Official section: eight feature films in competition

There are eight films in competition this year, one of them an international premiere. The Festival will kick off on Monday 1 at the Trueba Cinemas with Karen Carpenter by director Randy Martin. Forty years after her death, this captivating, revealing and stark documentary offers an astonishing new vision of the singer's tragically short life and her enduring musical legacy.

 

Tuesday 2 will be the turn of Uruguay's Alter, which tells the story of a young psychologist and frustrated singer-songwriter who begins his career as a Luis Miguel impersonator earning some fame and money while singing other people's songs and questioning who he wants to be.

 

The session at the Trueba Cinemas on Wednesday the 3rd will be opened by the American film Lee Fields: Faithful Man. Lee Fields is a legend of funk and soul with 50 years of history. In this documentary, his journey to find his place in the history of soul music takes him from vinyl to virtual, and vice versa. This will be followed by the Spanish premiere Before We Move by Aleksandr M. Vinogradov, the story of the Queer Tango dancers in St. Petersburg, who dance in the face of a society's prejudices, in the hope of greater acceptance of the LGTBIQ+ community.

 

On Thursday 4, two feature films will be screened in competition. The first one will be the German film Rock Chicks - I am not female to you. The fact that women took to the stage from the 1950s onwards has been erased from the collective memory. It is time to pull up the roots and tell the other side of the story. This will be followed by the Spanish film La importancia de llamarse Ernesto y la gilipollez de llamarse Eric, which tells the story of Eric Jiménez, drummer of Los Planetas and Lagartija Nick, with whom he recorded the mythical album Omega with Enrique Morente. This is the story of a man who has always been on a tightrope, between music and madness.

 

Friday's program includes the film Tener Tiempo. Between reality and fiction, between cinema and meta-cinema, this documentary that refuses to be a documentary, that films gestures and words to tell stories of our times, is also the chronicle of a generation that does not have it easy, but that in spite of everything fights and creates, constantly inventing new ways of living and coexisting in society. And the film, an overflowing collective work, contemplates them without any condescension, with a brave and supportive look. Afterwards, the San Sebastian audience will have the opportunity to see the international premiere of Danny Garcia's Ghost of the Chelsea Hotel and Rock and Roll stories. Residents and former residents of the world-famous Chelsea Hotel tell their stories about famous artists and other ghostly tales. Includes interviews with The Sopranos actor and former resident Michael Imperioli, writer Sherill Tippins, rock singers as Harley Flanagan, Neon Leon, Howie Pyro and Cynthia Ross, Warhol superstar Ruby Lynn Reyner and actors Ned Van Zandt and Victor Colicchio, among many others.

 

10 short films in competition

In this fifteenth edition of the Dock of the Bay, 10 short films will be screened, 6 of them in a joint session that will take place on Tuesday, May 2 at 7:15 p.m. in Hall 1 of the Trueba Cinemas. Half of them are international premieres.

 

The session The Color Orange by Ilina Bathia, whose international premiere will take place in Donostia, will begin. A documentary where a filmmaker immortalizes her love for music through her identity as a migrant and her relationship with the men in her family.

 

Foodsteps. Journey of a song is a short film by Johannes Aitzetmüller that tells the story of Manu and Isabel who want to climb the Delago Tower in Italy. He is a musician and composer, she is a singer. Mountains, music and reflection on time and ancestors are the focus of this film.

 

The short film session will continue with another international premiere, the documentary Knuckles by Lauren Luxenberg. A short doc-drama biopic of the life of rapper Knucks, a nostalgic visual inspired by his latest project Alpha Place.

 

In Esna Kanta (international premiere), Arriguri shows a journey through voice messages that shows the guts of Esna Kanta, a song created by Eñaut Elorrieta for the album Fantasia (2022) that captures what we often overlook in the creative process.

 

We will travel to Mexico with Mío será otro cuerpo by Mariano Vespa with a story that focuses on the testimony of the musician Andrés Calamaro that serves as a guide for the outline of a portrait, tentative and present, of the eccentric writer and critic C.E. Feiling (1961-1997).

 

Bide bazterrean Hi, eta ni Kantari is a work where we can find Joxean Artze's lyrics in essential songs, in the voice of Mikel Laboa or in the song of a bird. But Joxean's relationship with music and sound comes from long before, he revived the txalaparta together with his brother and recorded several albums with this instrument. It is signed by conductor Peru Galbete.

 

On Tuesday 2 at 9 pm, PVC eta Aluminiozko Zatitxoak, the first film by journalist Jon Martija, will be screened. A road movie of jokes, tobacco, forgetfulness, sound tests, friendship, soccer and music. Some little pieces of PVC and aluminum that recover a chapter of the history of a small group: The Window Windows and their tour of Switzerland in 1993.

 

On Wednesday there will be a screening of the international premiere Baccara. A certain Song: Yes Sir, I can Boogie, by Amanda Louise Macchia. The story of the hit disco song: Yes Sir, I Can Boogie, told by Mayte Mateos, from the duo Baccara. A story in which music and fashion mix to create dance themes.

 

And on Friday, May 5, the last two short films in competition will be screened. They are The Dreams in just in my Mind and Odd Songs. The first film explores and delves into the testimonies, in Youtube commentary format, of those who experienced the mythical Bakalao Route. On the other hand, Odd Songs summarizes Mark Cunningham's career, from the "No Wave" in New York in the late 70's to the pre-Olympic "underground" Barcelona.

 

Perfect Day

As every year Perfect Day gathers a selection of the most outstanding musical documentary films of the international scene.

 

In this edition, 6 feature films will be screened, which have not yet been shown in Donostia. On Wednesday 3rd, Alejandro G. Salgado's Un Día Lobo López will be screened. Kiko Veneno gives himself the last chance to make a living from music in the years before Expo92. This film is a portrait of the people and spaces that in that context integrated the process of creation of the album "Échate un cantecito".

 

The following day, Thursday 4, will be the turn of Elephant 6 Recording Co. Screening, a film that shows the creative evolution of the sounds of psychedelic rock bands of the 90s such as Olivia Tremor Control, Neutral Milk Hotel and Apples in Stereo, the founding groups of the Elephant 6 collective.

 

On Friday we will have the opportunity to see Music for Black Pigeons, a feature film that shows us a piece of cinematic improvisation. It's about being present in the now, playing and improvising, continuing the legacy of generations of jazz pioneers and creating something unlike anything you've heard before.

 

On Saturday 6th the international premiere of Verde Prato directed by Sahatsa Jauregi will be screened at the Teatro Principal. A meeting with Ana Arsuaga, aka Verde Prato, and a celebratory performance with friends at a time when gathering and being together felt very necessary.

 

This will be followed by the documentary A Film About Studio Electrophonique by James Taylor. On the first floor of a house, Ken set about recording the sounds of Sheffield, nurturing a generation of superstars of the 1980s and 1990s - ABC, The Human League, Heaven 17, Clock DVA and Pulp. He thus founded Studio Electrophonique.

 

And after the Closing Gala, the American film The Zombies. Hung Up on a Dream. A film where The Zombies tell their story and how they made one of the most influential albums of all time, Odessey and Oracle, "She's Not There" was the hit that made them the first most famous British band after the Beatles.

 

In addition to the Official Selection of Feature Films, Short Films and Perfect Day, Europe in 8 bits by Javier Polo will be screened in the New Audiences section. A documentary that explores the universe of chip music, a musical trend in which old consoles and computers, such as the GameBoy, the NES, the Atari ST, the Commodore 64 or the Amiga are reused to create music.

 

As a novelty in this edition, on Friday the 5th at 1pm in the Bodega Clandestina, there will be "A wine with..." in which the writer, journalist and film critic Alejandro G. Calvo and the Director of Communication and Head of Contents of Primavera Sound Joan Pons will talk.

 

The programming of Dock of the Bay is completed with the parallel sections: Dock Live!, the New Audiences section, the radio programs, the concerts and the Dialogues.