“In a ‘spa’ surrounded by salt mountains, visitors enjoy the warmth, while the salt workers, just a few meters away, labor. Children run away from adults, and a woman gets lost in the salt flats. At nightfall, the space transforms, driven by the desires of those who pass by,” reads the synopsis of a film that was featured at this year’s Cannes Festival.
Born in Tavira and graduated in Filmmaking from the Lisbon Theatre and Film School in 2015, Inês Nunes received a scholarship from the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation to pursue her master’s at the Elías Querejeta Zine Eskola in San Sebastián.
In an interview published on the Gulbenkian website in June, Inês Nunes explained that the short film ‘The Loneliness of the Lizards’ began development in 2020: “It was filmed in 2022. It started with an initial idea to make a film here in the Algarve, where I am from, in the salt pans. I ended up spending more time in the region of Castro Marim, specifically at the Salino Água Mãe spa, and adapted the initial idea to this location.”
“What seemed most interesting to me is that, in a way, this place was a kind of microcosm, a viewpoint on the Algarve region and on what it means to spend a summer here, the coexistence between tourism and work, between leisure, holidays, and other types of responsibilities,” added the filmmaker, who has previously presented films at IndieLisboa and Curtas de Vila do Conde.
In the Nest section of the San Sebastián Festival, the film ‘How to Listen to the Fountains’ by Eva Sajanova from Slovakia received the Mediapro Studio award, supporting the distribution of the chosen work, and ‘Life is Not Like That and Not Otherwise’ by Lenia Friedrich from Germany was awarded the Tabakalera prize, which consists of a three-week residency in 2026 at an audiovisual laboratory.
An honorable mention from the Media Pro Studio prize went to ‘The Old Bull Knows, or Once Knew’ by Milan Kumar from India.
The main competitive section of the San Sebastián International Festival, concluding on Saturday, includes the first work by André Silva Santos, titled ‘Sol Menor,’ which had its international debut in the Basque Country after winning the Best Portuguese Film award at this year’s Curtas de Vila do Conde. Paula Tomás Marques’ first feature film, ‘Duas Vezes João Liberada,’ had its world premiere at the Berlin Festival and has since been showcased at venues like the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
The competitive Zabaltegi-Tabakalera section also features the Portuguese co-production ‘Una Película de Miedo’ by Brazilian Sergio Oksman.
The 73rd edition of the San Sebastián Festival, which began on September 19, also includes Portuguese co-productions ‘Uma Quinta Portuguesa’ and ‘San Simón’ in the ‘Made in Spain’ section.
