The research work carried out under the Arxiboa grants will analyse the influence of festivals on the significance of films, retrospectives and visits by filmmakers from Hollywood’s Golden Age and the major role played by the event in the development of science film

Asier Aranzubia, Zigor Etxebeste and Paula Arantzazu Ruiz are the three successful candidates of submissions for the 3rd José Ángel Herrero-Velarde Grants of the San Sebastian Festival and the Elías Querejeta Zine Eskola (EZQE), the film school launched by the Gipuzkoa Provincial Council’s Department of Culture. Their works at Arxiboa will analyse, respectively, the influence of festivals on film production, particularly focusing on El espíritu de la colmena / The Spirit of the Beehive, 1973; the retrospectives and visits of filmmakers from Hollywood’s Golden Age during the mandate of Miguel de Echarri as director of the event from 1967 to 1977, and the importance from 1965 onwards of San Sebastian’s International Meeting of Educational, Scientific and Cultural Cinema and TV, with its contribution to the development of science and medicine films.

In May of this year, a committee made up of representatives of the Festival and the EQZE decided the recipients of the three research grants for 2025, one going to a person born or living in Gipuzkoa (Etxebeste), and two to researchers from other parts of Spain (Aranzubia and Ruiz). The committee selected their proposal "for their plural approach and the tailored nature of their subject matter and methodology, their theoretical contribution to the study of film festivals and to knowledge of films made in Spain and abroad, and their use of the Festival’s archive material as their principal source".

These grants are intended to encourage research into the Festival archives thanks to generating new research articles taking said archives (going by the name of ’Artxiboa’) as their principal source while enabling a look back at the event and creating an ongoing discussion with its present and future.

The lecturer and historian from Bilbao, Asier Aranzubia (Bilbao, 1973) will research the role of film festivals as leading players in the processes of lending critical and academic legitimacy to certain films. To do it, he will focus on the specific case of El espíritu de la colmena / The Spirit of the Beehive, Víctor Erice, 1973, based on the premise that "the Golden Shell garnered in San Sebastian and the overall repercussion of the Festival played a decisive role in that complicated process enabling Erice’s film to enter the realm of the revered".

The teacher and expert in the cinema Zigor Etxebeste (San Sebastian, 1974) will look at the period falling between 1967 and 1977, when Miguel de Echarri was the Festival director and great filmmakers of Hollywood’s Golden Age flocked to the city, such as Fritz Lang, King Vidor, Howard Hawks and Nicholas Ray. His research will "particularly focus" on the retrospectives, which enjoyed a "new boost" thanks to the presence of those moviemakers, which was "a bit like having the History of Cinema taking to the streets of the capital of Gipuzkoa".

The journalist, critic and lecturer Paula Arantzazu Ruiz (Barcelona, 1979) will focus on the "historical importance" enjoyed from 1965 by the International Meeting of Educational, Scientific and Cultural Cinema and TV, organised as part of the San Sebastian Festival, and its contribution to the "development and institutionalisation of films about science and medicine in our country starting with the creation of specific associations and festivals in the years of economic development and democratic transition".

The research residency gives participants two weeks’ access to the Artxiboa facilities, in the Tabakalera building, home to all of the Festival archive material. From 7-18 July, the selected candidates will be assigned a work and consultation space at the Filmoteca Vasca, where they will have access to the building’s film collection and archives added to the possibility of attending film screenings, workshops and masterclasses, among other activities. They will also be given the sum of 3,500 euros, travel and accommodation costs, and a per diem stipend for the dates of their stay.

THIRD EDITION 2025

• Asier Aranzubia: Film festivals as leading players in the processes of lending critical and academic legitimacy to films. The case of ’El espíritu de la colmena’ and the San Sebastian Festival.
• Zigor Etxebeste: The directing elite: the era of Miguel de Echarri. When the leading directors of Hollywood’s Golden Age flocked to San Sebastian (1967-1977).
• Paula Arantzazu Ruiz: The role played by the International Meeting of Educational, Scientific and Cultural Cinema and TV in 1965 as the birthplace of the ecosystem of science film festivals in the Spain of economic development and the Transition.

SECOND EDITION 2024

• Harri X. Fernández: And who animates this festival? Approach to and contexts of the presence of animated films at generalist European festivals in the 20th and 21st centuries: the case of Zinemaldia, of its 101 barks to the Basque feminist utopia.
• Sonia García López: Seeds for revolt: the International Meeting of Film Schools (1960-1966).
• Carlos F. Heredero: Mirror to mirror. New Spanish Cinema and the San Sebastian Festival. 

FIRST EDITION 2023

Second call

• Minerva Campos: San Sebastian International Film Festival’s ’A’ category at risk: negotiations with the FIAPF and cinematic diplomacy (1953-1985).
• Aida Vallejo: Meetings at the Zinemaldia. A sociocultural history of the San Sebastian Festival through its spaces.
• Violeta Kovacsics: The movies of the Transition and the San Sebastian Festival.

First call

• Felipe Cabrerizo: A window open to the East: the entrance to Spain of movies from the Soviet orbit through the San Sebastian Festival.
• Neus Sabaté: Ripples of the reunion between Josefina Molina, Pilar Miró and Cecilia Bartolomé.
• Endika Rey: New directions: New Filmmakers at the San Sebastian Festival