The 74th San Sebastian International Film Festival

For the first time in several years, we saw more than a dozen movies each during Zinemaldia, the Basque name for the film festival. Overall, this year’s festival was enjoyable, but tiring. Perhaps we’ll remember that when next year’s festival rolls around. We saw two fabulous movies and only a couple of bad ones, with several levels of “good” in between. The festival has slanted more and more international, so only 4 of the movies we saw were in English. The rest were in Spanish, Italian, French / Flemish, Japanese, with a bit of Basque as well. That's a lot of subtitles.

The festival started and ended on a high note with our favorites being the first and last films we saw. A quick summary of the movies in the order we saw them. 

5 Minutos Mas / 5 More Minutes: a darker version of Groundhog Day, possibly one of the darkest comedies we’ve ever seen. Seeing it in the theatre was amazing – the entire audience gasping at the same time made it that much better. We imagine that it will be remade in English rather quickly as it is clever, funny and packs quite a punch.

Altas Capacidades / Better Class: parents behaving badly in their attempt to get their kid into a high-class school. Not a single redeemable character in sight.

The Invite: a dramedy about two couples, neighbors in the same building, meeting up one night to get to know each other better. Great cast, intriguing plot.

Pizza Movies: you’d think a movie about a couple who opens a movie themed pizzeria has potential ... and you’d be wrong.

Succedera Questa Notte / It Will Happen Tonight: when life gets in the way of love. It had an adorable “meet cute” premise that sputtered out. Partially filmed in San Sebastian, including at the Springsteen concert on my birthday last year – great memories; unexceptional movie.

In My Father’s Room: a very Japanese movie. Nothing much happens in, but it was beautifully made, and  showed about how small kindnesses can have large impacts on people who receive them. (Shana skipped this one.)

Coward: the Belgian director claimed we could escape from today’s worries while watching this WWI drama. War stories are never an “escape,” but this one made some interesting points about how cowardice might be defined in pursuing life and love.

Tender Loving Care: a look at reality in modern Britain through the eyes of two well-meaning social workers, for them, their families and their clients. The movie won the festival’s top award. We weren’t that impressed.

Amarga Navidad / Bitter Christmas: Almodovar’s latest drama. It asks some inciteful questions about the creative process in writing fiction and notes how reality and fiction are sometimes not that far apart.

The Debut: a wildly funny comedy with fabulous performances by Julianne Moore and Paul Giammatti, humorizing what happens when method acting is taken too far.

Pioneras. Solo Querían Jugar / Another League: a well-done dramatization of what it took to get the Spanish women’s soccer team established in the early 1970’s. All the standard sports movie tropes, but still inspiring. (Jeff skipped this one.)

Burgundy: focused on the traditions and lifestyle of the Burgundy region of France. We expected more from the directors of Truffle Hunters, which we enjoyed immensely 5 years ago, but were disappointed. Ironically, the film won the Culinary Cinema section award, which makes us wonder about the quality of the other movies. At least the corresponding dinner was worth our time.

Saints: a woman joins a crime ring that steals objects from churches while her mother is dying. The movie made little sense to me. (Jeff skipped this one, a good choice.)

Heart of the Beast: Brad Pitt caused quite a scene during his festival visit; the city went crazy for him. His newest movie is a high-quality adventure movie – former special forces military and combat dog face survival in the Alaskan wilderness. The film’s been done before, but it was enjoyable. (Jeff skipped this one.)

The French Teacher: a well done drama about a woman being slowly forced into madness by her father's religious-freak neigbors. Frankly, for me it was a bit too well done, and I left before the end because it was already disturbing enough. (Shana skipped this one; she would have hated it.)\

Pedro Arrupe, Yo Viví La Bomba / I Lived the Bomb: the story of Father Arrupe, a Basque priest, who was living in Hiroshima in 1945 and helped numerous people survive. He lived quite an interesting life well beyond that defining experience. The filmmaker opted to use AI for certain recreations (clearly labelled as such), which we found off-putting.

Le Faux Soir: set in 1943, it tells the true story of how the Belgian resistance published a false version of the Nazi controlled newspaper Le Soir, a brave act of opposition to Nazi propaganda. A fabulous film that highlights how the control of information is key to war. The film is being promoted as “the world's first media hack,” which is clever.

15 movies in 8 days for me; 14 movies for Jeff. It’s a lot. We would have seen at least 3 more movies, but we couldn’t get tickets for Naza, Wild Horse Nine, or La Bola Negra. While the film festival isn’t our favorite event anymore, we’re glad this year’s exceeded expectations. We don’t spend time on celebrity sightings, but our friend’s dog made her red-carpet appearance. And one day there was a car rally through town that was as impressive as seeing a movie star.

And now, back to our regularly scheduled programming,

Shana & Jeff

Another 5-Star Visitor Rating, Two 5-Star Ratings Actually

With the end of summer approaching, we had more visitors. We happily showed them what San Sebastian has to offer and they were favorably impressed. The number of guests who have told us that we could/should give professional tours increases with each visit. We have no plans on becoming guides or charging for our services, we simply enjoy the beautiful place we live and sharing it with family, friends, and even strangers.

Dear friends Debbie and David arrived in early September after a Mediterranean cruise. David took a fabulous photo of the city and coastline on their flight from Barcelona to our local airport (EAS). Then they got to see it all up close.

They arrived early on the first day of the city’s rowing regatta, giving us a chance to show them the races from three perspectives: (1) on television in our apartment, which is the best way to see the competition; (2) from the La Concha boardwalk, a good overall perspective; and (3) from the water as the men’s boats approached the finish, an exhilarating up-close view. We were on stand-up paddle boards, and they were in a kayak. What a way to start! It’s always great to be out on the water, but seeing the race from that perspective was special.

We explored the city, came across a local craft fair, satisfying Debbie’s desire for a bit of shopping, saw some Basque traditional dance in Constitution Plaza, witnessed a rainbow and then a fabulous sunset from dinner. We aim to please.

The next day we continued our exploration, walking out to our favorite place, the Peine del Viento statue. The sea put on quite a show that afternoon, with big waves crashing and blowing air through the vents.

Spending time with “old” friends is always a joy – there was never a lull in the conversation, and before we knew it their visit was over.

Later that week we went back to the Peine to see if the extreme high tide would bring bigger waves and wind, but alas, everything was calm. Still, the afternoon light made everything look different from earlier in the week.

Finally, one afternoon we spent a few hours showing the son of a friend of Jeff’s Mom and his partner around via a lunchtime pintxo crawl. Jeff and Lola are no longer strangers and are satisfied “tour customers.” 

We’ve spent an inordinate amount of time preparing for Zinemaldia (the SS Film Festival), which starts Friday. For the first time in several years, we’re here for the entire event and will see several movies. The process of selecting movies and getting tickets is quite a chore. Hopefully the movies will make it worth it!

Hasta pronto,

Shana & Jeff

Semana Grande 2026 Adventures: Part 2

On August 12 there was a solar eclipse in which the band of totality came extremely close to San Sebastian (in Bilbao, for example, which is about 60 miles away, totality lasted 31 seconds). Although many people travel to see total solar eclipses, and there were many stories about the huge amount of eclipse tourism in Spain, we prefered to see our 99%+ of totality with wine from our friend Angela's balcony.

Although it was difficult to get photos of the actual eclipse, we collectively managed to get a few good ones. (These were taken using the special eclipse glasses over the phone's camera lens.)

One of the coolest things about the eclipse in San Sebastian is that it ended right into the sunset.

And, here is the obligatory shot with us wearing our eclipse glasses.

The eclipse definitly made this year's Semana Grande extra special.

Hasta pronto,

Jeff and Shana

Semana Grande 2026 Adventures: Part 1

If it’s August, then it must be Semana Grande – our 10th Semana Grande to be exact. At this point, we enjoy the various activities on offer, including music concerts, but we don’t go overboard and generally keep to our usual routine. We did have two unique experiences this year though that made the week truly grand: (1) we got to watch the fireworks from the La Concha Bay on a sailboat, and (2) the near total eclipse on August 12.

The nightly fireworks are the weekly highlight for most people, many of whom watch from the beach. As we can see most of them from our balcony, that’s my preferred location. The crowds on and around the beach are so big that what is normally a 10-minute walk home becomes 30+ after the fireworks. And the view from our balcony is pretty good:

While you miss the lower fireworks from our balcony, you get a private viewing and can go to bed immediately afterwards. Or, if you’re Jeff, you can go to sleep earlier and sleep right through them. (His sleeping skills are a gift.) But I really wanted to see them from a boat at least once. As our flysch sailing trip last month was such a pleasure, I knew we had to get out again with my new “friend with boat.” So, I organized a group of friends for an afternoon-evening outing.

After two cancelations due to weather, on August 11 we set sail from Zumaia to San Sebastian, about a 3.5-hour journey. The scenery and camaraderie were terrific. Along the way, we stopped to swim a few times, making sure to avoid the Portuguese Man-o-Wars that have been frequent visitors in the water this summer. Thankfully we were successful in that regard!

We had a terrific sunset:

And it was worth it to see the fireworks from the bay:

We all had such a good time that we are already planning to do it again next year. After the fireworks, our captain dropped us at the port and then returned to his home port. He was looking forward to watching the Perseids meteor shower on the trip back.

And we were all looking forward to the eclipse the next afternoon. An embarrassment of riches, to be sure.

Next post, the eclipse!

Hasta pronto,

Shana & Jeff

Summer Art and Music

In July, we always enjoy attending two different music festivals: Jazzaldia in San Sebastian and the Bilbao Blues Festival. This year, the two overlapped again, which meant we saw less music at Jazzaldia than we might like, but we did get out to see two free concerts, the second of which was a popular performer named LP who peformed on the beach.

On Friday, we skipped the gym to go paddleboarding in La Concha Bay before heading to Bilbao. It was a beautiful morning and we really enjoyed being out early when it was quiet.

We arrived in Bilbao, and after a yummy Indian lunch went to the Guggenheim to see a Jasper Johns exhibit, which we were not impressed with. That night, the Festival started and we enjoyed watching the music from across the river. The music was very good, and we even stayed to watch a bit of the 10:45 p.m. act, the very talented Judith Hill.

On Saturday morning, we had signed up for a chat by a blues historian about the impact of women on the blues, hosted by the Guggenheim. The talk was fantastic, and accompanied by a singer and guitarist who performed seven or eight songs to demonstrate the historical process that the speaker was talking about.

Before the presentation, we walked through the retrospective exhibition dedicated to San Francisco artist Ruth Asawa. We thought this exhibition was extremely interesting both for the work presented, and also because she had an extremely interesting life, including being interred with her family during WWII. Asawa's most well-known works are abstract looped-wired sculptures, some of which represent natural forms despite being made of cheap metal. She also did several sculptures that perhaps we'll seek out during our next visit to the Bay Area.

We had lunch at Kokken, which does a "surprise" tasting menu, which was fun. They start with 4 dishes, plus dessert, but after 4 plates you can choose to continue with 2 more dishes, then 2 more. We were more than satisfied with the 4. 

On Saturday night, we got rained on, and so spent less time watching music. However, before the rain came, we saw th Bilbao Blues All Star Band, with their 95-year-old Blues Hall of Fame guitar player, Bob Stroger. Bob also sang the blues classic, "I Am The Blues." Pretty impressive for a guy born in 1930.

The next day, as we watched music at the secondary stage before heading home, Shana noticed the members of the All Star Band who were set to go on next. Of course, she had to get a picture with Bob who is pretty spry for a 95-year-old (not that I know many people his age, but he had no problem sitting down to look at his cell phone (of course), and getting back up for photos). That's him on Shana's right, with Jimi "Primetime" Smith.

As always, we enjoyed our local music festivals. It was also a great way to celebrate our 9 year anniversary living in San Sebastian. Now on to August and Semana Grande.

Hasta pronto,

Jeff and Shana

Old Friends, Good Times

Earlier in July we had visitors. Jill returned, this time with her husband Peter. It was a pleasure doing our favorite San Sebastian activities with some of our favorite people. This time we did it with a few new twists.

While we’ve hiked between Zarautz and Getaria admiring the vineyards many times, we’ve never stopped at one of the wineries along the way. Hard to believe, right?

For the first time we stopped at a txaikoli bodega to do a tour and tasting. During our visit at Ameztoi, we learned a few nuggets about the history and development of the DOC (denomination of controlled origin) for local txaikoli, which was created mostly for market expansion purposes, and about the growth of export markets for this little-known wine. The grapes will be harvested next month and were already looking promising on the vines.

Having just explained to Jill and Peter about Getaria’s famous son, Juan Sebastian Elkano, we were amused to see that the winery had painted one of its ceramic tanks to display his voyage around the globe. The tasting on the terrace was a lovely break before a fabulous fish lunch, which of course included more txaikoli.

We spent part of a day at the beach paddle boarding and relaxing. Later that afternoon we walked out to the Peine del Viento before dinner.

We’ve taken many visitors to see the flysch in Zumaia, but this time we did it on a sailboat! What a treat! While the explanations of the flysch were less detailed than the bigger group tour, the experience was fabulous.

Peter and Jeff hung out on the front of the boat talking politics, while Jill and I sat with our feet in the water calculating that we’ve known each other 39 years come September!

After spending 2 hours on the water, we had a terrific lunch at a bar that was named to Spain’s top 10 list. And then we went out to the shoreline to show Peter the flysch up close.

It was such a fabulous visit – we tired ourselves and our guests out! And now I know someone with a boat, which could come in handy for future adventures.

Hasta pronto,

Shana & Jeff