San Sebastian Festival, will present at its 68th edition the feature films Sentimental/The People Upstairs, by Cesc Gay, and Explota explota/My Heart Goes Boom!, by Nacho Álvarez, as well as the series Inés del alma mía, based on the book of the same name by Isabel Allende.

The first of the three titles with TVE participation will be screened as a world premiere at the RTVE Gala in the Victoria Eugenia Theatre. Cesc Gay (Barcelona, 1967) returns to the Festival after participating with feature films including Hotel Room (New Directors, 1998), En la ciudad (In the City, Official Selection, 2003) and Truman (Official Selection, Best Actor Silver Shell awarded jointly to Ricardo Darín and Javier Cámara in 2015). The comedy Sentimental/The People Upstairs, starring Javier Cámara, Belén Cuesta, Griselda Siciliani and Alberto San Juan, is the adaptation of a play by Gay himself (Los vecinos de arriba), where a meeting between two couples of neighbors ends in an emotional tsunami.

For his part, the Uruguayan Nacho Álvarez (Montevideo, 1986) debuts in feature films with Explota explota/My Heart Goes Boom!, a film including in its soundtrack the greatest hits of the Italian Raffaella Carrà and which will also be screened as a world premiere. The actress Ingrid García-Jonsson embodies a young singer and dancer as she tries to make her dreams come true in the grey Spain of the early ‘70s. Verónica Echegui, Fernando Guallar, Fernando Tejero, Pedro Casablanc, Carlos Hipólito and Natalia Millán feature in the cast.

Finally, RTVE will present in San Sebastian the first episodes of the series Inés del alma mía (Inés of My Soul). Directed by Cuban Alejandro Bazzano (Havana, 1963) and Chilean Nicolás Acuña (Santiago, 1972), this period drama is set in the 16th century and based on Isabel Allende’s novel of the same name. Elena Rivera will play Inés Suárez, a young girl from Extremadura who crosses the Atlantic in colonial times in search of her husband (Benjamín Vicuña), going on to live a passionate romance with the Spanish conquistador Pedro de Valdivia (Eduardo Noriega).

EXPLOTA EXPLOTA / MY HEART GOES BOOM!
NACHO ÁLVAREZ (SPAIN – ITALY)
Cast: Ingrid García-Jonsson, Verónica Echegui, Fernando Guallar, Pedro Casablanc, Fernando Tejero, Natalia Millán, Carlos Hipólito

María is a fun-loving young dancer who longs for freedom in the early 70s, a time when Spain was marked by inflexibility and censorship, particularly on television. With her we will discover how even the most difficult dreams can come true, all told to the greatest hits of Raffaella Carrà.

INÉS DEL ALMA MÍA
ALEJANDRO BAZZANO, NICOLÁS ACUÑA (SPAIN – CHILE)
Cast: Elena Rivera, Eduardo Noriega, Benjamín Vicuña, Carlos Bardem, Enrique Arce, Francesc Orella

Inés Suárez is a young and audacious girl from Extremadura who sets out for the New World to find her husband. In the Indies she will meet the great love of her life, the famous Spanish conquistador, Pedro de Valdivia. Together they will live an unforgettable romance as they set out on an adventure that will turn them into the leading players in the birth of a nation. The feats experienced alongside her beloved Pedro de Valdivia will take them to the far-off and unknown Chile. There they will confront the brave Mapuche Indians in unequal battles, but also the greed of the conquistadors and their insatiable thirst for gold and wealth. Their wanderings will take us back in time and space from the sober Plasencia of the 16th century to Pizarro’s colourful Viceroyalty of Peru, passing through Panama’s wild jungles and the heartrending beauty of Chile’s Atacama Desert on the way. Series of eight episodes adapting the novel of the same name by Isabel Allende.

SENTIMENTAL / THE PEOPLE UPSTAIRS
CESC GAY (SPAIN)
Cast: Javier Cámara, Belén Cuesta, Griselda Siciliani, Alberto San Juan

Julio and Ana have been together for more than fifteen years. They have become a couple who no longer look at nor touch one another, and who have made daily fighting the essence of their relationship. This evening Ana has invited their upstairs neighbors to come round, Salva and Laura, a couple younger than them, pleasant and friendly, but whose noises are now an annoyance for Julio and Ana… or perhaps a stimulus? The upstairs neighbors will make them an unusual and surprising proposal which will turn the evening into an exaggerated and cathartic experience for all four.