Today, every release related to ‘Star wars’ is a whole media phenomenon. In fact, when we get to the premiere of the movie or the series on duty, we may already know the name of all the characters, the plot, how it prepares the future and some other surprise. However, In 1977, Spain was amazed at the arrival of robots, monsters and laser swords walking through La Concha in its more than controversial premiere… At the San Sebastian Festival!
Star Wards
Luis Gasca was part of the Zinemaldia film selection committee when, overnight and in June, just a few months after rolling out the red carpet, received the news that he was the new director. Miguel Echarri, the director at the time, had gotten sick, and something had to be done. When the festival opened on September 10, there were a few surprises for the attendees: ‘Novecento’, ‘Tamaño naturaleza’, ‘Saló or the 120 days of Sodom’ (banned until then in Spain), ‘That obscure object of desire’ and… ‘Star Wars’.
It was an impossible operation at the last moment that against all odds went well and established a different perspective on the Festival: a place where all kinds of cinema had a place, and not just the most intellectual. With the enthusiasm typical of new projects, Gasca and his team ended up inviting Harrison Ford and Carrie Fisher, who, in a moment of fantasy that George Lucas already wantedcoincided in the same city with Luis Buñuel.
The road was not easy: Gasca had to go to Los Angeles to speak with George Lucas and Gary Kurtz and ask them to represent the United States in the film. Both made it very clear to him that ‘Star Wars’ did not belong to a festival like the one in Donosti. No way. It was crazy. And it was: part of the public welcomed it with suspicion (“It was a crime of lèse majesté for the well-thinking critics of the time,” the former director commented in Deia) and some media did not even bother to write her name correctly, calling her ‘Star Wards’, or confused Harrison Ford with Mark Hamill. Overall, who would remember this movie a few years later?
Arthur and his things
It is said that at the premiere of the Festival, on September 17 at 9 in the morning, the public was totally silent… until at the end they rose to applaud. A general relief that served to open up new proposals like the ones we are enjoying today (it wasn’t that long ago that we were able to see ‘Joker’, for example). The runrún reached the cinemas and, in fact, psychotropic presentations were made like this one on TVE by Alfonso Eduardo, who dedicated a special to them:
This is the mask of Chí Vaca, a humanoid monkey, the mask of Lord Darth Vader, the mask of Ci Zri Pi Ou… This is what from now on will be known in Spain as Arturito. His original name is El Do Ci Ou.
It is true that in Latin America robots are commonly known as Citripio, Arturito and Bebocho (You guessed it, BB-8), but in Spain things didn’t work out. Fortunately. Of that San Sebastian festival, by the way, it is said that Harrison Ford and Carrie Fisher had more than film presentations and the film crew was so pleased that the world premiere of ‘The Rise of Skywalker’ took place at the same Victoria Eugenia Theatre. Who would have thought that a galaxy far, far away would have Basque roots?
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