On September 1, the San Sebastian Film Festival announced, for the first time in history, that the Kursaal projections of the Official Section will have subtitles in Basque. It has been many years since the Basque Association Bagera de Donostia and the Basque industry in general began to denounce the scarce presence of the Basque Country in this international event. Last year, at the opening ceremony of Zinemaldia, we organized a rally from Apps Euskaraz, where the top leaders of Spain and Euskal Herria were tested, and at Zinemaldia, in theaters, on television, on which streaming platforms we ask the Basques to end the discrimination we suffer, Apantallamiento Euskaraz, our right! under the slogan.

Since then there have been many movements in the offices, and in the end the Basques have been given the right to follow in our language the most important part of the festival. Zinemaldia has taken a big step forward and that is to be welcomed. However, equality between official languages is still a long way off: in the sections outside the official competition you will see few films subtitled in Basque; only four original films will be released in Basque; and those that will be offered in the children's section are content that we have already seen folded in Basque in cinemas. In total, 32.9% of the films can be subtitled in Basque or Basque. Regarding the number of performances, 19.3% will be offered in our language. Although the percentages have improved substantially compared to previous years, we hope that in future editions there will be more changes until the linguistic rights of the Basques are fully guaranteed.

Over the past two years it has become clear that denouncing the exclusion of the Basque language in the audiovisual media and moving the issue to the centre of social and political debate can mobilise the institutions in the right direction: We managed to open a small gap with the Audiovisual Law of the Spanish State, and gradually the platforms have started to offer dubbed and subtitled content to the Basque Country (there are 134 in Basque on Netflix and 122 in Prime Videon); the new streaming platform Primeran, which offers almost all the underwritten content in Basque or in Basque, has been launched on September 15;

The next challenge will be to adopt the Basque Audiovisual and Film Laws, multiply the resources for production and dubbing in Basque, establish linguistic quotas to overcome the exclusion of Basque in cinemas and establish rules and criteria to prioritize Basque in EiTB.

Between all and all, and with our dear colleague Izaskun Rekalde, who left us three months ago, in memory, we will continue to work for the institutions to change the script in favor of the Basque Country, we will get the Euskaraz Screens!

Alex Aginagalde López, spokesperson for Apps Euskaraz