The San Sebastián Festival unveiled the official poster of the 73rd edition, paying tribute to the late actress Marisa Parede. The festival also announced a Donostia Award will be presented to Pedro Almodóvar producer Esther García, coinciding with the 40th anniversary of the El Deseo company.
Who is actress Marisa Paredes? Marisa Paredes (Madrid, 1946-2024) has been involved in more than 75 feature films throughout her career. She has worked with directors such as Fernando Trueba, Montxo Armendáriz, Jaime Chávarri, Agustí Villaronga and, above all, Pedro Almodóvar, for whom she worked on Dark Habits (Entre tinieblas (1983), High Heels (Todo sobre mi madre) (Tacones lejanos) (1991), The Flower of My Secret (La flor de mi secreto) (1995), All About My Mother (1999), Talk to Her (Hable con ella) (2002) and The Skin I Live In (La piel que habito) (2011). Outside Spain, Paredes also worked with filmmakers such as the Mexicans Arturo Ripstein and Guillermo del Toro, the Chilean Raúl Ruiz, the Italian Roberto Benigni and the Portuguese director Manoel de Oliveira
For the eighth year running, since 2018, an actor/ actress is featured on the poster, which in the past has showcased the portraits of Isabelle Huppert, Penélope Cruz, Willem Dafoe, Sigourney Weaver, Juliette Binoche, Javier Bardem and Cate Blanchett. This year’s poster with the image of Marisa Paredes, is designed by the San Sebastián studio Wallijai based on a shot taken by the photographer Manuel Outumuro in Madrid in 2000.
Wallijai has also created the posters for the other sections in keeping with the trend of combining photography and illustration, this time around playing with the idea that all of us have a variety of films tucked away inside us. Each poster also comes with more or less direct references to different genres: drama (New Directors), war films (Horizontes Latinos), love stories and musicals (Zabaltegi-Tabakalera), sci-fi (Perlak), anime (Nest), horror (Culinary Zinema), adventure yarns (Zinemira) and westerns (Made in Spain).
Donostia Award honoree Esther García has worked on more than a hundred productions. In 1986 she joined the El Deseo production company created a year earlier by siblings Pedro and Agustín Almodóvar, having previously participated as a secretary, production assistant and manager on films including Pim, pam, pum… ¡Fuego! (Pedro Olea, 1975), which competed in San Sebastián’s Official Selection; Siete chicas peligrosas (Pedro Lazaga, 1979), Sé infiel y no mires con quién (Fernando Trueba, 1985), El año de las luces (Fernando Trueba, 1986), La vida alegre (Fernando Colomo, 1987) and El juego más divertido (Emilio Martínez Lázaro, 1988).
Since her first collaboration with Pedro Almodóvar on Matador (1986) she has become an essential piece in all subsequent projects by the director from La Mancha. They recently returned to Cannes with Julieta (2016) and Pain and Glory (Dolor y gloria) (2019), for which Antonio Banderas landed the Best Actor Award. Penélope Cruz won best actress for Parallel Mothers (Madres paralelas) (2021) in Venice, where The Room Next Door ( La habitación de al lado) (2024) won the Golden Lion.
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