Born on September 21, 1953, the San Sebastian Film Festival is the dream child of ten Basque entrepreneurs who hoped to extend San Sebastian’s summer season into late September.
Presented by bullfighter Mario Capri, who was romantically Ava Gardner, and consisted of only 19 films, won by “La Guaira de Dios”, directed by Rafael Gil. , who was rescued from a possible Republican execution squad by Luis Buñuel a few years ago. Fireworks, bullfights, and sidewalk parties marked Film Week.
From that first edition, the beauty and gastronomy of San Sebastian remains, the Belle Epoque resort that features the gorgeous white-sanded Concha Bay, rolling hills, an old quarter of higgeldy-piggeldy streets and three three-star Michelin restaurants. 70 years later, San Sebastian is still stunning.
San Sebastian, during the first twenty years of its decade under dictator Francisco Franco, proved to be a window to a freer world for a privileged elite, and a window to a freer world blessed by Federico Fellini, introducing “Caberia Nights” (1957), Alfred Hitchcock who came from Yes Vertigo (1958) and young Francis Ford Coppola, whose “Rain People” won the 1969 Golden Shell.
The foundations of the modern festival were first laid by Spain’s transition in the 1970s from dictatorship to democracy. “It was previously forbidden to be filmed. “The festival begins to connect with the new era,” says Jose Luis Ribordinos, current director of San Sebastian.
Victor Aris’ “Spirit of the Beehive” and “Furtivos” by Jose Luis Burao, two great Spanish films condemning the society created by Franco, won a gold medal for San Sebastian in 1973 and 1975, with the festival becoming a platform for protest by both Democrats and Basques. . separatists.
Those hard times are over. Spain’s highest-ranking social cause pushes the envelope of inclusion, justice and now reconciliation still gravitating toward San Sebastian. Beyond distances, this year’s “Prison 77” and Isabel Coixet’s “Yellow Roof,” a documentary on gender abuse, are heirs to this protest tradition.
Another before and after was the appointment of El País film critic Diego Galán in 1986 as the festival’s artistic director. Galan inaugurates the Donostia Award for Hollywood stars, big screen sessions at the Velodrome in San Sebastian near 3000 seats,
Including one for “Salvador” that wowed young Oliver Stone, and catchphrases like “Everyone to the movies.”
“Such phrases may sound simplistic, but at the time they were mind-boggling: Someone told the citizens of San Sebastian that the festival was ours when we thought it was only for the wealthy elite, Diego popularized the festival,” Ribordino recalls.
At the instigation of Manuel Pérez Estremera, future festival director and then TVE exec, Galán turns San Sebastian into the first major festival in Europe to boldly reach Latin America, displaying five features from the region in its main Zabaltegi sidebar in 1987.
Perhaps Galland’s greatest achievement, at least by his own discretion, was to convince Bette Davis to come to San Sebastian to receive the Donostia Prize. At a press conference, she answered the question with almost royal grace. This was Davis’ last great performance: she died in Paris four days later.
Working more quietly behind the scenes, former EiTB Basque publisher exec Mikel Olaciregui, Festivals Director during 2001-10, shaped many of the hallmarks of today’s festival. “It’s Mikel who goes to Los Angeles every year, makes connections with all the industries and really starts to put the festival on the international map,” notes Rebordinos.
Olaciregui also persuades Spanish producers to show the films in San Sebastian-en-Mas. Over the course of three decades, FIAPF Class A ‘withdrawn’ in 1956, 1963 and 1980-1984, San Sebastian vacillated between its status as a public festival and becoming a specialized event. The strong focus on Latin America and Spain allows it to be both.
Since 2011, Repordinos has doubled in the industry, launching the Europe-Latin American Co-Production Forum and now the Creative Investors Conference. He noted that industry attendance had tripled to 1,800 delegates since 2011.
Once a 10-day event, San Sebastian is now part of the city’s fertile television film hub with the Tabacalera Cultural Center and Basque Film Archive, which launched the Ecosmera Briac incubator in 2015 and Elias Quirjeta Zen Escola two years later. The Fortnight title was developed for the managers of Cannes “Water”, “Suro” and “Pornomelancholy”, both in the San Sebastian 2022 competition, at Ikusimira Berriak.
Celebrating its 70th edition, San Sebastian now stands in awe of awe, and not just for its location: an ally of Cannes in the pandemic and at Ventana Sur; The most important film festival in the Spanish-speaking world; Spain’s most important cultural event according to annual opinion polls; Part of a vibrant, year-round film and television hub in San Sebastian; One of the pillars of Spain’s $1.6 billion federal aid plan.
The big question, Rebordinos admits, is not, as under Franco, whether San Sebastian will survive, but how it can grow more in the future.
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