The San Sebastian International Film Festival launches its collaboration with the Mapfre Foundation

The Festival’s 59th edition presents a cycle jointly organised with the 4+1 Festival and an activity specially designed for children

The San Sebastian International Film Festival will collaborate from this year on with the MAPFRE Foundation on two activities to take place at the event: the “Contemporary Mexican Cinema” cycle and the “MAPFRE FOUNDATION Small Film Studio”.

The “Contemporary Mexican Cinema” cycle is programmed in collaboration with the MAPFRE Foundation’s 4+1 Festival, which has created a circuit of five cities for screening auteur movies to have participated at international festivals but not yet released in commercial cinemas. Its venues are: the Mexican Cineteca Nacional, the Cinemateca Distrital and Cine Colombia in Bogotá, the MALBA in Buenos Aires, the Centro Cultural do Banco do Brasil in Rio de Janeiro, and the Golem cinemas in Madrid.

At this edition, the 4+1 cycle will be dedicated to Mexico, the city housing the central HQ for the second edition of the 4+1 Festival from October 26th-30th, an event enjoying the inestimable collaboration of the Mexican Film Institute, IMCINE. The cycle will present nine films recently produced by key names on today’s Mexican film scene, an eclectic exhibit of the most daring and suggestive works produced by a cinematography boasting a series of internationally renowned moviemakers.

Further, the MAPFRE FOUNDATION and the San Sebastian Festival also present the «MAPFRE FOUNDATION Small Film Studio» Kids’ Tent. During the days when San Sebastian becomes, like every year, the world capital of film, the Tent (in the Plaza Okendo) will offer, from 12th-24th September, a wide selection of activities designed to attract children to the world of film and, above all, to ensure that they have fun with the emotions and experiences offered by the Seventh Art. The Tent programme includes permanent activities and workshops, all for the 3-12 year-olds. In these, among other film aspects, children will learn about and have fun with screenplays, film professions, tricks and special effects, dubbing, animation, optical illusions, make-up, wardrobe…

The activities programmed in the mornings from Monday to Friday are intended for schools, while the rest of the time they will be open to families. The space will be perfectly adapted for access by all children, with no obstacles of any kind.

Both initiatives were presented today in San Sebastian at an event attended by José Luis Rebordinos, Director of the San Sebastian Festival; Daniel Restrepo, Assistant Director of the MAPFRE FOUNDATION Culture Institute; and Garbiñe Ortega, Programmer at the MAPFRE FOUNDATION 4+1 Festival.



FILMS IN THE 4+1 CONTEMPORARY MEXICAN FILM CYCLE:

ABEL (2010), Diego Luna
Directorial debut from the actor Diego Luna, winner of the Horizontes Award and Euskaltel Youth Prize at the 58th edition of San Sebastian Festival. Abel, 9, refuses to speak. With no father on the scene, Abel becomes a rather unconventional paternal figure who succeeds in drawing the family closer together.


ALAMAR (2009), Pedro González-Rubio
Half-documentary, half-fiction on the emotional reunion between a man of Mayan origin living on the Mexican coast and the son he had with an Italian woman. The boy will soon go to live with his mother, giving father and son a short-lived period together to enjoy contact with nature. Prize-winner at the Miami, Morelia, Rotterdam and Toulouse festivals.


INTIMIDADES DE SHAKESPEARE Y VICTOR HUGO (SHAKESPEARE AND VICTOR HUGO’S INTIMACIES, 2008), Yulene Olaizola
The lodging house owned by Rosa Carbajal at the corner of Shakespeare and Victor Hugo streets in Mexico City is a place with lots to tell. The house-owner’s granddaughter uses her camera to investigate its past and the background of one of its mysterious guests. Winner of the Ariel Award for Best First Film and of different accolades at the Buenos Aires, Fribourg, Lima and Transylvania festivals, among others. Participated in the Horizontes Latinos section at the 56th edition of San Sebastian Festival.


LAKE TAHOE (2008), Fernando Eimbcke
Director Fernando Eimbcke was one of Mexican cinema’s most recent revelations, first of all with Temporada de patos (2004) and later with this film, winner of an award at the Berlin Festival and presented in the Zabaltegi-Pearls section of San Sebastian Festival’s 56th edition. A lovely minimalistic story about Juan, a boy who has a stupid accident with his car, and the picturesque characters who cross his path.


EL LUGAR MÁS PEQUEÑO (2011), Tatiana Huezo
The first film from director Tatiana Huezo, winner of awards at several international festivals, is a documentary portraying the life of a group of families in a small village in El Salvador who survived a bloody civil war and look back today at those terrible times.


LUZ SILENCIOSA (SILENT LIGHT, 2007), Carlos Reygadas
Johan and his family are Mennonites, followers of a Protestant Anabaptist group settled in north Mexico. Completely contradicting the law of God and men, Johan, a married man with children, falls in love with another woman. A tale of love and guilt from one of the most Mexican filmmakers to enjoy greatest international prestige, Carlos Reygadas.


NORTEADO (NORTHLESS, 2009), Rigoberto Pérezcano
Winner of Films in Progress at the 56th Edition of San Sebastian Festival. Here we follow the odyssey of Andrés, a young man from Oaxaca who tries time and again to illegally cross the North-American border, a dream constantly defeated by death, thirst and the desert. Participated in Zabaltegi-New Directors in 2009.


REVOLUCIÓN (2010), Various directors
Commemoration of the centenary of the Mexican revolution through 10 episodes shot by some of the biggest names on today’s Mexican movie scene: actors Diego Luna and Gael García Bernal and directors like Carlos Reygadas, Fernando Eimbcke, Amat Escalante and Rodrigo Pla. Ten points of view reflecting on the meaning of that historical event past and present.


VERANO DE GOLIAT (2010), Nicolás Pereda
Nicolás Pereda, one of the most solid up-and-coming talents in young Mexican film, brings us a documentary/fiction hybrid tracking the adventures of several people living in the city of Huilotepec: a woman whose husband has disappeared, her soldier son and his dream of owning a machine gun to intimidate people, three siblings abandoned by their father…


Gerardo Naranjo (Director of Revolución), Rodrigo García (Director of Revolución), Sandro Fiorin (Producer of Verano de Goliat), Tatiana Huezo (Director of El lugar más pequeño) and Jaime Romandia (Producer of Luz silenciosa) have confirmed their attendance at the cycle presentation. We will announce shortly other talents attending the Festival.