The new works by filmmakers Manuel Abramovich, Christophe Honoré, Sebastián Lelio, Diego Lerman, Marco Martins, Laura Mora, Frelle Petersen, Hong Sang-soo, Ulrich Seidl and Petr Václav will compete in the Official Section of the 70th edition of the San Sebastian, which will take place from September 16 to 24. Likewise, the official section will host the debuts of Genki Kawamura and Marian Mathias, names that are added to those already known by the Spanish Fernando Franco, Mikel Gurrea, Pilar Palomero and Jaime Rosales.
The San Sebastian festival directed by José Luis Rebordinos has informed in a note that the special screening of La (très) grande évasion/Tax Me If You Can, a documentary by Yannick Kergoat, will be offered out of competition.
Argentine filmmaker Manuel Abramovich (Buenos Aires, 1987), several of whose previous works have passed through Zabaltegi-Tabakalera, will compete with his fourth feature film, Pornomelancolía / Pornomelancholia, the portrait of a sex-influencer that was selected last year at WIP Latam . Like the already announced Suro, by Mikel Gurrea, this film has been conceived thanks to his participation in the residences of Ikusmira Berriak, so it will be the first time that two films from this program managed by the Festival, the International Center for Contemporary Culture-Tabakalera and Elías Querejeta Zine Eskola (EQZE).
Frenchman Christophe Honoré (Carhaix-Plouguer, 1970), who already showed La belle personne / The Beautiful Person (2008) and Non ma fille, tu n'iras pas danser / Making Plans for Lena (2009) in the Official Section, will return to compete with Le Lycéen / Winter Boy, a film about a teenager in crisis after the death of his father. The cast includes Paul Kircher, Vincent Lacoste and Juliette Binoche. Precisely, the gala actress will receive a Donostia award this year.
Genki Kawamura (Yokohama, 1979), producer of fundamental titles of contemporary Japanese animation such as Bakemono no ko / The Boy and the Beast (Mamoru Hosoda, Official Competition Section, 2015) or Kimi no na wa / Your Name (Makoto Shinkai, Official Section-Special Screenings, 2016), makes his directorial debut with a live-action film, Hyakka / A Hundred Flowers, about a woman with Alzheimer's.
The Argentinian Sebastián Lelio (Mendoza, 1974), who participated in Perlak with Gloria (2013) after passing through Films in Progress and in Horizontes Latinos with Una mujer fantastic / A Fantastic Woman (2017), premieres in the Official Selection with The Wonder , set in the mid-19th century in an Irish village where a girl is said to have survived without food for months. The cast of the film, based on the homonymous novel by Emma Donoghue, includes Florence Pugh, Ciarán Hinds, Tom Burke, Toby Jones, Elaine Cassidy and Niamh Algar.
After two forays into Horizontes Latinos and after winning the Jury Prize for Best Screenplay for Unaspecies de familia / A Sort of Family (2017), Argentinean Diego Lerman (Buenos Aires, 1976) returns to compete with El suplente / The Substitute , which collects the adventures of a teacher in the suburbs of Buenos Aires. Juan Minujín, Bárbara Lennie, Alfredo Castro, María Merlino, Lucas Arrua and Rita Cortese lead the cast of this film which, in its project phase, participated in the Europe-Latin America Co-Production Forum of the 2019 Festival.
American debutant Marian Mathias (Chicago, 1988) presents her first feature film, Runner, which deals with the meeting of two young people in the American Midwest. With this project, the director was selected for the Cannes Cinéfondation, Torino FeatureLab and Production Bridge Program residencies at the Venice Film Festival.
Shot and set in Great Britain, Great Yarmouth-Provisional Figures is the new work by Marco Martins (Lisbon, 1972), who deals with the drama of immigration through the character of Tânia, a woman of Portuguese origin who acts as a link between the workers from their country and the factories in the Norfolk region.
Colombian Laura Mora (Medellín, 1981), who won, among other distinctions, a special mention from the Kutxabank-New Directors Award and the Youth Award with Matar a Jesús / Killing Jesús (2017), will return to the Festival with her second feature film , Los reyes del mundo / The Kings of the World, a subversive and fantastic tale starring five street kids from Medellín.
The Danish Frelle Petersen (Aabenraa, 1980) will compete with Resten af livet / Forever, which offers a complex and full of life portrait of a family in mourning for the loss of the eldest son and brother.
Hong Sang-soo (Seoul, 1960) will compete with Top / Walk Up, the story of the encounters that a middle-aged filmmaker has with different people. It will be the second participation of the South Korean filmmaker in the Official Selection, where he has already won the Silver Shell for best direction with Dangsinjasingwa dangsinui geot / Yours and you (2016). Later, he showed in Zabaltegi-Tabakalera Geu-hu / The Day After (2017) and Domangchin yeoja / The woman who escaped (2020), which got a special mention.
The Austrian Ulrich Seidl (Vienna, 1952), some of whose previous works were screened in retrospectives at the Festival and in sections such as Zabaltegi-Tabakalera, premieres in the official competition with Sparta, a film that completes the diptych begun with Rimini (2022), premiered at the last Berlinale. Thus, the central character of Sparta is the brother of the failed singer who starred in Rimini.
The Czech Petr Václav (Prague, 1967), who competed in New Directors with Paralelní svety (Parallel Worlds, 2001), will also return to San Sebastián to fight for the Golden Shell. His new feature film, Il Boemo, is a biographical drama focused on in the figure of Josef Myslivecek, one of the most prolific Italian opera composers of the 1770s.
For its part, Kergoat's documentary joins El sostre groc (The Yellow Roof), the non-fiction by Isabel Coixet that will be another of this edition's special screenings, and Blackout / Offworld, a Movistar Plus series scheduled out of competition and composed of five chapters directed by Rodrigo Sorogoyen, Raúl Arévalo, Isa Campo, Alberto Rodríguez and Isaki Lacuesta. The film Modelo 77, by Alberto Rodríguez, will open the Festival out of competition.
