Eight classic films directed by Yasuzô Masumura, Liliane de Kermadec, Francesc Betriu, Yasujiro Ozu, Fabián Bielinsky and Arturo Ripstein will screen in the Klasikoak section of the 71st edition of San Sebastian Film Festival.
The festival will also host the premiere of two films showing for the first time ever: Festival en las entrañas, directed by José Val del Omar, and Socialist Realism (El realismo socialista) by Raúl Ruiz and Valeria Sarmiento.
San Sebastian Festival will host the world premiere of Socialist Realism (El realismo socialista)(1973-2023), an unfinished film by the Chilean moviemaker Raúl Ruiz, which has been rescued and reconstructed by the moviemaker Valeria Sarmiento, his widow and regular collaborator. The world of workers and the lumpenproletariat run into the petite intellectual bourgeoisie in this unseen film, conceived as a satirical reading of President Salvador Allende’s Popular Unity process, prior to the military coup d’état that took place in Chile 50 years ago.
The section will also include the screening of another world premiere, that of an unknown work by the moviemaker from Granada, José Val del Omar: Festival en las entrañas (1963-1965). This is a piece shot using his famous TactileView technique and commissioned by the Ministry of Information and Tourism, headed at the time by Manual Fraga. The commission involved making at least ten short films on expressions of popular culture, folklore or monuments in different parts of Spain. This piece retrieves two of them.
San Sebastian Film Festival 2023 – Klasikoak Official Selections
THE RED ANGEL (AKAI TENSHI)
YASUZO MASUMURA (JAPAN)
Country(ies) of production: Japan – 1966
Cast: Ayako Wakao, Shinsuke Ashida, Yusuke Kawazu
A love story between a doctor and a nurse amidst the explosions of a battlefield. Sakura is a nurse at a field hospital who is assaulted by a sick soldier and is willing to “comfort” wounded soldiers if she feels it is necessary. A shocking anti-war film about male sexuality, female devotion, and the misery of the battlefield.
ALOÏSE
LILIANE DE KERMADEC (POLAND)
Country(ies) of production: France – 1974
Cast: Delphine Seyrig, Isabelle Huppert, Michael Lonsdale, Marc Heyraud, Jacques Weber
Switzerland. End of the last century. The asylum where Aloïse finished her life is now the showpiece for this sensitive and misunderstood woman’s works. This beautifully shot and finely directed film raises the question: how could such a seemingly sane and talented spirit have been hoarded away for forty long years in a madman’s trap? Based on a true story.
SOCIALIST REALISM (EL REALISMO SOCIALISTA)
RAÚL RUIZ (CHILE), VALERIA SARMIENTO (CHILE)
Country(ies) of production: Chile – 1973-2023
Cast: Jaime Vadell, Juan Carlos Moraga, Javier Maldonado, Nemesio Antúnez, Waldo Rojas, Marcial Edwards
A satirical take on President Salvador Allende’s Popular Unity process prior to the 1973 Chilean coup d’état. The film is made up of a series of short stories, in which different worlds cross paths. On the one hand that of the workers and the underdogs, headed by the figure of Lucho and, on the other, that of a group of intellectual supporters of the Unidad Popular coalition who come together in a poetical front more representative of the petite bourgeoisie. At one point in time, the characters converge in an apparent friendship that ends in scenes of great violence, giving rise to a satirical reading of the period.
FESTIVAL EN LAS ENTRAÑAS
Short film
JOSÉ VAL DEL OMAR (SPAIN)
Country(ies) of production: Spain – 1963-65
In 1963, the Ministry of Information and Tourism commissioned filmmaker José Val del Omar to make a series of ten shorts on the campaign Festivales de España for the New York World’s Fair in 1964. With the excuse of documenting the shows of this cultural initiative in different Spanish cities, Val del Omar unfolds a dreamlike universe somewhere between the lyrical and the anthropological. This film corresponds to the two final episodes Luna de Sangre and Festival en las entrañas.
SPANISH FURY (FÚRIA ESPANYOLA)
FRANCESC BETRIU (SPAIN)
Country(ies) of production: Spain – 1975
Cast: Cassen , Mónica Randall, Carlos Ibarzábal, Rosa Morata, Alfred Lucchetti, Ovidi Montllor, Llàtzer Escarceller
Barcelona Football Club, captained by Johann Cruyff, is on excellent form, prompting Sebastián to join a Barça supporters’ club. There he meets the chairman’s daughter, Juliana, who will make him hers, come what may. Finally the two are to marry, but as fate would have it, the wedding will coincide with the most important game of the league: El Clásico Barça-Madrid.
RECORD OF A TENEMENT GENTLEMAN (NAGAYA SHINSHIROKU)
YASUJIRO OZU (JAPAN)
Country(ies) of production: Japan – 1947
Cast: Chishû Ryû, Eitarô Ozawa, Chôko Iida
In post-war Japan, a man finds a lost boy in the street and brings him home, but nobody wants to take him in, not even for the night. Finally, he is taken in by a tetchy widow. The next day the woman takes the boy to his district, only to learn that his father has gone to Tokyo and left the child behind.
NINE QUEENS (NUEVE REINAS)
FABIÁN BIELINSKY (ARGENTINA)
Country(ies) of production: Argentina – 2000
Cast: Ricardo Darin, Gaston Pauls, Leticia Bredice, Tomás Fonzi
The story follows Juan and Marcos, two grifters from Buenos Aires. The action takes place in only 24 hours. In this space of time, the two meet one another and team up on an operation that could make them a huge sum of money. The mission consists of stealing false stamps known as the nine queens and offering them to a millionaire and businessman for addition to his collection. With only a day to complete the heist, the two will have to use their wit to get their hands on the anticipated booty.
THE BEGINNING AND THE END (PRINCIPIO Y FIN)
ARTURO RIPSTEIN (MEXICO)
Country(ies) of production: Mexico – 1993
Cast: Ernesto Laguardia, Bruno Bichir, Julieta Egurrola, Alberto Estrella
The father of the Botero household has died. Doña Ignacia, loving mother of her four children, is convinced that Gabriel, her brilliant younger child, is the one who will end their poverty. Ambition and the special treatment showered on Gabriel poisons the family.
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