In July, José Luis Rebordinos, director of the San Sebastián Film Festival, highlighted the growing prominence of documentaries at this year’s event. Among the notable examples he cited were Albert Serra’s “Afternoons of Solitude,” and the New Directors opener “La guitarra flamenca de Yerai Cortés,” the directorial debut of Antón Álvarez, better known to date as singer-songwriter C. Tangana.
“Genre auteur cinema has been around for some time, but there’s ever more of it, and non-fiction cinema is increasingly normal,” Rebordinos observed. These selections highlight Spain’s expanding presence in the documentary realm. Basque cinema is not lagging behind.
A prime example is “Los Williams,” which arrives at the festival bolstered by the celebrity of its subjects, soccer superstar siblings Iñaki and Nico Williams. Amaia Remírez, its producer at Kanaki Films , shared with Variety that director Raúl de la Fuente drew his inspiration from seeing the profound influence these two Black athletes had on his nine-year-old son. “I’d say that it’s a growing scene, and it’s growing internationally.
I think there are more bold titles coming every year, and the vision they have has expanded,” said Marias Recarte of En Cero Coma, Fremantle’s Spanish doc label which co-produced the project. “Basque producers are becoming increasingly aware of the power their local stories have to become universal,” added Rosaura Romero, also from En Cero C.