On 12 November, the opening gala will be held at the Arriaga Theatre in Bilbao and 123 films will be screened for a week, 34 of which are short films and 11 are Basque productions. The event was presented to the press on Monday by the Councillor for Culture and Governance of the City of Bilbao, Gonzalo Olabarria, the Councillor for Culture and Linguistic Policy of the Basque Government, Bingen Zupiria, and the director of Zinebi, Vanesa Fernández. They have stressed that more than half of the films in this edition have been directed by women. The festival will be closed on November 19 with the closing gala and the awards ceremony.

It will be a hybrid edition, like last year: The Arriaga Theatre, Azkuna ZENTROA, the Museum of Fine Arts and the BBK Hall will host the performances, which can also be followed through the online Filmin platform. All of them will have subtitles in Basque. Tickets are already on sale.

Mikeldi de Honor

Zinebi will award Basque filmmaker Imanol Uribe and German actress, screenwriter and director Margarethe von Trotta. According to the organizers, they are “essential” people of European and Basque cinema, and with the Mikeldi de Honor they want to recognize their trajectory.

They recalled that Uribe was linked from the beginning to the Zinebi festival, and won a prize in 1977 in Ez and 1982 in Ikuska 13: Basque song by short films. Von Trotta, for his part, has been considered "one of the most influential feminist filmmakers in the history of Film." They want to recognize the “strength, honesty and excellence” of their film.

Varied programming

The festival has been divided into two sections: Official Section and so on. The Official Section includes the International Short Film Competition and the ZIFF Zinebi First Film International Competition. Among other sections are the section dedicated to international documentaries and the audiovisual section produced in the Basque Country, among others.

In addition, several round tables and meetings have been organized around the figure of Dani Álvarez. Zinebi’s director, Vanesa Fernández, pointed out that this year also wanted to support women at the festival. He has therefore acknowledged that the Focus makes it “special”. Presentation of the section “Mexico, woman and original film”. It is a cycle of women filmmakers from cultures of Mexican origin, which will give importance to women and minority languages. The full programming of the festival can be found on the Zinebi website.