San Sebastián, before

At markets I watch people describe films they have not seen. Eight or nine conversations decide a film's international life and most of them happen before anyone has watched a single frame of it.

There is not enough time to see everything, so the thing that circulates is not the film, it’s the account of the film, and the account is made of a logline, a director's last credit, the lead cast, two festivals, and whoever is willing to say the film is good in a room with influential people.

Which means the account is a thing you can build. That is most of what a producer does before a premiere, and almost nobody describes it as work.

I arrive to SSFF on the twentieth. I intend to be useful in a small number of conversations.