Ekain Albite, Rod Llaverías, Inês Nunes, Gala Hernández, Kavich Neang and Valeria Hofmann will be working on their projects in the twelfth edition of Ikusmira Berriak
The residency run by the San Sebastián festival, Tabakalera and Elías Querejeta Zine Eskola has again broken its record for entries, with 488 proposals received.
The suffocating heat, perhaps as an unmistakeable sign of the climate catastrophe, women’s bodies, exploring family structures, the industrial past and the digital universe are all present among the twelve proposals selected for the twelfth Ikusmira Berriak, approached in a rich variety of forms, reinterpreting genres like gothic horror, the road movie, psychological drama and body horror. The film projects by Ekain Albite, Rod Llaverías, Inês Nunes, Gala Hernández López, Kavich Neang and Valeria Hofmann were selected for the residencies organised by the San Sebastián Festival, the Tabakalera international arts centre and Elías Querejeta Zine Eskola. The programme once again broke its own record for entries, receiving 488 film projects. Among the six projects selected, five are debuts and one is a second film, reaffirming Ikusmira Berriak’s commitment to new cinematic voices and points of view.
In the Elías Querejeta Zine Eskola category, open to EQZE students, the project chosen was The Spirit Healer is Away for the Weekend, by Inês Nunes (b. Tavira, 1993). This Portuguese director, whose most recent short, A solidão dos lagartos / The Loneliness of Lizards (2025), was premiered in the official short film selection at the Cannes festival, and selected in the Nest category at the San Sebastián festival, where it won the Movistar Plus + prize for best short, portrays two women who, in a Lisbon assailed by heat and tourism, take refuge in a shopping centre, which the film maker describes as “places that offer consolation and belonging, but at the same time work as traps that capitalise on our most deep-seated anxieties.”
In the Nest category, open to filmmakers chosen in the last five editions of the international students' event at the festival (2020-2024), La Canícula by Dominican director Rod Llaverías (b. New York, 1989) was chosen. The first feature-length film by Llaverías, who co-wrote the short Darling, winner of the Orizzonti prize for best short film in Venice (2019), is working on the short Tropicalía, with which he took part in Nest in 2022, exploring care, the duel, trauma and identity through four women who live in a dilapidated family home in the Dominican capital.
In the Basque category the project chosen is Akira, by Ekain Albite (b. Zumaia, 1999), co-director of the collective film Negu hurbilak (2023), which earned a special commendation in the Cineasti del Presente section at the Locarno festival. The first solo feature-length project by Albite, an EQZE graduate, is a spectral, night-time road movie featuring two Georgian scrap merchants who travel from the Lemoiz nuclear power station to their native country.
The project selected in the Spanish category is Los animals magnéticos / Magnetic animals by Gala Hernández López (b. Murcia, 1993). This artist, film-maker and researcher, whose film La Mécanique des fluides won the César for best short documentary in 2024, tells the story of two women with a mysterious connection, a scientist in modern-day Berlin and a French aristocrat trying to deal with motherhood in the late 18th century, a gothic horror film which uses the idea of the female double.
In the international category two projects have been chosen. In Daemon, Chilean director and scriptwriter Valeria Hofmann (b. Santiago de Chile, 1988) uses body-techno horror to tell the story of two people who live on the fringes of the technological system: a content moderator and a worker in a factory that produces mobile phones. Her short film AliEN0089, which also explored the technological habitat, won the prize for best international director at Sundance (2023) and the Grand Prix Labo at Clermont Ferrand (2024).
Finally, Cambodian director Kavich Neang (b. Phnom Penh, 1987), after premiering White Building at the Venice festival (2021), winning the Orizzonti prize for best actor, uses his second feature-length project, Chas Khouch Kmeng Ropus / Bad Man Good Boy, to portray the coming of age of two friends, but also to reflect on the family and an authoritarian context.
The residency lasts eight weeks, divided into two stays. The group of six filmmakers will be arriving at Tabakalera on 9th March and will have time in the Film and Audiovisuals Laboratory there to work on their projects until 19th April. During this time, they will be advised by experts specially chosen on the basis of each project's needs. In June, each resident will receive financial assistance to help them to carry on working on their project between the two stays. In September, coinciding with the festival, they will come back to San Sebastián to complete the last two weeks of their residency. During this phase they will be able to present their project to industry professionals and will have a personalised agenda of visits with people interested in taking part in their projects.
Eleven years of Ikusmira Berriak in figures
- Projects: 56
- Films completed: 28
- Awards: 57
- Appearances at festivals: 353
- Last films premiered: 5 in 2025
La misteriosa mirada del flamenco / The Mysterious Gaze of the Flamingo, Diego Céspedes (2025); Anoche conquisté Tebas / Last Night I Conquered the City of Tebas, Gabriel Azorín (2025); Hiedra / The Ivy, Ana Cristina Barragán (2025); Estrany Riu / Strange River, Jaume Claret (2025); Aro berria, Irati Gorostidi (2025).
Selected projects
EQZE Category
The Spirit Healer is Away for the Weekend
Inês Nunes
Every summer, the inhabitants of a coastal town witness a much-anticipated ritual: luxury cars speeding by at dawn, gauging the pulse of the annual economy. The heat and congestion drive the locals to the air-conditioned refuge of the shopping centre. Inside, two women: Sharon, haunted by the ghost of her daughter, and Celeste, a young woman scarred by a serious car accident, unwittingly seek each other out. Their encounters and misunderstandings take place amid food courts, escalators and mirrors. The shopping centre is transformed into a suspended territory, where the boundary between life and death dissolves.
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Nest Category
La Canícula
Rod Llaverías
La canícula takes place during the hottest days of summer, when everything becomes oppressive and suffocating. The film tells the story of a family confined to a house in the centre of the Dominican capital. Ciro, a repressed gay man, has dedicated his life, with the support of his sister Dolores, to caring for the elderly women in his home. In the days following the death of his grandmother, Ciro must deal with the burial of the body in the courtyard, the return of an absent aunt, and the arrival of Facundo, a captivating stranger. These events break the routine of the house and awaken in Ciro a long-suppressed desire.
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Basque Category
Akira
Ekain Albite
Vakhtang, a Georgian scrap dealer who lives among abandoned warehouses on the Basque coast, receives an unexpected visit from his cousin Giorgi. After venturing together into the closed-down Lemoiz nuclear power plant, a strange force compels them to abandon everything and keep moving forward into an endless night. Aboard a van, they cross winter landscapes and uncertain borders, while the journey breaks away from its own history and drifts into unknown territory, where other lives begin to emerge.
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Spanish Category
Los animales magnéticos
Gala Hernández
Berlin, in the near future. Hedda has just arrived to study a strange phenomenon in the behaviour of bats. She will soon be plagued by nightmares and symptoms of an impossible pregnancy. More than two centuries earlier, in the 18th century, Berthe, a French aristocrat, has the same birthmark on her neck. She undergoes experiments conducted by mesmerist doctors seeking to cure her reproductive disorders. Where does this shared fear come from, the fear of being devoured by the life they carry within them?
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International Category
Chas Khouch Kmeng Ropus / Bad man Good boy
Kavich Neang
In Phnom Penh, Sinoun rushes her half-paralyzed husband to the hospital after a stroke, facing fear, medical bills, and the return of her estranged eldest son, Tola. Her younger son, Arun, soon joins them, deepening family tension. As the father stabilizes, life worsens: Tola struggles at school and in his father's workshop, Arun faces bullying, and Sinoun discovers her husband's infidelity, leading to divorce. Months later, Tola works in Kampot and avoids returning home. Back in the city, Sinoun and Arun face theft, corruption, and the loss of their apartment. Through hardship, the brothers grow closer and face an uncertain future.
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International Category
Daemon
Valeria Hoffman
In a city ravaged by fires, Liz, a lonely content moderator, discovers that her virtual lover is a being trapped inside her computer. As the boundaries between the real and the digital blur, Liz becomes obsessed with giving him a physical body using a blood-powered bioprinter, risking her humanity in the process.
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