In December 2022, coinciding with the San Sebastian Festival’s 70th anniversary, Zinemaldia 70: all possible stories came to an end, an initiative which had, for four years, enabled the preservation, classification, digitalisation and accessibility of important sections of the Festival archive. An ending that paves the way to a new beginning: an archive unavailable for decades opens to the general public for the first time.

This latest public seminar on the project turns the focus on the efforts that went into shaping the archive: the key members of the team look back over four intense years of interinstitutional collaboration combined with technical and academic work to help create a lasting, open and living archive. However, in a nod to memory, this celebration is also the perfect opportunity to say thank you: if the archive materials have made it this far it is thanks to the sensitivity of the Festival staff and the effort they have put into safeguarding and storing the material over the years.

As the archive opens its doors, we see how the subtitle of the project that has brought us this far —all possible stories— is but a promise for the future: these possible stories will be told through the new eyes that explore and interpret the materials available to all of us today.