Lau Haizetara Forum2026
The XXII San Sebastian Lau Haizetara Documentary Co-production Forum will take place on 21, 22, and 23 September 2026 within the framework of the 74th San Sebastian International Film Festival.
This Forum is an ideal space in which to present a documentary project to potential funders and experts from the audiovisual and cinema sectors. A meeting point for professionals from the audiovisual sector linked to the documentary genre.
Catherine Ulmer
Workshop Tutor and Pitching Moderator
After studying Philosophy and a foray into journalism, Catherine Ulmer López began to make documentaries in 2003. Her first film, Despoblado, dealt with the theme of mass graves under Franco’s regime for Canal Sur. The second film, ¡Compañeros! about the International Brigades, won a prize at the CMCA Festival. In 2006, she took an interest in the young priests in Rome training for a career in the Church and made a film for ARTE ZDF and TVE. Then, in 2008, she followed the life of Mukhtar Mai, a victim of gang rape who fought against Pakistan’s repressive system by setting up schools for young girls. Presented at IDFA, After the Rape is distributed by Women Make Movies. In 2013 she co-directed the documentary feature film Érase una vez las 1001 noches for ARTE. As an author she has participated, always for ARTE, in the documentary Mezquitas: Arte y Espacio.
She regularly collaborates with the France 5 documentary series Une maison, un artiste / Une maison, une légende for which she has made films about Cézanne, Toulouse-Lautrec, Federico García Lorca, Gaudí, André Breton, Joan Mirò, Dora Maar, Joan of Arc, Charles Darwin, Jean Moulin, etc.
In 2020, she directed the only documentary about Bryan FerryBryan Ferry: Don’t Stop the Music, for ARTE and RTBF. And a 52′ film on the Château de Chantilly for France 5.
In 2022, she made a documentary feature film to be premièred at cinemas Fucking Rabbit! which followed the workshops of student actors and young patients in a psychiatric day hospital for a year and a half. In 2023, she made a 60-minute portrait of Pedro Almodóvar for France 5 which received the student prize at the International History Film Festival in Pessac.
The 3 x 52’ series she has written for ARTE about human migrations from the Rhine Valley between the Thirty Years’ War until the mid-20th century will be broadcast in 2025. She is currently developing a documentary about high-risk communities in East Harlem and a feature film for cinema. She has just finished filming a portrait of the American actress Glenn Close for ARTE.
