Focus on the opening of the festival to denounce the "regrettable situation" of the audiovisual Basque Country
- At this year’s San Sebastian Film Festival there will be very few films broadcast in Basque or with subtitles in Basque, for example in the Official Section of 109 sessions, none. Apantallamiento Euskaraz has carried out the study and taking advantage of the day of the inauguration of the Zinemaldia has called a concentration in front of Kursaal on Friday to denounce the “scarce presence” of the Basque in the audiovisual media.
Of the 573 sessions that will be offered at the Zinemaldia, the original version will be 5 in Basque and 11 in bilingual or trilingual. The sessions that will have subtitles in Basque are 37. And there will be 5 sessions folded to Euskera, all aimed at children. In total, therefore, 10.1% of the projections will be in Basque, multilingual or subtitled to Basque. On the contrary, all performances will be offered in Spanish or with subtitles in Spanish.
These are the data from the study carried out by Apantillas Euskaraz and the conclusion of the initiative is clear: “It can hardly be understood that in an act that is celebrated with so much public money, in a territory where there are two official languages, the Basque, and therefore the Basques, suffer this kind of discrimination”.
Alex Aginagalde, a member of the initiative, has explained that the description is a reality that goes beyond the Festival and that the intention is to denounce the “shameful presence” of the Basque Country in general on the Kursaal screens on Friday at 19:30 hours, taking advantage of the massive presence of authorities at the inauguration. In fact, “it is the responsibility of the institutions to end the discrimination that we Basques experience in cinemas, film festivals, television and platforms.”
They specify that according to the Basque law on standardization "the government will adopt measures to progressively equalize the use of the two official languages". However, this law is going to be 40 years old, “and many of the articles in it are still not being complied with,” they have criticized. In short, “criteria can be established regarding the linguistic requirements of film festivals and the prioritization of Euskera on public television; it is also up to the administrations of the Basque Country to increase the budget for audiovisual in Basque and to create new lines of subsidy for dubbing in Basque; and establishing linguistic quotas in Basque cinema is legally possible for at least half of the films to be shown in Basque.
In cinemas throughout Euskal Herria, only 1% of the films premiered throughout the year are premiered in Basque. “There is also no Basque cinema on EITB public television, and in the streaming platforms that prevail in the market, the presence of the Basque is minimal”. For all these reasons, a claim to the street will be launched on the 16th day under the motto “The screens in Basque, our right”.
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