest), all of which are world premieres.

Goya Award-winning director Alberto Rodríguez is nominated for his third Golden Shell following 2014’s Marshland and 2005’s 7 Virgins. El Hombre De Las Mil Caras (Smoke And Mirrors) [pictured top] tells the story of spy Fransisco Paesa.

Rodrigo Sorogoyen presents his third feature Que Dios Nos Perdone (May God Save Us) – following 2013’s Goya-nominated Stockholm – which tells the story of a detective...

Three Spanish titles will compete for this year’s Golden Shell.Scroll down for full line-up

This 64th San Sebastian Film Festival (Sept 16-24) has revealed the line-up of Spanish titles that will play across its sections.

There will be a total of 15 Spanish-produced films on show, including four shorts.

Competing for the Golden Shell – the festival’s top prize – will be Alberto Rodríguez’s El Hombre De Las Mil Caras (Smoke And Mirrors), Rodrigo Sorogoyen’s Que Dios Nos Perdone (May God Save Us) and Jonás Trueba’s La Reconquista (The Reconquest), all of which are world premieres.

Goya Award-winning director Alberto Rodríguez is nominated for his third Golden Shell following 2014’s Marshland and 2005’s 7 Virgins. El Hombre De Las Mil Caras (Smoke And Mirrors) [pictured top] tells the story of spy Fransisco Paesa.

Rodrigo Sorogoyen presents his third feature Que Dios Nos Perdone (May God Save Us) – following 2013’s Goya-nominated Stockholm – which tells the story of a detective...