73rd San Sebastian Festival Adds Films by Edward Berger, Claire Denis, Juliette Binoche

The latest films from Edward Berger, Claire Denis, Dolores Fonzi, Joachim Lafosse, Olmo Omerzu, Xiaoyu Qin and James Vanderbilt will compete for the Golden Shell at the 73rd San Sebastian International Film Festival. The festival will showcase the debut film from actress Juliette Binoche as a director and the latest work from Junji Sakamoto as Special Screenings out of competition.

After competing last year with Conclave, Edward Berger returns with Ballad of a Small Player starring Colin Farrell as a high-stakes gambler in Macao whose past and debts start to catch up with him. The film also stars Fala Chen, Tilda Swinton and Alex Jennings.

Claire Denis will compete with The Fence (Le Cri des Gardes) based on Bernard-Marie Koltès’ play Combat de nègre et de chiens, starring Isaach de Bankolé, Matt Dillon, Mia McKenna-Bruce and Tom Blyth.

The Argentinian actress, screenwriter and director Dolores Fonzi will compete with her second film as a director – Belén, based on a true story. Starring herself alongside Camila Plaate and Laura Paredes, Fonzi plays a lawyer from Tucumán as she leads the fight to free a woman imprisoned for having a miscarriage.

Six Days in Spring (Six jours ce printemps-là) is the latest film from Joachim Lafosse in which Eye Haïdara plays a desperate woman who borrows her ex in-laws’ house on the French Riviera to spend a few days’ holiday with her children.

In Ungrateful Beings, by the Slovenian Olmo Omerzu, a recently divorced father and his two teenage children are enjoying what appears to be a pleasant camping holiday.

The Chinese filmmaker Xiaoyu Qin will present his debut fiction feature film, Her Heart Beats in Its Cage (Jianyu Laide Mama), whose original protagonists recreate the true story of a woman who reunites with her 10-year-old son after spending ten years in prison for killing her husband.

James Vanderbilt will take part with the film Nuremberg, in which Rami Malek plays the part of the real-life character Douglas Kelley, a North American psychiatrist who, on the eve of the Nuremberg trials, assessed 22 Nazis, among them Hitler’s right-hand man, Hermann Göring, played by Russell Crowe. Vanderbilt, who has adapted the book The Nazi and the Psychiatrist by the journalist and writer Jack El-Hai.

These titles join the competitive Official Selection alongside Two Pianos (Deux pianos) by Arnaud Desplechin; Maspalomas by Jose Mari Goenaga and Aitor Arregi; Good Valley Stories (Historias del buen valle) by José Luis Guerin; Franz by Agnieszka Holland; The Currents (Las corrientes) by Milagros Mumenthaler; Los tigres, by Alberto Rodríguez; Sundays (Los domingos) by Alauda Ruiz de Azúa; SAI / SAI: Disaster by Yutaro Seki and Kentaro Hirase, and Couture by Alice Winocour.

Featured in the Special Screenings out of competition section is the directorial debut from Juliette Binoche, IN-I In Motion, a non-fiction looking back at the experience of In-I, the hybrid dance and theatre show produced by the actress in 2007 with the dancer and choreographer Akram Khan.

Also showing out of competition is Climbing for Life (Teppen no mukou ni anata ga iru) from director, Junji Sakamoto, based on the true story of the great Japanese mountaineer Junko Tabei, the first woman to reach the summit of Mount Everest.

OFFICIAL SELECTION – In competition

Ballad of a Small Player
Edward Berger (Germany)
Country(ies) of production: UK
Cast: Colin Farrell, Fala Chen, Tilda Swinton, Deanie Ip, Alex Jennings
When his past and his debts start to catch up with him, a high-stakes gambler laying low in Macau encounters a kindred spirit who might just hold the key to his salvation.

Le Cri des Gardes / The Fence
Claire Denis (France)
Country(ies) of production: Francia
Cast: Isaach de Bankolé, Matt Dillon, Mia McKenna-Bruce
A vast public works project in West Africa. Horn, the construction site manager, and Cal, a young engineer, share lodging behind the double gates of their compound. Leone, Horn’s recent bride, comes to join them the same night that a man appears at the fence. His name is Alboury. Like a specter in the darkness, he demands the body of his brother who died earlier that day on the site. He will hound the two men all night long until they return it, as Leone watches the disaster play out before her.

Belén
Dolores Fonzi (Argentina)
Country(ies) of production: Argentina
Cast: Dolores Fonzi, Camila Plaate, Laura Paredes, Julieta Cardinali, Luis Machín, César Troncoso, Sergio Prina, Ruth Plaate, Lili Juárez
Tucumán, Argentina, 2014; a young woman is admitted to a hospital with severe abdominal pain, unaware she is pregnant. She wakes up handcuffed to a gurney and surrounded by police. She is accused of having an abortion and, after two years in detention, is sentenced to eight years in prison for aggravated homicide. A lawyer from Tucumán will fight for her freedom with the support of thousands of women and organizations, who unite to change the course of history.

Six jours ce printemps-là / Six Days in Spring
Joachim Lafosse (Belgium)
Country(ies) of production: Belgium – France – Luxembourg
Cast: Eye Haïdara, Leonis Pinero Müller, Teodor Pinero Müller, Jules Waring
Despite adversity, Sana wants her twins to have a spring vacation, but all her plans fall through. They secretly decide to stay in her former in-laws’ villa on the Riviera, without telling anyone. Six days of sunshine that mark the end of innocence.

Ungrateful Beings
Olmo Omerzu (Slovenia)
Country(ies) of production: Czech Republic – Slovenia – Poland – Slovakia – Croatia – France
Cast: Barry Ward, Barbora Bobulova
David takes his two children on holiday to the Adriatic Sea, hoping to hold their fractured bilingual family together. His 17-year-old daughter, Klára, struggling with an eating disorder, falls in love with a local boy, Denis. When he is accused of murder, David rushes the children back home. Klára’s condition spirals, landing her in hospital. The only thing uniting her parents is their need to save her. And desperate times call for desperate measures.

Jianyu Laide Mama / Her Heart Beats in Its Cage
Xiaoyu Qin (China)
Country(ies) of production: China
Cast: Xiaohong Zhao, Jingqi Zhang, Junyan Wang
Hong has been in prison for ten years for killing her husband. Due to her contribution to the inmates’ art troupe, Hong unexpectedly gets a chance to reduce her sentence. Her son, Lele, has been raised by his grandmother and has never been ready to live with his mother. After their reunion, Lele always treats her coldly. With a lonely grandmother who wants Lele to come back to her, and a society that is not kind to ex-prisoners, will Hong be able to escape the intangible prison and regain the freedom of her heart?

Nuremberg
James Vanderbilt (USA)
Country(ies) of production: USA
Cast: Russell Crowe, Rami Malek, Leo Woodall, Michael Shannon, Richard E. Grant, John Slattery
Nuremberg plunges us into the centre of the trials held in the 80s by the Allies following the defeat of the Nazi regime. American psychiatrist Douglas Kelly is tasked with assessing the mental health of the Nazi prisoners and determining if they are fit to stand trial for their war crimes. From one day to the next, Kelly will find himself thrown into a complex battle of wits with Hermann Göring, Hitler’s right-hand man and one of the world’s most feared men.

OFFICIAL SELECTION – Special Screenings

In-I In Motion
Juliette Binoche (France)
Country(ies) of production: France
Cast: Juliette Binoche, Akram Kahn
Special Screenings – Not in competition

In 2007, Juliette Binoche and Akram Khan paused their careers to co-create In-I, a daring performance toured worldwide. Today, Juliette Binoche revisits that inspiring journey. Through unseen footage, she reflects, as a filmmaker, on creation, the risks it entails, and the personal transformation it brings.

Teppen no mukou ni anata ga iru / Climbing for Life
Junji Sakamoto (Japan)
Country(ies) of production: Japan
Cast: Sayuri Yoshinaga, Non , Yuki Amami, Koichi Sato
Special Screenings – Not in competition

In 1975, a woman made her way to the summit of Mount Everest. Her name is Junko. She became the first woman in history to conquer the world’s highest summit. Her glorious achievement captivated the world, casting a radiant light but also a deep shadow on her friends and family. In her later years, even though she was diagnosed with a terminal illness, Junko continued to challenge the mountains throughout her life. What did Junko last see beyond the top?