Luca Guadagnino will Chair Official Jury of San Sebastian Festival’s 68th Edition

The Italian filmmaker Luca Guadagnino (Call Me by Your Name) will be the president of the Official Selection Jury at San Sebastian Festival’s 68th edition. Luca Guadagnino will also present the world premiere, out of competition, the series We Are Who We Are.

In addition, two films – Nomadland and The World to Come, will complete the Perlak section lineup – showcasing works to have received acclaim and/or awards at other international festivals. In this section, the audience plays the part of the jury by voting for their favorite feature film from among the ten competing for the City of Donostia/San Sebastian Audience Award.

Nomadland is the work of the Chinese-North American director and screenwriter Chloé Zhao (Zhao Ting, 1982), author of Songs My Brothers Taught Me (2015) and The Rider (2017), winner of the Quinzaine des Réalisateurs. Starred and produced by the actor Frances McDormand, Zhao’s third work is an adaptation of the book of the same name by the journalist Jessica Bruder, investigating the phenomenon of the people who travel the USA like nomads in search of work.

For her part, Mona Fastvold (Oslo, 1981), the Norwegian director living in New York who debuted with The Sleepwalker (2014), will close Perlak out of competition with her second feature film, also a competitor for the Golden Lion in Venice, including in its cast Katherine Waterston, Vanessa Kirby, Christopher Abbott and Casey Affleck, who is also its producer. The World to Come is a 19th century drama set somewhere on America’s East Coast, where two neighbouring couples struggle with hardship and isolation in a beautiful and difficult landscape.

The other nine Perlak titles already announced will be Wife of a Spy, the opening film by Kiyoshi Kurosawa, ADN / DNA by Maïwenn; El agente topo / The Mole Agent by Maite Alberdi; Herself by Phyllida Lloyd; Miss Marx by Susanna Nicchiarelli; Nam-mae wui Yeo-reum-bam / Moving On by Yoon Dan-bi; Never Rarely Sometimes Always by Eliza Hittman; Nuevo orden / New Order by Michel Franco; and The Father by Florian Zeller.

PERLAK

THE WORLD TO COME
MONA FASTVOLD (USA)
Cast: Katherine Waterston, Vanessa Kirby, Christopher Abbott, Casey Affleck
CLOSING FILM OUT OF COMPETITION

In upstate New York in the 1850s, Abigail begins a new year on the rural farm where she lives with her husband Dyer. As Abigail considers the year to come through her journal entries, we experience the marked contrast between her deliberate, stoic manner and her unravelling complex emotions. Spring arrives and Abigail meets Tallie, an emotionally frank and arrestingly beautiful newcomer renting a neighbouring farm with her husband, Finney. The two strike up a tentative relationship, filling a void in their lives which neither knew existed.

NOMADLAND
CHLOÉ ZHAO (USA)
Cast: Frances McDormand, David Strathairn, Linda May, Charlene Swankie

Following the economic collapse of a company town in rural Nevada, Fern packs her van and sets off on the road exploring a life outside of conventional society as a modern-day nomad. The film features real nomads Linda May, Swankie and Bob Wells as Fern’s mentors and comrades in her exploration through the vast landscape of the American West