too, though: how the film is being used as a narrative weapon to promote San Sebastián’s enviable landscape, vibrant atmosphere and outstanding gastronomy, all of which will lure other big international events – film, jazz, food etc – which in turn keep fuelling the tourism juggernaut.

Tourism already musters the biggest share of local GDP and the tourist monoculture is prioritised under the guise of creating jobs and wealth; the red carpet rolled out to welcome any business connected to it. Yet, as the philosopher Marina Garcés points out, tourism is an extractive industry, commodifying common resources – neighbourhoods, squares and streets – and turning them into assets for private exploitation, while often dispossessing the people who give these spaces meaning by living in them. Entire neighbourhoods gentrify inorder to host either the tourists or wealthier inhabitants.

Far from generating the expected prosperity, tourism may actually intensify what we call socio-spatial injustice. The marketing strategy being implemented in San Sebastián risks creating a vicious cycle of overtourism and downturn. The more it does to boost tourist numbers, the more overtourism threatens the authenticity of the space and thus downgrades the tourist experience. If the influx continues growing at the current pace, San Sebastián will be doomed to join a long list of destinations that are victims of their own success, such as Venice or Barcelona.

‘The old town is the epicentre of tourist activity in San Sebastián, so anyone who lives near it is basically living in a theme park.’ People outside a bar in San Sebastián. Photograph: