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SAN SEBASTIÁN 2018 Industry

This year’s Glocal in Progress has a Lithuanian, Greek and Turkish flavour

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- SAN SEBASTIÁN 2018: Three projects shot in non-hegemonic languages have been presented at the second edition of the Basque festival’s industry activity

This year’s Glocal in Progress has a Lithuanian, Greek and Turkish flavour
Invisible by Ignas Jonynas

Aiming to lend greater visibility to European productions filmed in non-hegemonic languages (ie, those that are not filmed in German, Spanish, French, English, Italian or Russian), last year the San Sebastián Film Festival launched the Glocal in Progress industry activity. After a Basque film, Dantza [+see also:
trailer
making of
interview: Telmo Esnal
film profile
]
, was awarded at the first edition (which was in fact presented as a Special Screening at this edition of the festival – read the interview with its director, Telmo Esnalhere), a Baltic movie called Invisible [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Ignas Jonynas and Kristupas…
film profile
]
 has now emerged victorious.

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Invisible, which was crowned with the Glocal in Progress Award (which comes with €10,000 for the majority producer of the film and its entire post-production), is being directed by Lithuania’s Ignas Jonynas, whose first feature, The Gambler [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Ignas Jonynas
film profile
]
, took part in the New Directors section of the festival back in 2013. The movie zooms in on a young man who pretends to be blind in order to enter a dance competition on television, and who is forced to face up to fame and his own dishonesty when an old acquaintance is released from prison. The film is being co-produced by Lithuania (Magic Films), Latvia (Locomotive Productions) and Ukraine (Limelite), and it is currently in post-production.

Another movie that was part of the selection, A Simple Man, helmed by Greek first-timer Tassos Gerakinis, tells the story of a convict who, while trying to escape, forces a peace-loving wine producer to hide him in his house – but the wine producer’s daughter ends up falling in love with him. The film is a co-production between Greece (Bad Crowd and Faliro House Productions) and France (Arizona Productions), and it rocked up at the festival in search of support for the post-production stage, a sales agent and perhaps another producing country.

The final movie selected, Queen Lear [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
, directed by Turkey’s Pelin Esmer, a filmmaker who previously competed for the Golden Shell in 2009 with 10 to 11 [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
, follows five peasants from the Turkish mountains who travel around performing an adaptation of King Lear by Shakespeare, as their lives start to converge with the world of the play. The film is being produced by Esmer herself for Sinefilm, and the team came to the gathering in search of funding for the final edit.

This year, the festival placed a particular emphasis on this specific topic during its industry activities, and the agenda included a conference on diversity in European cinema as a market value, which saw the participation of representatives of organisations such as the Lithuanian Film Centre, the Estonian Film Institute, the National Film Centre of LatviaFfilm Cymru Wales and the Basque Government. In addition, the Baltic countries (Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania), whose languages are indeed non-hegemonic, enjoyed this year’s “Focus on”, which the festival dedicates to a specific territory at each edition.

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(Translated from Spanish)

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