"Film and Memory" cycle at Human Rights Film Festival
The 22nd San Sebastian Human Rights Film Festival will take place between 4 and 11 April at the Victoria Eugenia, the main setting for the event, and the Teatro Principal, as well as other venues around the city. This year Tabakalera will again be featuring the Film and Memory series, made up of three films analysing the power of images and their importance in recounting History: Ernest Cole: Lost and Found, Henry Fonda for President and Riefenstahl.
FILM AND MEMORY (Tabakalera)
- Ernest Cole: Lost and Found (2024). Raoul Peck. France-USA
South African photographer Ernest Cole was the first to show the world the horrors of apartheid through his book House of Bondage, published in 1967 when he was 27 years old. Forced into exile, he spent the rest of his life in Europe and New York, without ever finding personal or professional stability. Raoul Peck recounts his life as an artist, and his rage at the silence and complicity of the West with the South African regime. The unexpected discovery of 60,000 negatives of Cole's work in the safe of a Swedish bank provides the platform for this documentary, and the start of the process of championing his role.
- Henry Fonda for President (2024). Alexander Horwath. Germany-Austria
A personal essay about the United States, seen through the life and work of a film actor: Henry Fonda. A highly reserved man who felt he had "no good answers for anything", becomes the unlikely spur for a parallel history. His voice, recorded during his last interview in 1981, and his on-screen alter egos, guide us through the past and present of the United States, on a road trip from Fonda's home town, New York, all the way to the Pacific; from 1651 to the 1980s, and the presidency of another film actor. Many different places, times and characters are needed to imagine an invisible republic: Fonda's United States.
- Riefenstahl (2024). Andres Veiel. Germany
Leni Riefenstahl is unquestionably one of the most controversial women of the 20th century, the subject of more studies than almost any other female director. Actor, dancer, photographer and director of the ultimate Nazi propaganda film, Triumph of the Will (1935), and Olympia (1938), she later denied ever having a particularly close connection with the party or with Hitler and Goebbels. This documentary presents her figure through private footage, letters, photos, documents and recordings covering her 101 years of life.
