Ikusmira Berriak 2019

The programme of residencies and development of audiovisual projects Ikusmira Berriak, which is organised by the San Sebastian Film Festival, the Tabakalera International Centre for Contemporary Culture and the Elías Querejeta Cinema School, is changing its model with the call for the fifth edition. So that the film-makers get as much as possible out of the residency, the residency will be split into two periods, with one in February and one in September.

Residents will develop their projects for four weeks between February and March, during which they will attend workshops for film-makers and directors and will be advised by members of the expert committee, which in 2019 will be composed of Savina Neirotti, Sergio Oksman and Valeska Grisebach, who joins the programme.

From March to September, the directors will continue working on their project. During this period, they will receive online tutoring from the experts, and then in September they will return to San Sebastian to complete the last two weeks of their residency, when they will arrive with their project in a more advanced state so that they can share it with the film industry. During this last phase, a learning workshop on the market environment will be organised for them, and they will be prepared for the pitching session (presentation of the project) with the aim of holding meetings with the industry professionals present at the Festival.

The call for the fifth edition of Ikusmira Berriak, with its new structure, will open on 9 July and will close on 31 August. The projects selected will be announced in October.

For their part, the five residents from the fourth edition - Manuel Abramovich, Nele Wohlatz, Elena López Riera, Arantza Santesteban and Grigory Kolomytsev - will begin their residency on 20 August.

Three projects chosen during the first editions of Ikusmira Berriak have been completed and have been screened at the Festival: the short films El extraño by Pablo Álvarez, Calipatria by Leo Calice and Gerhard Treml and Gwendolyn Green by Tamyka Smith were presented at Zabaltegi-Tabakalera in 2016 and 2017.  The programme's first finished feature film will première this year: Trote, directed by Xacio Baño, who was a resident in the first edition of the programme.

Ikusmira Berriak is a programme that seeks to involve new talent as well as producers and people from the audiovisual industry who support innovation and new languages. It is organised by Tabakalera, the San Sebastian Film Festival, and the Elías Querejeta Cinema School in collaboration with REC Recording Studio and the Basque Film Library, and is part of the San Sebastian 2016 European Capital of Culture legacy.