“Pheasant Island” will open the 22nd Human Rights Film Festival on 4 April

The festival will be held between 4 and 11 April at the Victoria Eugenia and Principal theatres, and other venues in the city.

This border thriller, the first feature film directed by Asier Urbieta, stars the Goya Award-winner Jone Laspiur (Ane, 2020) and the decorated theatre actor Sambou Diaby, with the special collaboration of Itziar Ituño and Josean Bengoetxea, and was written by Asier Urbieta and Andoni de Carlos, winner of a Goya for Handia (2017).

The movie (with dialogue in Basque and French) was filmed over six weeks in the countryside where the plot takes place (Irun, Hendaya and San Sebastian).

Asier Urbieta has this to say about the film: "One day, leafing through the newspaper, I read about a group of cyclists who, while riding along the banks of the River Bidasoa one Sunday, heard calls for help from two people who were trying to swim across the border, but couldn't cope with the current. I put myself in their place, and couldn't get this question out of my head: What would I have done? I would love to say that I would have jumped in, but I'm not so sure about that. I developed the story in the film from those real-life events".

Pheasant Island is produced by Arcadia Motion Pictures, La Tentación Producciones and Galatea Films, as a co-production with La Fidèle Production (France). It will be on release in cinemas from 25 April, courtesy of BTeam Pictures.

SYNOPSIS

Pheasant Island is the smallest condominium in the world. It belongs to the Spanish State for half of the year and to the French for the other half. It emerges in the middle of the Bidasoa River, a natural border that separates both countries. Laida and Sambou, a local couple, are walking in front of the island. Suddenly they see two people swimming across the river trying to reach the other side. Days later a corpse appears during the exchange of sovereignty of the island. Who takes charge?