BlacKkKlansman[/caption]
Ten new films including the latest by Damien Chazelle, Alfonso Cuarón, and Spike Lee will compete for the City of Donostia / San Sebastian Audience Award at the San Sebastian International Film Festival. A Star Is Born, the directorial debut of Bradley Cooper will bring the section to a close.
Jacques Audiard (Paris, 1962), the author of Un prophète / A Prophet (2009), Academy Award nominee for Best Foreign Language Film, will present The Sisters Brothers, to have its premiere at the Venice Festival. This western based on the novel of the same name by Patrick deWitt stars Jake Gyllenhaal, Joaquin Phoenix and John C. Reilly, who is also involved in its production.
The latest film from the winner of last year’s Academy Award for Best Director, Damien Chazelle (Providence, USA, 1985), once again directs Ryan Gosling in First Man as Neil Armstrong, the first astronaut to walk on the Moon. The film by the creator of La La Land, in which Claire Foy (The Crown) also has a part, will open the Venice Festival.
Alfonso Cuarón (Mexico City, 1968) competed in the Official Selection at San Sebastian with his second film, A Little Princess (1995). Since then, he has won a Best Director Academy Award for Gravity, while his films Y tu mamá también (And Your Mother Too) and Children of Men have enjoyed widespread international success. With Roma, to have its premiere in Venice, he portrays the life of a maid working in a middle-class district of Mexico City in the early 70s.
In this new take on the iconic love story, A Star Is Born, Bradley Cooper (Philadelphia, USA, 1975) makes his directorial debut and portrays seasoned musician Jackson Maine, who discovers and falls in love with struggling artist Ally, played by Lady Gaga. Ally has given up on her dream to become a successful singer until she meets Jack, who immediately sees her raw talent. This intimate story takes us on a journey through the beauty and challenges of a relationship struggling to survive. After its premiere in Venice, A Star Is Born will bring Perak to a close in San Sebastian.
Lukas Dhont (Belgium, 1991) will also present his first feature in San Sebastian, Girl, winner of the Caméra d’Or for Best First Film in Cannes and Fipresci Prize in Un Certain Regard. Dhont tells the story of a young girl born as a boy and who dreamt of becoming a ballerina.
Ciro Guerra (Río de Oro, Colombia, 1981) shares the helm of Pájaros de verano (Birds of Passage) with Cristina Gallego (Bogotá, 1978), producer of his earlier films. Guerra started his career in Films in Progress, where he won a prize in 2003 for his first work, La sombra del caminante. His third film, El abrazo de la serpiente (Embrace of the Serpent) screened in Horizontes Latinos, was nominated for Best Foreign Language Film Academy Award. In Pájaros de verano, which premiered at the Cannes Directors’ Fortnight, he uses a true story to explain the origins of drug trafficking in Colombia.
The first animated film to compete in San Sebastian’s Official Selection was Bakemono no ko / The Boy and the Beast (2015), by Mamoru Hosoda (Nakaniikawa, Japan, 1967). The author of Toki wo kakeru shojo (The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, 2006) and Okami Kodomo no Ame to Yuki (Wolf Children, 2012) now presents in San Sebastian Mirai, which premiered at the Cannes Directors’ Fortnight.
The participations of Nadine Labaki (Beirut, 1974) in San Sebastian are counted in awards. In 2007, with her directorial debut Sukkar banat / Caramel, she landed the Audience and Youth Awards, and in 2011, with her second film, Et maintenant on va où? / Where Do We Go Now?, she earned the spectators’ vote as Best European Film. With Capharnaüm, winner of the Jury Prize in Cannes, she once again competes for the City of Donostia / San Sebastian Audience Award.
Although his films have been programmed in different retrospectives –When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts in .doc – New paths of non-fiction and Summer of Sam in American Way of Death: American Film Noir 1990-2010– and the collective film Ten Minutes Older – The Trumpet screened as part of the Zabaltegi-Specials selection, this is the first time that Spike Lee (Atlanta, USA, 1957) will have competed for an award in San Sebastian. The author of Malcolm X, winner of honorary Academy and César awards, will compete for the Audience Award with BlacKkKlansman, a dramatic comedy about an Afro-American policeman who infiltrates the Ku Klux Klan, winner of the Jury Grand Prix at Cannes and the Audience Award at Locarno.
Jia Zhangke (Fenyang, China, 1970), however, has enjoyed wide presence at the Festival in recent years. In 2013 he won the Best Screenplay Award at Cannes for Tian zhu ding / A Touch of Sin (2013), screened as part of Perlak, the same section which saw the selection in 2015 of Shan he gu ren (Mountains May Depart), winner of the Audience Award for Best European Production. His short film The Hedonists was screened in Zabaltegi-Tabakalera in 2016, the same year as he sat on the official jury presided by Bille August, which gave the Golden Shell to Wo bu shi pan jinlian / I Am Not Madame Bovary by Xiaogang Feng. Now he will endeavour to win the spectators’ award for a second time with Ash is Purest White, a film selected for the Cannes official competition, in which he describes the changes transforming his country through a violent love story.
These films join those already announced in Perlak: El ángel (Luis Ortega), Petra (Jaime Rosales), Leto / Summer (Kirill Serebrennikov), Zimna wojna / Cold War (Pawel Pawlikowski), Un día más con vida / Another Day of Life (Raúl de la Fuente and Damian Nenow), Netemo Sametemo / Asako I & II (Ryusuke Hamaguchi) and 3 Rokh / Three Faces (Jafar Panahi).
A STAR IS BORN
BRADLEY COOPER (USA)
Cast: Bradley Cooper, Lady Gaga, Andrew Dice Clay, Dave Chappelle, Sam Elliott
CLOSING NIGHT FILM
Not in competition
In this new take on the tragic love story, a seasoned musician discovers—and falls in love with— a struggling artist. She has just about given up on her dream to make it big as a singer… until Jack coaxes her into the spotlight. But even as Ally’s career takes off, the personal side of their relationship is breaking down, as Jack fights an ongoing battle with his own internal demons.
ASH IS PUREST WHITE
JIA ZHANGKE (CHINA – FRANCE – JAPAN)
Cast: Zhao Tao, Liao Fan
Qiao is in love with Bin, a local mobster. During a fight between rival gangs, she fires a gun to protect him. Qiao gets five years in prison for this act of loyalty. Upon her release, she goes looking for Bin to pick up where they left off. A story of love, betrayal and loyalty set in China’s underworld.
BLACKKKLANSMAN
SPIKE LEE (USA)
Cast: John David Washington, Adam Driver, Topher Grace, Laura Harrier
Spike Lee helms the true story of the first Afro-American cop to infiltrate the Ku Klux Klan at its highest levels in the ‘60s, with the help of a colleague who passed himself off as a radical racist.
CAPHARNAÜM
NADINE LABAKI (LEBANON)
Cast: Zain Al Rafeea, Yordanos Shiferaw, Boluwatife Treasure Bankole, Kawthar Al Haddad, Fadi Kamel Youssef, Cedra Izam, Alaa Chouchnieh, Nadine Labaki
International Courtroom
Zain, a 12 year-old boy, faces the judge.
Judge: Why are you suing your own parents?
Zain: For giving me life.
FIRST MAN
DAMIEN CHAZELLE (USA)
Cast: Ryan Gosling, Claire Foy, Jason Clarke
The film tells the story of the most dangerous mission in the history of Humanity to date. A tale of how NASA sent Neil Armstrong to the Moon and the sacrifices and the cost it represented for many.
GIRL
LUKAS DHONT (BELGIUM – NETHERLANDS)
Cast: Victor Polster, Arieh Worthalter, Katelijne Damen, Valentijn Dhaenens
Lara, aged 15, dreams of becoming a ballerina. With her father’s help, she pushes herself to the limit in the interminable endeavour. But her body doesn’t lend itself easily to the discipline imposed upon it, because in fact she was born a boy.
MIRAI
MAMORU HOSODA (JAPAN)
A spoiled and pampered little 4 year-old who finds himself being ignored on the birth of his little sister Mirai. Kun struggles to cope with the new situations thrown at him in his home. But suddenly the teenage version of his sister travels back in time from the future to share with Kun an extraordinary adventure of unimaginable proportions.
PÁJAROS DE VERANO
CIRO GUERRA, CRISTINA GALLEGO (COLOMBIA)
Cast: Carmiña Martínez, Jose Acosta, Natalia Reyes, Jhon Narváez, José Vicente Cote, Juan Bautista Martínez, Greider Meza
Based on a true story explaining the origin of drug trafficking in Colombia, the film takes place in the ‘70s when North American youths are embracing the hippie culture and, with it, marijuana. The upshot is that the local farmers almost instantly morph into “entrepreneurs”. In the Guajira desert, a Wayuu Native American family finds itself forced to assume a role of leadership in this new enterprise. Wealth and power combine with a war between brothers which will seriously endanger their family, their lives and their ancestral traditions.
ROMA
ALFONSO CUARÓN (MEXICO)
Cast: Yalitza Aparicio, Marina de Tavira
The most personal project to date from Academy Award®-winning director and writer Alfonso Cuarón (Gravity, Children of Men, Y Tu Mamá Tambien), Roma follows Cleo, a young domestic worker for a family in the middle-class neighborhood of Roma in Mexico City. Delivering an artful love letter to the women who raised him, Cuarón draws on his own childhood to create a vivid and emotional portrait of domestic strife and social hierarchy amidst political turmoil of the 1970s.
THE SISTERS BROTHERS
JACQUES AUDIARD (FRANCE – BELGIUM – ROMANIA – SPAIN)
Cast: John C. Reily, Joaquin Phoenix, Jake Gyllenhaal, Riz Ahmed
Charlie and Eli Sisters live in a wild and hostile world. They have blood on their hands: the blood of criminals and innocent people alike… They have no scruples about killing. It’s their job. Charlie, the younger brother, was born to kill. Eli, however, dreams of living a normal life. They are hired by the Commodore to find and kill a man. From Oregon to California, a ruthless hunt begins, an initiatory journey that will test this insane bond between the two brothers. A path that leads to their humanity?San Sebastian International Film Festival
The San Sebastián International Film Festival is one of the most prestigious and important film festivals in the world, held annually in the Spanish city of Donostia-San Sebastián.
San Sebastian’s film program consists of some 200 films selected for six competitive sections (Official Selection, New Directors, Horizontes Latinos, Zabaltegi-Tabakalera, Perlak and Nest) and seven non-competitive sections (Culinary Zinema, Made in Spain, Zinemira, Velodrome, Movies for Kids, Retrospective and Klasikoak).
San Sebastian International Film Festival started in 1953 and takes place in Donostia-San Sebastián, Basque Country, Spain
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BLACKKKLANSMAN, FIRST MAN, A STAR IS BORN to Compete for Audience Award at San Sebastian International Film Festival
[caption id="attachment_29297" align="aligncenter" width="926"] BlacKkKlansman[/caption]
Ten new films including the latest by Damien Chazelle, Alfonso Cuarón, and Spike Lee will compete for the City of Donostia / San Sebastian Audience Award at the San Sebastian International Film Festival. A Star Is Born, the directorial debut of Bradley Cooper will bring the section to a close.
Jacques Audiard (Paris, 1962), the author of Un prophète / A Prophet (2009), Academy Award nominee for Best Foreign Language Film, will present The Sisters Brothers, to have its premiere at the Venice Festival. This western based on the novel of the same name by Patrick deWitt stars Jake Gyllenhaal, Joaquin Phoenix and John C. Reilly, who is also involved in its production.
The latest film from the winner of last year’s Academy Award for Best Director, Damien Chazelle (Providence, USA, 1985), once again directs Ryan Gosling in First Man as Neil Armstrong, the first astronaut to walk on the Moon. The film by the creator of La La Land, in which Claire Foy (The Crown) also has a part, will open the Venice Festival.
Alfonso Cuarón (Mexico City, 1968) competed in the Official Selection at San Sebastian with his second film, A Little Princess (1995). Since then, he has won a Best Director Academy Award for Gravity, while his films Y tu mamá también (And Your Mother Too) and Children of Men have enjoyed widespread international success. With Roma, to have its premiere in Venice, he portrays the life of a maid working in a middle-class district of Mexico City in the early 70s.
In this new take on the iconic love story, A Star Is Born, Bradley Cooper (Philadelphia, USA, 1975) makes his directorial debut and portrays seasoned musician Jackson Maine, who discovers and falls in love with struggling artist Ally, played by Lady Gaga. Ally has given up on her dream to become a successful singer until she meets Jack, who immediately sees her raw talent. This intimate story takes us on a journey through the beauty and challenges of a relationship struggling to survive. After its premiere in Venice, A Star Is Born will bring Perak to a close in San Sebastian.
Lukas Dhont (Belgium, 1991) will also present his first feature in San Sebastian, Girl, winner of the Caméra d’Or for Best First Film in Cannes and Fipresci Prize in Un Certain Regard. Dhont tells the story of a young girl born as a boy and who dreamt of becoming a ballerina.
Ciro Guerra (Río de Oro, Colombia, 1981) shares the helm of Pájaros de verano (Birds of Passage) with Cristina Gallego (Bogotá, 1978), producer of his earlier films. Guerra started his career in Films in Progress, where he won a prize in 2003 for his first work, La sombra del caminante. His third film, El abrazo de la serpiente (Embrace of the Serpent) screened in Horizontes Latinos, was nominated for Best Foreign Language Film Academy Award. In Pájaros de verano, which premiered at the Cannes Directors’ Fortnight, he uses a true story to explain the origins of drug trafficking in Colombia.
The first animated film to compete in San Sebastian’s Official Selection was Bakemono no ko / The Boy and the Beast (2015), by Mamoru Hosoda (Nakaniikawa, Japan, 1967). The author of Toki wo kakeru shojo (The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, 2006) and Okami Kodomo no Ame to Yuki (Wolf Children, 2012) now presents in San Sebastian Mirai, which premiered at the Cannes Directors’ Fortnight.
The participations of Nadine Labaki (Beirut, 1974) in San Sebastian are counted in awards. In 2007, with her directorial debut Sukkar banat / Caramel, she landed the Audience and Youth Awards, and in 2011, with her second film, Et maintenant on va où? / Where Do We Go Now?, she earned the spectators’ vote as Best European Film. With Capharnaüm, winner of the Jury Prize in Cannes, she once again competes for the City of Donostia / San Sebastian Audience Award.
Although his films have been programmed in different retrospectives –When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts in .doc – New paths of non-fiction and Summer of Sam in American Way of Death: American Film Noir 1990-2010– and the collective film Ten Minutes Older – The Trumpet screened as part of the Zabaltegi-Specials selection, this is the first time that Spike Lee (Atlanta, USA, 1957) will have competed for an award in San Sebastian. The author of Malcolm X, winner of honorary Academy and César awards, will compete for the Audience Award with BlacKkKlansman, a dramatic comedy about an Afro-American policeman who infiltrates the Ku Klux Klan, winner of the Jury Grand Prix at Cannes and the Audience Award at Locarno.
Jia Zhangke (Fenyang, China, 1970), however, has enjoyed wide presence at the Festival in recent years. In 2013 he won the Best Screenplay Award at Cannes for Tian zhu ding / A Touch of Sin (2013), screened as part of Perlak, the same section which saw the selection in 2015 of Shan he gu ren (Mountains May Depart), winner of the Audience Award for Best European Production. His short film The Hedonists was screened in Zabaltegi-Tabakalera in 2016, the same year as he sat on the official jury presided by Bille August, which gave the Golden Shell to Wo bu shi pan jinlian / I Am Not Madame Bovary by Xiaogang Feng. Now he will endeavour to win the spectators’ award for a second time with Ash is Purest White, a film selected for the Cannes official competition, in which he describes the changes transforming his country through a violent love story.
These films join those already announced in Perlak: El ángel (Luis Ortega), Petra (Jaime Rosales), Leto / Summer (Kirill Serebrennikov), Zimna wojna / Cold War (Pawel Pawlikowski), Un día más con vida / Another Day of Life (Raúl de la Fuente and Damian Nenow), Netemo Sametemo / Asako I & II (Ryusuke Hamaguchi) and 3 Rokh / Three Faces (Jafar Panahi).
A STAR IS BORN
BRADLEY COOPER (USA)
Cast: Bradley Cooper, Lady Gaga, Andrew Dice Clay, Dave Chappelle, Sam Elliott
CLOSING NIGHT FILM
Not in competition
In this new take on the tragic love story, a seasoned musician discovers—and falls in love with— a struggling artist. She has just about given up on her dream to make it big as a singer… until Jack coaxes her into the spotlight. But even as Ally’s career takes off, the personal side of their relationship is breaking down, as Jack fights an ongoing battle with his own internal demons.
ASH IS PUREST WHITE
JIA ZHANGKE (CHINA – FRANCE – JAPAN)
Cast: Zhao Tao, Liao Fan
Qiao is in love with Bin, a local mobster. During a fight between rival gangs, she fires a gun to protect him. Qiao gets five years in prison for this act of loyalty. Upon her release, she goes looking for Bin to pick up where they left off. A story of love, betrayal and loyalty set in China’s underworld.
BLACKKKLANSMAN
SPIKE LEE (USA)
Cast: John David Washington, Adam Driver, Topher Grace, Laura Harrier
Spike Lee helms the true story of the first Afro-American cop to infiltrate the Ku Klux Klan at its highest levels in the ‘60s, with the help of a colleague who passed himself off as a radical racist.
CAPHARNAÜM
NADINE LABAKI (LEBANON)
Cast: Zain Al Rafeea, Yordanos Shiferaw, Boluwatife Treasure Bankole, Kawthar Al Haddad, Fadi Kamel Youssef, Cedra Izam, Alaa Chouchnieh, Nadine Labaki
International Courtroom
Zain, a 12 year-old boy, faces the judge.
Judge: Why are you suing your own parents?
Zain: For giving me life.
FIRST MAN
DAMIEN CHAZELLE (USA)
Cast: Ryan Gosling, Claire Foy, Jason Clarke
The film tells the story of the most dangerous mission in the history of Humanity to date. A tale of how NASA sent Neil Armstrong to the Moon and the sacrifices and the cost it represented for many.
GIRL
LUKAS DHONT (BELGIUM – NETHERLANDS)
Cast: Victor Polster, Arieh Worthalter, Katelijne Damen, Valentijn Dhaenens
Lara, aged 15, dreams of becoming a ballerina. With her father’s help, she pushes herself to the limit in the interminable endeavour. But her body doesn’t lend itself easily to the discipline imposed upon it, because in fact she was born a boy.
MIRAI
MAMORU HOSODA (JAPAN)
A spoiled and pampered little 4 year-old who finds himself being ignored on the birth of his little sister Mirai. Kun struggles to cope with the new situations thrown at him in his home. But suddenly the teenage version of his sister travels back in time from the future to share with Kun an extraordinary adventure of unimaginable proportions.
PÁJAROS DE VERANO
CIRO GUERRA, CRISTINA GALLEGO (COLOMBIA)
Cast: Carmiña Martínez, Jose Acosta, Natalia Reyes, Jhon Narváez, José Vicente Cote, Juan Bautista Martínez, Greider Meza
Based on a true story explaining the origin of drug trafficking in Colombia, the film takes place in the ‘70s when North American youths are embracing the hippie culture and, with it, marijuana. The upshot is that the local farmers almost instantly morph into “entrepreneurs”. In the Guajira desert, a Wayuu Native American family finds itself forced to assume a role of leadership in this new enterprise. Wealth and power combine with a war between brothers which will seriously endanger their family, their lives and their ancestral traditions.
ROMA
ALFONSO CUARÓN (MEXICO)
Cast: Yalitza Aparicio, Marina de Tavira
The most personal project to date from Academy Award®-winning director and writer Alfonso Cuarón (Gravity, Children of Men, Y Tu Mamá Tambien), Roma follows Cleo, a young domestic worker for a family in the middle-class neighborhood of Roma in Mexico City. Delivering an artful love letter to the women who raised him, Cuarón draws on his own childhood to create a vivid and emotional portrait of domestic strife and social hierarchy amidst political turmoil of the 1970s.
THE SISTERS BROTHERS
JACQUES AUDIARD (FRANCE – BELGIUM – ROMANIA – SPAIN)
Cast: John C. Reily, Joaquin Phoenix, Jake Gyllenhaal, Riz Ahmed
Charlie and Eli Sisters live in a wild and hostile world. They have blood on their hands: the blood of criminals and innocent people alike… They have no scruples about killing. It’s their job. Charlie, the younger brother, was born to kill. Eli, however, dreams of living a normal life. They are hired by the Commodore to find and kill a man. From Oregon to California, a ruthless hunt begins, an initiatory journey that will test this insane bond between the two brothers. A path that leads to their humanity?
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12 Latin American Films to Compete for Horizontes Award at 2018 San Sebastian International Film Festival
[caption id="attachment_31363" align="aligncenter" width="1000"]
Florianópolis Dream (Sueño Florianópolis)[/caption]
Twelve films produced, directed or set in Latin America will compete for the Horizontes Award at the 2018 San Sebastian International Film Festival.
Las herederas (Marcelo Martinessi), opening film of the section, Familia sumergida (Immersed Family, María Alché), La noche de 12 años (A Twelve-Year-Night, Álvaro Brechner), Figuras (Figures, Eugenio Canevari), Cómprame un revólver (Buy Me a Gun, Julio Hernández Cordón), Enigma (Ignacio Juricic Merillán), Sueño Florianópolis (Ana Katz), Ferrugem / Rust (Aly Muritiba), Nuestro tiempo (Our Time, Carlos Reygadas), Marilyn (Martín Rodríguez Redondo), Los silencios (Beatriz Seigner) and El motoarrebatador (The Snatch Thief, Agustín Toscano) make up the Horizontes Latinos selection at the 66th edition of the San Sebastian Festival.
Films in Horizontes Latinos at 66th San Sebastian Festival
LAS HEREDERAS MARCELO MARTINESSI (PARAGUAY – GERMANY – BRAZIL – URUGUAY – NORWAY – FRANCE ) Cast: Ana Brun, Margarita Irún, Ana Ivanova, Nilda Gonzalez, María Martins, Alicia Guerra, Yverá Zayas OPENING NIGHT FILM For more than 30 years, Chela and Martina have lived together, like the daughters of families in a well-placed social position: they had inherited enough money to live comfortably with no need to work. But now, when both are over 60, the money has run out. When Martina is sent to prison for being unable to pay her debts, Chela starts providing older women from well-off families with a taxi service which helps her to get by. That’s how she meets Josefina, a glamorous woman 20 years younger than herself, with whom she immediately hits it off. The connection changes the relationship Chela has with herself and with those around her, triggering an internal revolution. CÓMPRAME UN REVÓLVER (BUY ME A GUN ) JULIO HERNÁNDEZ CORDÓN (MEXICO) Cast: Matilde Hernández Guinea, Rogelio Sosa Mexico, sometime in a near future… Women are disappearing and a girl called Huck wears a mask to hide her gender. She helps her dad, a tormented addict, to take care of an abandoned baseball camp where the narcos gather to play. The father tries to protect her as he can. With the help of her friends, a group of lost boys who have the power of camouflaging themselves in the windy desert, Huck has to fight to overcome her reality and to defeat the local capo. EL MOTOARREBATADOR (THE SNATCH THIEF) AGUSTÍN TOSCANO (ARGENTINA – URUGUAY – FRANCE) Cast: Sergio Prina, Liliana Juárez, León Zelarrayán, Daniel Elías, Camila Plaate, Pilar Benítez Vibart, Mirella Pascual IV Europe-Latin America Co-production Forum In the Argentinian city of Tucumán, Miguel is making a living as a “motochorro”, a thief who snatches people’s belongings from his motorbike. When he steals the purse of Elena, an old woman, he ends up hurting her badly. After the brutal incident, Miguel is plagued by guilt and unable to forget about his victim. In an attempt to make things right, he conceals his true identity from the old woman and starts to take care of the injured and unsuspecting Elena. The closer he gets to her the more he becomes entangled in his own lies. Afraid of telling Elena the truth, Miguel continues to be haunted by his past and is unable to find true redemption. ENIGMA IGNACIO JURICIC MERILLÁN (CHILE) Cast: Roxana Campos, Rodrigo Pérez, Paula Zúñiga, Claudia Cabezas Films in Progress 33 Nancy receives the offer from a TV programme on unsolved mysteries to participate in the episode telling the story of her daughter, a young lesbian beaten to death, a crime for which no-one has been declared guilty eight years after it was committed. Nancy confronts her family and each one’s version of the events, as she decides whether or not to participate in the space and learn more about the person her daughter was. FAMILIA SUMERGIDA (IMMERSED FAMILY) MARIA ALCHÉ (ARGENTINA – BRAZIL – GERMANY – NORWAY) Cast: Mercedes Morán, Esteban Bigliardi, Marcelo Subiotto, Ia Arteta, Laila Maltz, Federico Sack Films in Progress 32 It’s summertime in an empty and heated Buenos Aires. Marcela’s world is shaken as her sister passes away, and it becomes estranged and unfamiliar. While still grieving, she will have to deal with clearing out her sister’s apartment. Willing to help out, Nacho, a young friend of her daughter’s, bursts in. His presence gives way to shared road trips and adventures. During these confusing days, people and conversations from another time will get intertwined, leading her to some self-questioning, as the imminence of everyday life pushes in. FERRUGEM / RUST ALY MURITIBA (BRAZIL) Cast: Tifanny Dopke, Giovanni Di Lorenzi, Pedro Inoue, Enrique Diaz, Clarissa Kiste, Dudah Azevedo Films in Progress 32 Tati is a 16-year-old girl, joyful and lively, who likes to share her happiest moments on social networks. She eagerly looks forward to a weekend trip with her school friends. She knows this may be a good opportunity to get to know Renet better, her mysterious classmate. Renet belongs to a family where things are not openly spoken, merely suggested, and most often in silence. The current unspoken matter between father and son is the departure of Renet’s mother, who left David, her ex-husband, caring alone for the boy. David is a teacher at the same school where Tati and Renet study. The hot topic at school is a video shared among the students in which the girl appears in a compromising situation. FIGURAS (FIGURES) EUGENIO CANEVARI (SPAIN – ARGENTINA) Cast: Stella Maris Santo, Francisco Dominguez, Valeria Ballerini Stella, an argentinian immigrant living in Spain, suffers from Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and needs constant attention. Paco, her longtime partner, helps her to move, eat, and communicate. Valeria, Stella’s daughter, visits them sporadically and, anguished by the visible deterioration of her mother, finds a manner of escape by going out to parties. While they wait for an answer about an opportunity for subsidized housing, they attempt to cope with the situation through humor and love. A real family performing in a real story. LA NOCHE DE 12 AÑOS (A TWELVE-YEAR-NIGHT) ÁLVARO BRECHNER (SPAIN – ARGENTINA – FRANCE – URUGUAY) Cast: Antonio de la Torre, Chino Darín, Alfonso Tort IV Europe-Latin America Co-production Forum September 1973. Uruguay is under the control of military dictatorship. The Tupamaros guerrilla movement has been crushed and out of action for a year. Its members imprisoned and tortured. One autumn night, three Tupamaros prisoners are taken from their prison cells in a secret military operation that will last for twelve years. From then on they will be hauled around different camps all over the country, subject to a macabre experiment; a new kind of torture aiming to break the limits of their mental resistance. The military order is clear: “since we couldn’t kill them, we’re going to drive them insane”. For more than a decade, the prisoners will be kept in isolation in tiny cells where they spend most of their time with hoods on, tied up, deprived of their basic needs, with hardly any food, and seeing how their senses are reduced to a minimum. With their bodies and minds pushed beyond the limits, La noche de 12 años (A Twelve-year Night) tells us how they managed to survive. LOS SILENCIOS BEATRIZ SEIGNER (BRAZIL – FRANCE – COLOMBIA) Cast: Marleyda Soto, Enrique Diaz, Maria Paula Tabares Peña, Adolfo Savilvino Films in Progress 33 Nuria, Fabio and their mother Amparo arrive in a small island in the middle of Amazonia, at the border of Brazil, Colombia and Peru. They ran away from the Colombian armed conflict in which their father disappeared. One day, he reappears in their new house. The family is haunted by this strange secret and discovers the island is peopled with ghosts. MARILYN MARTÍN RODRÍGUEZ REDONDO (ARGENTINA – CHILE) Cast: Walter Rodríguez, Catalina Saavedra, Germán de Silva, Ignacio Giménez, Germán Baudino, Andrew Bargsted, Rodolfo García Werner, Josefina Paredes III Europe-Latin America Co-production Forum Films in Progress 31 Marcos, a 17 year-old farmhand, discovers his sexuality in a hostile atmosphere. Nicknamed “Marilyn” by the other village teenagers, he becomes an object of desire and discrimination. Marcos feels increasingly more penned in. NUESTRO TIEMPO (OUR TIME) CARLOS REYGADAS (MEXICO – FRANCE – ALEMANIA – DENMARK – SWEDEN) Cast: Carlos Reygadas, Natalia López, Eleazar Reygadas, Rut Reygadas, Phil Burgers A family lives in the Mexican countryside raising fighting bulls. Esther is in charge of running the ranch, while her husband Juan, a world-renowned poet, raises and selects the beasts. When Esther becomes infatuated with a horse trainer, named Phil, the couple struggles to stride through the emotional crisis. SUEÑO FLORIANÓPOLIS (FLORIANÓPOLIS DREAM) ANA KATZ (ARGENTINA – BRAZIL – FRANCE) Cast: Mercedes Morán, Gustavo Garzón, Marco Ricca, Andréa Beltrão Couple Pedro and Lucrecia travel to Brazil with their teenage children. They have recently decided to separate, but to spend the holidays together as planned all the same. Marco, the Brazilian renting their summer house to the family, and Larissa, his ex-girlfriend, befriend Pedro and Lucrecia. On the beaches, among the waves, karaoke and water excursions, overlapping romances emerge together with an attraction that will rub off on the children on all sides. Parents and siblings have fun as they test the “Brazilian happiness”. While endless samba awakens the tourists from their lethargy, they separate to indulge in the passion and exploration, in the mirror, of more liberal and unexpected versions of themselves.
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Argentine Film AN UNEXPECTED LOVE to Open 2018 San Sebastian Festival
[caption id="attachment_31213" align="aligncenter" width="1000"]
An Unexpected Love (El amor menos pensado)[/caption]
The Argentine film El amor menos pensado (An Unexpected Love) directed by Pablo Trapero, will open the 66th edition of the San Sebastian Festival. The film, a candidate for the Golden Shell, focusses on a couple who, after 25 years of marriage, are going through a crisis which drives them to separation and prompts them to question themselves about love, desire and the passing of time.
An Unexpected Love represents the moviemaking debut of the screenwriter and producer Juan Vera. Co-producer of Zama, helmed by Lucrecia Martel, Elefante blanco and Carancho, directed by Pablo Trapero, Vera has as the stars of his first work Mercedes Morán and Donostia Award-winner Ricardo Darín, who was also involved as a producer together with his son, Chino Darín.
Mercedes Morán (Villa Dolores, Argentina, 1955) has worked with some of the big-name Latin American filmmakers: Lucrecia Martel, Juan José Campanella, Walter Salles, Ana Katz (Los Marziano, Official Selection 2011) and Pablo Larraín. Her work in Sueño Florianópolis landed her this year’s Best Actress Award at the Karlovy Vary Festival. At this year’s Un Certain Regard, she also premiered El ángel, to be screened in Perlak.
Ricardo Darín (Buenos Aires, 1957), one of the most prestigious Latin American actors, received last year’s Donostia Award in recognition of a career which has seen him work with moviemakers including Adolfo Aristarain, Campanella, Fabián Bielinsky, Fernando Trueba, Trapero, Cesc Gay and Santiago Mitre. His films have enjoyed strong presence in San Sebastian over the last two decades: he has competed in the Official Selection four times, he was a member of the official jury in 2012, and he has harvested, as well as the Donostia Award (with screening of La cordillera [The Summit]), the Best Actor Silver Shell ex aequo with Javier Cámara for Truman and the Audience Award for Best European Film for Relatos Salvajes (Wild Tales).
AN UNEXPECTED LOVE (EL AMOR MENOS PENSADO)
JUAN VERA (ARGENTINA)
Cast: Ricardo Darín, Mercedes Morán, Claudia Fontán, Luis Rubio, Andrea Pietra, Jean Pierre Noher, Claudia Lapacó, Chico Novarro, Andrea Politti, Gabriel Corrado, Andrés Gil, Mariú Fernández, Norman Briski, Juan Minujín
After 25 years of marriage, Marcos and Ana question themselves deeply on the subject of love, the nature of desire and fidelity, taking a decision that will change their lives forever.
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Films by Claire Denis, Simon Jaquemet, Kim Jee-woon and More to Compete for Golden Shell at 66th San Sebastián Film Festival
[caption id="attachment_30771" align="aligncenter" width="1000"]
The Black Book (Le cahier noir)[/caption]
The latest films by Claire Denis, Simon Jaquemet, Kim Jee-woon, Naomi Kawase, Benjamín Naishtat, Valeria Sarmiento and Markus Schleinzer are the first films confirmed to be competing for the Golden Shell at the 66th San Sebastián Film Festival.
Claire Denis (Paris, 1946), the director of Beau travail or White Material, will be competing for the first time for the Golden Shell with High Life. In this science-fiction film, Denis is working once again with Juliette Binoche, after Un beau soleil intérieur (Let the Sun Shine In) -which won the SACD Award in the Directors’ Fortnight at Cannes ex aequo last year with Philippe Garrel- and Robert Pattinson.
For Naomi Kawase (Nara, Japan, 1969) this will be her second time in the Official Section, after she presented Genpin, which won the Fipresci Award, in 2010. Now, after taking part in Un Certain Regard and in the Official Competition at Cannes with her last two films, An / Sweet Bean and Hikari / Radiance, respectively, she will be coming to San Sebastián with Vision, shot in her native province. The film also stars the French actress Juliette Binoche and the Japanese actor, Masatoshi Nagase (An, Hikari, Paterson).
Kim Jee-woon (Seúl, 1964) will also be competing for the Golden Shell for the second time. After presenting Ang-ma-reul bo-at-da / I Saw the Devil in San Sebastián in 2010, the South Korean director will be taking part withIllang: The Wolf Brigade, the Korean remake of Jin-Roh, the anime written by Mamoru Oshii (Ghost in the Shell) about the Keberos Panzer Cops, a violent police force.
This is also the second time that Valeria Sarmiento (Valparaíso, Chile, 1948) will be competing as a director in the Official Section, after presenting Elle more than two decades ago, in 1995. But Sarmiento’s links to the Festival go back to a previous decade, at the beginning of her career, when she won the Grand Prix Donostia for Best New Director in 1984 with Notre mariage, her first fictional feature film. The last time that she took part in the Festival was in Zabaltegi, where her film As Linhas de Torres / Lines of Wellington was programmed in 2012. The French/Portuguese coproduction Le cahier noir / The Black Book is inspired by the novel Livro Negro de Padre Dinis, by Camilo Castelo Branco, who also wrote Mistérios de Lisboa, which was edited by Sarmiento and which won Raúl Ruiz the Silver Shell for best director in San Sebastián (2010). El Livro Negro de Padre Dinis can be considered to be a prequel of the character that also appears in Mistérios de Lisboa.
Rojo is the third feature by Benjamín Naishtat (Buenos Aires, 1986), whose debut film, Historia del miedo (History of Fear), was one of the films chosen in Films in Progress 24, competed in Berlin in 2014 and was also screened in Horizontes Latinos. With his second film, El movimiento (The Movement, 2015), he formed part of the official section in Locarno. Rojo, with a cast including Darío Grandinetti, Andrea Frigerio and Alfredo Castro, is set in Argentina in the 1970s, on the eve of the military dictatorship.
Markus Schleinzer (Vienna, 1971), who competed in the official section at Cannes with his debut film, Michael, will be presenting his second feature film, Angelo, in San Sebastián. Schleinzer, who wrote together with the director, Michael Sturminger, the screenplay for Casanova Variations, which competed for the Golden Shell in 2014, now focuses on the story of an African who is Europeanised by force in a story starring Makita Samba, Alba Rohrwacher and Larisa Faber.
In 2014 Simon Jaquemet (Zurich, 1978) premiered his award-winning first film, Chrieg / War, in the New Directors section at the Festival. With his second film, Der unschuldige / The Innocent, he is back in San Sebastián in the Official Section, with the portrait of a woman trapped by her past in a religious community.
The other films that make up the Official Section will be announced in the next few weeks.
[caption id="attachment_30770" align="aligncenter" width="1000"]
ANGELO[/caption]
ANGELO
MARKUS SCHLEINZER (AUSTRIA – LUXEMBOURG)
Cast: Makita Samba, Alba Rohrwacher, Larisa Faber
The story of Angelo, an African born in the 18th century, who is brought to Europe at the age of 10. Becoming a servant at the court of enlightened nobility, he is able to use his otherness to be an appreciated guest and attraction for the members of high society. Being close to the emperor he decides to marry Magdalena, a young maidservant, with whom he falls in love. Doing so, Angelo inevitably suffers from the rejection from the court. On the height of his prestige, he has to realize, that his otherness will never be erased. He will never know a normal life, and he will always remain an outsider. Based on true events.
DER UNSCHULDIGE / THE INNOCENT
SIMON JAQUEMET (SWITZERLAND – GERMANY)
Cast: Judith Hofman, Christian Kaiser, Thomas Schüpbach, Urs-Peter Wolters
Ruth works in a neuroscience research lab, as much as she’s part of an extreme traditionalist and conservative Christian family. She suddenly finds herself facing her own past when her former lover reemerges after disappearing twenty years in jail, putting into question her feelings, her life and soon her faith.
HIGH LIFE
CLAIRE DENIS (FRANCE – GERMANY – UK – POLAND – USA)
Cast: Robert Pattinson, Juliette Binoche, André Benjamin, Mia Goth
Deep space. Beyond our solar system. Monte and his infant daughter Willow live together aboard a spacecraft, in complete isolation. A solitary man, whose strict self-discipline is a protection against desire –his own and that of others– Monte fathered the girl against his will. His sperm was used to inseminate Boyse, the young woman who gave birth to her. They were members of a crew of prisoners: space convicts, death row inmates. Guinea pigs sent on a mission to the black hole closest to Earth. Now only Monte and Willow remain. And Monte is changed. Through his daughter, for the first time, he experiences the birth of an all-powerful love. Willow grows, becoming a young girl, then a young woman.
ILLANG: THE WOLF BRIGADE
KIM JEE-WOON (SOUTH KOREA)
Cast: GANG Dong-won, HAN Hyo-Joo, JUNG Woo-sung, KIM Mu-Yeol, HAN Ye-ri, CHOI Min-ho, HEO Joon-ho
In 2029, after the governments of North and South Korea announce a 5-year plan to reunify the country, strong sanctions by the world’s powerful nations cripple the economy and lead to a hellish period of chaos. With the appearance of an armed anti-government terrorist group called The Sect which opposes reunification, the President creates a new police division called the Special Unit which amasses significant political power. However the intelligence service Public Security, which sees its own influence drop, hatches a plot to annihilate the Special Unit. Amidst this bloody struggle between two ultra-powerful institutions, rumors emerge of a secret ‘Wolf Brigade’ being formed within the Special Unit. The human weapons who are called wolves, ‘Illang’ (The Wolf Brigade).
LE CAHIER NOIR / THE BLACK BOOK
VALERIA SARMIENTO (FRANCE – PORTUGAL)
Cast: Lou de Laâge, Stanislas Merhar, Niels Schneider, Jenna Thiam, Fleur Fitoussi, David Caracol, Vasco Varela da Silva, Tiago Varela da Silva
The story of the adventures, in the twilight of the eighteenth century, of a singular couple formed by a little orphan with mysterious origins and his young Italian nurse of a similarly uncertain birth. They lead us in their wake, from Rome to Paris, from Lisbon to London, from Parma to Venice. Always followed in the shadows, for obscure reasons, by a suspicious-looking Calabrian and a troubling cardinal, they make us explore the dark intrigues of the Vatican, the pangs of a fatal passion, a gruesome duel, banter at the court of Versailles and the convulsions of the French Revolution.
ROJO
BENJAMIN NAISHTAT (ARGENTINA – FRANCE – NETHERLANDS – BRAZIL – FRANCE)
Cast: Dario Grandinetti, Andrea Frigerio, Alfredo Castro
In the mid-1970s a stranger arrives in a quiet provincial town. At a restaurant, for no apparent reason he starts to assault Claudio, a well-known lawyer. The community supports the lawyer and the stranger is humiliated and gets thrown out. Later on the way home, Claudio and his wife Susana are intercepted by the stranger who is determined to take terrible revenge on him. The lawyer then starts out on a road of no-return, of death, secrets and silences.
VISION
NAOMI KAWASE (JAPAN – FRANCE)
Cast: Juliette Binoche, Masatoshi Nagase
Jeanne, a French journalist, comes to Japan in search of ‘Vision’, a rare medicinal herb said to strip away all spiritual anguish and weaknesses in human beings. She knows that ‘Vision’ only appears once every 997 years under special conditions and that time is near. Aki, a wise villager who knows the forest well, prophesies the arrival of the mysterious ‘One’ and then disappears. Tomo, who was devoted to Aki, works as a keeper of the forests and is beginning to sense, instinctively, recent changes in the mountains. Is there a connection between the disappearance of Aki and the changes taking place in the forest? Will Jeanne succeed in finding the phantom herb Vision? A millennial event is taking place in the Yoshino mountains of Nara, opening a door to the One and the true potential of human existence.
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13 Filmmakers to Compete for Kutxabank-New Directors Award at 2018 San Sebastián Film Festival
[caption id="attachment_30728" align="aligncenter" width="1000"]
Apuntes para una película de atracos (Notes for a Heist Film).[/caption]
Thirteen first or second films by European, Asian and Latin American directors that will be competing for the Kutxabank-New Directors Award at the 2018 San Sebastián Film Festival.
Koldo Almandoz (San Sebastián, 1973) has had an intense career in the world of short films, linked to the Kimuak programme and to the San Sebastián Festival, which programmed his first short, Razielen itzulera (The Return of Raziel), in 1997 in Zabaltegi, the section in which two decades later he presented his first full-length film, Sipo Phantasma (Ghost Ship), after premiering it in Rotterdam. Oreina (The Deer) is his second feature film.
Elías León Siminiani (Santander, Spain, 1971), nominated for a Goya for Mapa (Map), is now presenting Apuntes para una película de atracos (Notes for a Heist Film). For her part, Nataliia Meshchaninova (Krasnodar, Russia, 1982), who competed in Rotterdam with her first full-length film, Kombinat ‘Nadezhda’ / The Hope Factory, focuses on the vet on a farm in Serdtse Mira / Core of the World. And after Ama Doren / Hold my hand, Ismet Sijarina in Nëntor i ftohtë / Cold November returns to the War in the Balkans, in this case to its background, when Kosovo’s autonomy was suppressed.
Hadrian Marcu (Brăila, Rumanía, 1976) will be presenting Un om la locul lui / A Decent Man, about a man who is torn by an emotional conflict, that was selected last year in the first Glocal in Progress, the industry activity at the Festival aimed at European films in non-hegemonic languages. It stars Bodgan Dumitrache, who won the Silver Shell for best actor last year for his performance in Pororoca.
The selection also includes the first film by Francisco Marise (La Plata, Argentina, 1985), Para la Guerra (To War), coproduced by the filmmaker, Javier Rebollo, who also takes part in the editing process, and the first film by Hiroshi Okuyama (Japan, 1996), the award-winning music video director, who makes his debut with Boku wa Iesu-sama ga kirai / Jesus.
The short by Inés María Barrionuevo (Córdoba, Argentina, 1980), La quietud (2012), competed in the official section at Locarno, and her first feature film, Atlántida (2014), was selected at the Berlinale in the Generation 14plus section. In Julia y el zorro (Julia and the Fox) she deals with a woman and her twelve-year-old daughter who are going through a mourning process. The director, producer and actress Lila Avilés (Mexico, 1982), after working in theatre and presenting shorts at international festivals, in her first full-length film, entitled La camarista (The Chambermaid), describes the everyday life of one of the so-called ‘chambermaids’.
After winning awards in his short-film career (with films like Teneriffa), Hannes Baumgartner (Männedorf, Switzerland, 1983) has been inspired in his first feature film Der läufer / Midnight Runner, by the true story of an athlete who starts to commit robberies and lead a double life.
Snow, the graduation film by Laurits Flensted-Jensen (Aarhus, Denmark, 1985), was selected at Rotterdam and was chosen as best documentary short by the Danish Academy. His fictional short Melon Rainbow was once again programmed at the Dutch festival and won the most important award at Odense. Neon Heart is his first full-length film.
After taking part in the Short Film Corner at Cannes with Grasshopper, the Vietnamese director Ash Mayfair (Ho Chi Minh City, 1985) is presenting her feature-film debut at San Sebastián with The Third Wife, whose screenplay was chosen by Spike Lee as the winner of his Spike Lee Film Production Fund Award in 2014.
The short film Luisa no está en casa (Luisa is not Home) by Celia Rico Clavellino (Seville, 1982) was chosen in the Short Film Corner at Cannes and at Venice and won the Gaudí award for best short. Her first full-length film, Viaje al cuarto de una madre (Journey to a Mother’s Room), whose screenplay took part in the Berlinale Talents Script Station Lab, stars Lola Dueñas and Anna Castillo.
The remaining titles making up the New Directors section will be announced in the coming weeks.
APUNTES PARA UNA PELÍCULA DE ATRACOS (NOTES FOR A HEIST FILM)
LEÓN SIMINIANI (SPAIN)
Elías is a film director who dreamed of making a heist movie. During the summer of 2013 he reads a news story about the arrest of ‘The Vallecas Robin Hood’, the leader of ‘the sewers gang’. He then feels that he has found the opportunity to make his dream come true. He sends him a letter to the prison where he is serving his sentence. Against all odds, Elías receives a reply three weeks later. Robin Hood agrees for him to come and visit him in prison.
BOKU WA IESU-SAMA GA KIRAI / JESUS
HIROSHI OKUYAMA (JAPAN)
Cast: Yura Sato, Riki Okuma
Yura is a young boy whose family leaves Tokyo to live with his grandmother in the snowy countryside. Not only must he fit in at a new school, but it’s a Christian one. At first he is puzzled when he and his classmates are called to ‘worship’, but he gradually adjusts to his new environment. One day, in the middle of a prayer, he sees a very small Jesus appear before him. Each wish Yura makes to Jesus comes true, and he starts to have faith in the power of the Lord.
DER LÄUFER / MIDNIGHT RUNNER
HANNES BAUMGARTNER (SWITZERLAND )
Cast: Max Hubacher, Annina Euling, Luna Wedler, Sylvie Rohrer, Christophe Sermet, Saladin Dellers
Jonas Widmer is one of the best runners in Switzerland and his focus is to attend the Olympic games. Besides the sport Jonas is a successful cook and plans to move in with his girlfriend Simone. But Jonas perfect life gets disturbed by the increasing memories of his late brother. He starts a tragic double life by robbing young women at night. After a true story.
JULIA Y EL ZORRO (JULIA AND THE FOX)
INES MARÍA BARRIONUEVO (ARGENTINA)
Cast: Umbra Colombo, Pablo Limarzi, Victoria Castelo Arzubialde
Julia, an ex-actress, and her daughter Emma move into a mansion in a village in Córdoba, Argentina. It is winter and Julia needs to fix up the house so she can sell it. Quite a while has gone by since the death of her husband and Emma’s father, but they are still in mourning. The days go gloomily by. Grief has made Julia quiet and cool with her daughter. One night Julia meets Gaspar, a life-long friend of hers. Gaspar tries to convince Julia to take part in a theatre competition. Julia, Emma and Gaspar find a way to rebuild their lives by starting a rather uncertain project to form a new type of family.
LA CAMARISTA (THE CHAMBERMAID)
LILA AVILÉS (MEXICO – USA)
Cast: Gabriela Cartol, Teresa Sánchez
Eve is a young chambermaid working in one of the most luxurious hotels in Mexico City, an exclusive glass tower inhabited by guests so wealthy she can only imagine their lives through intimate fantasies of the belongings they’ve left behind. Long, laborious shifts prevent Eve from caring for her child while she helps guests with their own children, but she believes her situation will improve if she gets promoted to work at executive-level suites, for which she accepts a grueling schedule. In keeping with this goal, she also enrolls in the hotel’s adult education program…
NËNTOR I FTOHTË / COLD NOVEMBER
ISMET SIJARINA (KOSOVO – ALBANIA – FORMER YUGOSLAV REPUBLIC OF MACEDONIA)
Cast: Kushtrim Hoxha, Adriana Matoshi, Emir Hadzihafizbegovic, Fatmir Spahiu, Majlinda Kosumovic, Bislim Mucaj, Lum Veseli, Aurita Agushi
In the beginning of the ’90s, Yugoslavian Government cancelled the autonomy of Kosovo, dissolved its Parliament and closed down the National Television. Whole institutional life was reorganized by new authorities, while the majority of citizens responded with peaceful demonstrations. During this evil time, Fadili who is working as an archivist has to choose between two options, being aware that both of them are wrong. In this way, he involuntarily and unwillingly, ‘swallows’ the shame, endures the pressure coming from all sides and deals with the bad reputation for just one reason: to provide welfare for his family.
NEON HEART
LAURITS FLENSTED-JENSEN (DENMARK)
Cast: Victoria Carmen Sonne, Niklas Herskind, Noah Skovgaard Skands
Neon Heart is a story about three people chasing life and each other. Laura is on her way to a porn film casting. Niklas is trying to take care of two men with Down’s Syndrome, and Frederik is out to gain respect as a hooligan. In glimpses and fragments of past and present, we follow the three characters on a journey full of taboos and desires. With a cast of mainly non-actors in authentic environments, Neon Heart confronts its audience with a world we would rather not look at.
OREINA (THE DEER)
KOLDO ALMANDOZ (SPAIN)
Cast: Laulad Ahmed, Patxi Bisquert, Ramón Agirre, Iraia Elías, Erika Olaizola
Khalil is a rootless young man who lives on the edge of town, where the industrial estates merge into the river and the marshes. Khalil gets by as best he can and spends his time with an old poacher, who shares a house on the riverbank with a brother who he hasn’t spoken to in years. On the banks of the marshes, the tides mark the time for love and heartbreak, friendship and revenge.
PARA LA GUERRA (TO WAR)
FRANCISCO MARISE (CUBA – ARGENTINA – SPAIN)
Para la guerra explores the memory and loneliness of a Cuban former internationalist soldier by observing his body and (extra)ordinary gestures. This is a bloodless war film without any shooting; a film about a wound, that ‘Sledgehammer’, ‘ El Rayado’, Andrés, has, this special forces veteran who tries to find his colleagues from the commando that survived their last mission 30 years ago.
[caption id="attachment_30730" align="aligncenter" width="1000"]
Core of the World (Serdtse Mira[/caption]
SERDTSE MIRA / CORE OF THE WORLD
NATALIIA MESHCHANINOVA (RUSSIA)
Cast: Stepan Devonin, Dmitriy Podnozov, Jana Sekste
Egor is a veterinarian on a rural farm which doubles as a hunting dog training center. He is a grown man, but deep inside he is a child who has been hurt and abandoned by everyone, including his own mother. All he wants is to care for the animals and to feel part of the close-knit family he works for. When animal rights activists invade this fragile microcosm, throwing off its delicate balance, Egor’s world begins to crumble… Or so it seems.
THE THIRD WIFE
ASH MAYFAIR (VIETNAM)
Cast: Trần Nữ Yên Khê, Mai Thu Hường, Nguyễn Phương Trà My, Nguyễn Như Quỳnh
In 19th century rural Vietnam, 14-year-old May becomes the third wife of wealthy landowner Hung. Soon she learns that she can only gain status by asserting herself as a woman who can give birth to a male child. May’s hope to change her status turns into a real and tantalizing possibility when she gets pregnant. Faced with forbidden love and its devastating consequences, May finally comes to an understanding of the brutal truth: the options available to her are few and far between.
UN OM LA LOCUL LUI / A DECENT MAN
HADRIAN MARCU (ROMANIA)
Cast: Bogdan Dumitrache, Ada Gales, Madalina Constantin, Iulian Postelnicu, Adrian Titieni
Petru is a drilling engineer living in a community of oil industry workers. Petru is quite conflicted. On one hand he is about to get married to his pregnant girlfriend Laura, on the other he is involved with the wife of one of his colleagues, Sonia, who had a serious work-related accident. His new life seems to begin while she feels hers is ending. Everything is thrown into chaos when Laura finds out about his relationship with Sonia. He feels guilt-ridden but also responsible for the upcoming baby. Participant in the first edition of Glocal in Progress.
VIAJE AL CUARTO DE UNA MADRE (JOURNEY TO A MOTHER’S ROOM)
CELIA RICO CLAVELLINO (SPAIN- FRANCE)
Cast: Lola Dueñas, Anna Castillo, Pedro Casablanc
Leonor wants to leave home, but she doesn’t dare to tell her mother. Estrella doesn’t want her to leave but is unable to keep her by her side either. Mother and daughter will have to face this new stage in life in which the world that they share starts to fall apart.
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66th San Sebastian Film Festival Unveils Section Posters [See Images]
This morning, the San Sebastian Festival presented the new image and the sections posters for its 66th edition. With the goals to update the brand and increase its visibility; the San Sebastian studio TGA, author of both the new image and the posters, has chosen to use a conch shell of more synthetic lines and greater visual punch to announce a modern Festival, constantly renovated and adapted to a changing context.
The posters for all of the sections, dominated by energy, light and liveliness, share a same graphic treatment and identity combining photography and illustration to lend an overall feeling of harmony and consistency. Each section also maintains its identity with a characteristic color. The Official Selection poster will be presented at a later date.
The logo is composed of the conch shell, the acronym – for which the Helvetica font was used – and the Festival name in three languages (Basque, Spanish and English).
The design studio from San Sebastian, TGA, headed by Nagore García Pascual, Julen Cano Linazasoro and Txema García Amiano, combines the fields of graphic and interactive design, architecture and interior design. During their fifteen years of existence, their amalgamation of functionality and aesthetics and their characteristic visual language has shaped the identity of Donostia Kultura, Fundación Kutxa, Elías Querejeta Zine Eskola and the Aquarium. Among their posters are those created for the 75th anniversary of the Classical Music Fortnight, the 2017 Concha Flag rowing competition, the staging of Midsummer Night’s Dream or the image of Culinary Zinema at the last edition of the Festival.
José Luis Rebordinos, forwarded some of the keys to the edition, its consolidated pledge to the industry and new talent and the excellent situation of Basque and Spanish cinema, also mentioning the challenges faced by the Festival, such as opening of the Elías Querejeta Zine Eskola and turning the spotlight on women filmmakers.
NEW DIRECTORS
Two impersonal faces, upright and defiant for the section of first and second works by their makers and their new approaches.
HORIZONTES LATINOS
A palm tree, a dog and a boy looking over a wall to prompt the idea of a double reality or point of view illustrate the section which seeks to reflect Latin American reality without stereotypes by means of feature films totally or partially produced in Latin America, directed by filmmakers of Latin origin or who set their works against the backdrop or subject of Latin communities all over the world.
ZABALTEGI – TABAKALERA
Freestyle trampoline and the death-defying triple somersault, the most difficult swimming discipline, represent the most open of the Festival sections, where there are no rules, no limits of style or running time: shorts, medium-length, full-length, fiction, non-fiction, animations, series, audiovisual installations, new discoveries and contemporary classics.
PERLAK
The poster plays with the idea of special pieces, a grid featuring birds on square, triangular or circular pedestals, for a section where the jury is the audience and the films competing for the award already have the backing of critical acclaim and/or accolades at other festivals.
NEST. FILM STUDENTS
The pure enthusiasm of childhood, added to their imagination and talent free from obstacles of the mind, represents the Festival’s competitive short film section, signed by students from film schools all over the world, this year renamed ‘Nest’, a word suggesting a phonetical play on the word ‘next’.
CULINARY ZINEMA
In the forefront, two Japanese chefs slice ingredients; in the background, a camera. These are the two angles of Culinary Zinema, a section presenting fiction and non-fiction films looking at gastronomy and food from fields including education, science, agriculture or the restaurant world in general, accompanied by themed dinners.
RETROSPECTIVE
The image of the British director and screenwriter Muriel Box and the characteristic closing of one eye to obtain a clearer view when looking through the camera preside over the poster for the retrospective, which plays with illustration in the part of the cinematographic equipment.
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65th San Sebastian Film Festival Awards – James Franco’s THE DISASTER ARTIST Wins Golden Shell for Best Film
[caption id="attachment_20971" align="aligncenter" width="1200"]
The Disaster Artist[/caption]
James Franco’s The Disaster Artist is the winner of the top award – Golden Shell for Best Film at the 65th San Sebastian Film Festival. The film also won the Zinemaldia FEROZ Award.
The Disaster Artist is the true story of the making of the film The Room, which has been called “the Citizen Kane of bad movies”. Tommy Wiseau’s cult classic has been screening to sold-out audiences nationwide for more than a decade. The Disaster Artist is a buddy comedy about two outsiders chasing a dream. When the world rejects them, they decide to make their own movie – and it’s a movie so wonderfully awful due to its unintentional hilarious moments, meandering plots and terrible acting.
OFFICIAL AWARDS – FIAPF
Golden Shell for Best Film THE DISASTER ARTIST JAMES FRANCO (USA) Special Jury Prize HANDIA AITOR ARREGI, JON GARAÑO (SPAIN) Silver Shell for Best Director ANAHÍ BERNERI ALANIS ANAHÍ BERNERI (ARGENTINA) Silver Shell for Best Actress SOFÍA GALA CASTIGLIONE ALANIS ANAHÍ BERNERI (ARGENTINA) SPECIAL MENTION ANNE GRUWEZ NI JUGE, NI SOUMISE / SO HELP ME GOD JEAN LIBON, YVES HINANT (FRANCE – BELGIUM) Silver Shell for Best Actor BOGDAN DUMITRACHE POROROCA CONSTANTIN POPESCU (ROMANIA – FRANCE) Jury Prize for Best Screenplay DIEGO LERMAN, MARÍA MEIRA UNA ESPECIE DE FAMILIA (A SORT OF FAMILY) DIEGO LERMAN (ARGENTINA – BRAZIL – POLAND – FRANCE) Jury Prize for Best Cinematography FLORIAN BALLHAUS DER HAUPTMANN / THE CAPTAIN ROBERT SCHWENTKE (GERMANY – FRANCE – POLAND)OTHER OFFICIAL AWARDS
Kutxabank-New Directors Award LE SEMEUR / THE SOWER MARINE FRANCEN (FRANCE) SPECIAL MENTION MATAR A JESÚS (KILLING JESUS ) LAURA MORA (COLOMBIA – ARGENTINA) Horizontes Award LOS PERROS MARCELA SAID (CHILE – FRANCE) Zabaltegi-Tabakalera Award BRAGUINO CLÉMENT COGITORE (FRANCE) SPECIAL MENTION DARYA ZHOVNER (Actress) TESNOTA / CLOSENESS KANTEMIR BALAGOV (RUSSIA) SPECIAL MENTION SPELL REEL FILIPA CÉSAR (FRANCE) City of Donostia / San Sebastian Audience Award THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING, MISSOURI MARTIN MCDONAGH (UK) AWARD TO THE EUROPEAN FILM JUSQU’À LA GARDE / CUSTODY XAVIER LEGRAND (FRANCE) Irizar Basque Film Award HANDIA AITOR ARREGI, JON GARAÑO (SPAIN) EROSKI Youth Award MATAR A JESÚS (KILLING JESUS ) LAURA MORA (COLOMBIA – ARGENTINA)Films in Progress Awards
FILMS IN PROGRESS 32 INDUSTRY AWARD FERRUGEM (RUST) ALY MURITIBA (BRAZIL) Ad Hoc Studios, Deluxe-Spain, Dolby Iberia, Laserfilm Cine y Video, Nephilim producciones, No Problem Sonido and Wanda Visión FILM FACTORY AWARD FERRUGEM (RUST) ALY MURITIBA (BRAZIL) CAACI/IBERMEDIA TV FILMS IN PROGRESS AWARD FERRUGEM (RUST) ALY MURITIBA (BRAZIL)Glocal in Progress Award
GLOCAL IN PROGRESS INDUSTRY AWARD DANTZA TELMO ESNAL (SPAIN) Ad Hoc Studios, BTeam Pictures, Deluxe-Spain, Dolby Iberia, Laserfilm Cine y Video, Nephilim producciones and No Problem Sonido GLOCAL IN PROGRESS AWARD DANTZA TELMO ESNAL (SPAIN)Europe-Latin America Co-production Forum
VI EUROPE-LATIN AMERICA CO-PRODUCTION FORUM BEST PROJECT AWARD PLANTA PERMANENTE (PERMANENT STAFF) EZEQUIEL RADUSKY (ARGENTINA) EFADs-CAACI EUROPE-LATIN AMERICA CO-PRODUCTION GRANT EL AGENTE TOPO (THE MOLE AGENT) MAITE ALBERDI SOTO (CHILE – FRANCE – USA) EURIMAGES DEVELOPMENT CO-PRODUCTION AWARD LAS CONSECUENCIAS (THE CONSEQUENCES) CLAUDIA PINTO EMPERADOR (SPAIN – MEXICO) ARTE INTERNATIONAL PRIZE AKELARRE (WITCHES’ SABBATH) PABLO AGÜERO (SPAIN – FRANCE)Ikusmira Berriak Award
REC GRABAKETA ESTUDIOA POST-PRODUCTION AWARD LAS LETRAS DE JORDI (JORDI’S LETTERS) MAIDER FERNÁNDEZ IRIARTE (SPAIN)International Film Students Meeting Awards
212 Short film BOAZ FRANKEL (ISRAEL) The Sam Spiegel Film and TV School- Jerusalem (JSFS) (Israel) Panavision Award. Special nominal mention ZEIT DER UNRUHE / NEWS 23/06/2016 Short film ELSA ROSENGREN (GERMANY) Deutsche Film- und Fernsehakademie Berlin (DFFB) (Germany) Orona Award ZEIT DER UNRUHE / NEWS 23/06/2016 Short film ELSA ROSENGREN (GERMANY) Deutsche Film- und Fernsehakademie Berlin (DFFB) (Germany)OTHER AWARDS
TVE-Another Look Award JUSQU’À LA GARDE / CUSTODY XAVIER LEGRAND (FRANCE) Spanish Cooperation Award ALANIS ANAHÍ BERNERI (ARGENTINA)HONORIFIC AWARDS
Donostia Award AGNÈS VARDA RICARDO DARÍN MONICA BELLUCCI Jaeger-LeCoultre Latin Cinema Award PAZ VEGA Zinemira Award JULIA JUANIZ PARALLEL AWARDS FIPRESCI Award LIFE AND NOTHING MORE ANTONIO MÉNDEZ ESPARZA (SPAIN – USA) Fedeora Award CHARMØREN / THE CHARMER MILAD ALAMI (DENMARK) MATAR A JESÚS (KILLING JESUS ) LAURA MORA (COLOMBIA – ARGENTINA) SPECIAL MENTION PAILALIM / UNDERGROUND DANIEL PALACIO (FILIPINAS) Zinemaldia FEROZ Award THE DISASTER ARTIST JAMES FRANCO (USA) Award to the Basque Best Screenplay XIMUN FUCHS NON / NO EÑAUT CASTAGNET, XIMUN FUCHS Greenpeace – Lurra Award AN INCONVENIENT SEQUEL: TRUTH TO POWER JON SHENK , BONNI COHEN (USA) SIGNIS Award LIFE AND NOTHING MORE ANTONIO MÉNDEZ ESPARZA (SPAIN – USA) SPECIAL MENTION NI JUGE, NI SOUMISE / SO HELP ME GOD JEAN LIBON, YVES HINANT (FRANCE – BELGIUM) SPECIAL AWARD 60 YEARS OF SIGNIS JURY IN SAN SEBASTIAN MATAR A JESÚS (KILLING JESUS ) LAURA MORA (COLOMBIA – ARGENTINA) Guipuzcoan Blood-Donors’ Association Corresponding to the Solidarity Award AU REVOIR LÀ-HAUT / SEE YOU UP THERE ALBERT DUPONTEL (FRANCE) Sebastiane Award 120 BATTEMENTS PAR MINUTE (120 BPM) / 120 BEATS PER MINUTE ROBIN CAMPILLO (FRANCE) SPECIAL MENTION SOLDAŢII. POVESTE DIN FERENTARI / SOLDIERS. STORY FROM FERENTARI IVANA MLADENOVIC (ROMANIA – SERBIA – BELGIUM)
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8 Films Competing for ‘Cooperación Española Award’ at San Sebastian Film Festival
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ALANIS[/caption]
Eight films at the 2017 San Sebastian Film Festival will compete for the Cooperación Española Award, an award created to acknowledge the producer of the Ibero-American film that best contributes to human development, the eradication of poverty and the full exercise of human rights. The Award comes with a prize of 10,000 euros.
Films competing for the Cooperación Española Award
OFFICIAL SELECTION
ALANIS ANAHÍ BERNERI (ARGENTINA) Alanis works as a prostitute. She has a baby and, with her friend Gisela, shares the flat in which she lives and attends to her clients, until two municipal inspectors close down her home and arrest Gisela, accused of procurement. Let down by everybody, Alanis heads for her aunt’s place, across from the Plaza Miserere. From this mixed race and violent neighbourhood, Alanis struggles to recover her dignity, help her friend and take care of her son. She offers her services in the street, but even that has its own rules and Alanis must fight for her place. UNA ESPECIE DE FAMILIA (A SORT OF FAMILY) DIEGO LERMAN (ARGENTINA – BRAZIL – POLAND – FRANCE) Malena is a middle-class doctor in Buenos Aires. One afternoon she receives a call from Dr Costas, telling her she must leave immediately for the north of the country: the baby she was expecting is about to be born. Suddenly and almost without a thought, Malena decides to set out on an uncertain voyage, packed with crossroads at which she has to deal with all sorts of legal and moral obstacles to the extent that she constantly asks herself to what limits she is prepared to go to get the thing she wants most.NEW DIRECTORS
MATAR A JESÚS (KILLING JESUS ) LAURA MORA (COLOMBIA – ARGENTINA) Paula, a 22 year-old student, witnesses the murder of her beloved father, a popular political sciences professor at a public university in Medellin. From the distance, she catches a glimpse of the murderer as he beats a hasty retreat on a motorcycle. Devastated by the pain of their loss, Paula and her family will have to deal with official lethargy. The authorities will make no effort to clarify the events and the case is soon archived and abandoned. When Christmas comes round, a couple of months after the murder, Paula accidentally bumps into Jesús, the young man who killed her father. So what happens when revenge becomes a real possibility? Paula decides to approach the man, initially motivated by an almost primitive instinct to get answers and eventually to find the courage to cross the moral and ethical line of killing a man, thereby avenging her father’s death. PRINCESITA (PRINCESS) MARIALY RIVAS (CHILE – SPAIN – ARGENTINA) Films in Progress 28 In a far-off country at the end of the world Tamara, aged 12, lives under the wing of charismatic cult leader Miguel, a man she adores. That summer the girl will be given a mission: to have a holy child with him immediately she has her first period. Tamara realises that the life she wants for herself is not the same as the fate imposed on her. Her disobedience will lead to her violent development from child to woman, forcing her to gain her freedom in a way she had never imagined.HORIZONTES LATINOS
UNA MUJER FANTÁSTICA (A FANTASTIC WOMAN) SEBASTIÁN LELIO (CHILE- GERMANY – SPAIN – USA) OPENING FILM (IN COMPETITION) Marina is a young waitress and wannabe singer; Orlando owns a printing company. Together they plan their future. When Orlando dies suddenly, Marina has to stand up to his family and society to show them what she truly is: a complex, strong, forthright and… fantastic woman. LA EDUCACIÓN DEL REY (REY’S EDUCATION) SANTIAGO ESTEVES (ARGENTINA – SPAIN) Films in Progress 30 Bolting from his first ever heist, Reynaldo Galíndez, alias ‘Rey’, lands in the patio of the house inhabited by Carlos Vargas, a retired security guard. Vargas offers a deal: the young boy will repair the damage to his home in return for not being handed over to the police. The lessons given to the teenager by the former guard develop into a relationship not unlike the old legends of educating a king (for the “Rey” of his name, meaning “king”). But the agreement will start to fall apart when the loose ends of the robbery Reynaldo had been involved in start closing in around them. Films in Progress Industry Award and CAACI / Ibermedia TV Films in Progress Award in 2016. LA FAMILIA GUSTAVO RONDÓN CÓRDOVA (VENEZUELA – CHILE – NORWAY) Films in Progress 30 Twelve year-old Pedro roams the streets with his friends in the violent urban atmosphere of a working-class district of Caracas. When Pedro seriously injures another boy in a fight, his single father, Andrés, decides that they must make a run for it and hide. Although Andrés will realise that as a father he is incapable of controlling his son, the situation will bring them closer than they have ever been. LOS PERROS MARCELA SAID (CHILE – FRANCE) Films in Progress 31 Mariana (42) belongs to the Chilean upper class; she spends her days managing an art gallery and learning how to ride a horse. Her riding instructor, Juan, 20 years her senior, is an ex-cavalry officer known as El Coronel, under investigation for human rights abuses committed during the Chilean dictatorship. When Mariana embarks on a romance with her mysterious teacher, she finds herself caught up in a complex situation from which she is loathe to escape on discovering her father’s close relationship with the man being investigated.
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THE OTHER SIDE OF HOPE Wins FIPRESCI Grand Prix 2017 for Best Film of the Year
The Other Side of Hope (Toivon tuolla puolen) directed by Aki Kaurismäki has been named best film of 2017 by the members of the International Federation of Film Critics, FIPRESCI.
The other two finalists are Barry Jenkins’ Oscar®-winning Moonlight and Ildikó Enyedi’s winner of the Golden Bear in Berlin, Teströl és lélekröl / On Body and Soul.
Aki Kaurismäki will receive the FIPRESCI Grand Prix at the Opening Gala of the San Sebastian International Film Festival.
The Other Side of Hope is set in Helsinki, where Khaled, a young Syrian immigrant, arrives as a stowaway on a coal ship from Poland. Meanwhile, a nondescript salesman going by the name of Wikström decides to end his marriage, change his occupation and open a restaurant with only a very few customers. When their paths cross, Wikström offers Khaled a roof, food and a job. But the boy dreams of finding his sister, who also fled Syria.
Director Aki Kaurismäki (Orimattila, Finland, 1957) is considered to be one of the most important European directors of today’s cinema. Key titles in his filmography, such as Ariel (1988), Tulitikkutehtaan tyttö / The Match Factory Girl (1990), Kauas pilvet karkaavat / Drifting Clouds (1996), Mies vailla menneisyyttä / The Man Without a Past (2002, Grand Prix at Cannes), and Le Havre (2011, FIPRESCI Prize at Cannes) are now modern classics. Kaurismäki won the Silver Bear for Best Director at the last Berlin Festival with Toivon tuolla puolen / The Other Side of Hope.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qtiFG6utst8
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Spanish Actress Paz Vega to be Honored with Award at San Sebastian Film Festival
The second Jaeger-LeCoultre Prize to Latin Cinema, which honors an outstanding figure in Latin cinema at the San Sebastian Film Festival will be awarded to the Spanish actress Paz Vega. The award, in its inaugural edition, went to the actor, director and producer Gael García Bernal.
Acclaimed major international actress Paz Vega has starred in dozens of films in Europe, the USA and Latin America. After her debut role as Laura for six seasons of Siete vidas (Seven Lives, Telecinco), one of Spain’s longest running sitcoms, the Seville-born actress made her leap to the silver screen, attracting the attention of European audiences in 2001 on winning the Goya for Best New Actress and the prestigious Chopard Trophy for Female Revelation of the Year at the Cannes International Film Festival for her role as Lucía in Julio Medem’s Lucía y el sexo (Sex and Lucia). Also in 2001, Paz starred in Sólo mia (Only Mine) by Javier Balaguer and was nominated for yet another Goya, this time for Best Actress, marking a milestone in the history of the respected Spanish awards for being the first time an actress had been nominated twice for different roles at one edition.
In 2002, Paz appeared in Hable con ella (Talk to Her) by Pedro Almodóvar. The film received the Academy Award for the Best Original Screenplay and the Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language Film, among others. In 2013, she repeated her collaboration with the celebrated Spanish director in Los amantes pasajeros (I’m So Excited). In 2003, she brought life to Vicente Aranda’s Carmen, based on the homonymous novel by Prosper Mérimée. Since Carmen, Paz has played several emblematic characters in European History, ranging from Saint Teresa of Avila in Teresa by Ray Loriga (2007) to Maria Callas in Olivier Dahan’s Grace, opening film of the 2014 Cannes Film Festival, and Mary of Hungary in Emperor (2017), opposite Adrien Brody.
After starring in the romantic comedy produced by Columbia Pictures, Di que sí (Say I Do, 2004), she caught the attention of James L. Brooks, who invited her to co-star in Spanglish opposite Adam Sandler as Flor, a role for which she won the Best New Actress Award from the Phoenix Film Critics Society. Since Spanglish, Paz Vega has been directed by acclaimed filmmakers such as Frank Miller, Danis Tanovic, Oliver Parker, Michelle Placido, and the Taviani brothers, having shared the bill with actors including Scarlett Johansson, Sarah Jessica Parker, Andie McDowell, Eva Mendes, Colin Farrell, Nicole Kidman, Tim Roth, Christopher Lee and Morgan Freeman, to name but a few. She also starred in Jada Pinkett Smith’s directorial debut, The Human Contract (2008), produced by Will Smith.
Paz Vega has performed in English, Spanish, French, Portuguese and Italian. She recently appeared in the romantic comedies All Roads Lead to Rome, opposite Sarah Jessica Parker and Claudia Cardinale, Big Time in Hollywood FL, alongside Cuba Gooding Jr. and Michael Madsen, produced by Ben Affleck, and Beautiful and Twisted opposite Candice Bergen and Rob Lowe, the last two for American TV. In 2016, Paz starred in the new comedy by the Mexican director Manolo Caro, La vida inmoral de la pareja ideal (The Immoral Life of the Ideal Couple), and was the Spanish voice of the campaign for the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympic Games, alongside Uma Thurman and Juliette Binoche, who respectively provided the English and French voices. She also played the lead part in the 8-episode series for Spain’s hugely popular Telecinco channel, Perdóname (Forgive me).
Paz Vega has come back to Spain after fourteen years based in the United States. In spite of living in Los Angeles, Paz Vega has remained faithful to her Spanish and European roots. The region of Andalusia and the cities of Seville and Malaga have repeatedly recognized her tireless work to represent her native region and city all over the world. Paz Vega has received the Medal of Andalusia, the City of Seville Medal, the Province of Seville Gold Medal and, more recently, the Malaga Sur Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2016 edition of the Malaga Film Festival. She has also served as Jury Member at multiple international festivals, including the prestigious Orizzonti section at the Venice International Film Festival (2015).
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THE BAR, SUMMER 1993 Among Films in Made in Spain Showcase at San Sebastian International Film Festival
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THE BAR (EL BAR)[/caption]
Made in Spain, a showcase of Spanish films at the 2017 San Sebastian International Film Festival will feature eleven films, including the latest works from acclaimed directors such as Álex de la Iglesia, Agustí Villaronga and Paco Plaza.
Among the debuts are Pieles, by Eduardo Casanova, which had its premiere in the Panorama section of the Berlin Film Festival; Estiu 1993 / Summer 1993, by Carla Simón, winner of Best First Film at the Berlinale and Gold Biznaga at the Malaga Festival, the first awards in a long list of accolades; Júlia ist, Silver Biznaga for Best Film and Best Directing at the Malaga Festival, the first film by Elena Martín, star of Las amigas de Ágata; No sé decir adios (Can’t Say Goodbye), by Lino Escalera, winner of four awards at the Malaga Festival, including Special Jury Prize; and La mano invisible (The Invisible Hand), first feature film by David Macián. The film, inspired in the novel of the same name by Isaac Rosa, premiered in Seville and was selected for the San Sebastian Human Rights Festival, among others.
Gabriel Velázquez participated in Zabaltegi in 2007 with Amateurs, with a screenplay penned by Blanca Torres. The two now present Análisis de sangre azul (Analysis of Blue Blood), selected for the Seville, Nantes, Barcelona and Toulouse festivals.
Demonios tus ojos (Sister of Mine), premiered at the Rotterdam Festival, is the third work from Pedro Aguilera. Both his debut, La influencia (The Influence), premiered at the Directors’ Fortnight in Cannes, and his second film, Naufragio (Wreckage), screened at San Sebastian.
Víctor García León, who competed in the Official Selection with Vete de mí (Silver Shell for Best Actor), will present Selfie, recipient of a Special Jury Mention and the Critics’ Award at Malaga.
Incerta glòria / Uncertain Glory is the latest film by Agustí Villaronga, who made his debut in San Sebastian with Tras el cristal (In a Glass Cage, Zabaltegi-New Directors, 1986) and has harvested two Best Actress Silver Shells at the Festival (with Pa negre /Black Bread and El rey de la Havana / The King of Havana).
El bar (The Bar), which premiered in Berlin, is the latest proposal from the filmmaker Álex de la Iglesia, who has participated in San Sebastian Festival’s Official Selection with several of his films, such as La comunidad (Common Wealth, Silver Shell for Carmen Maura), Las brujas de Zugarramurdi (Witching & Bitching) and Mi gran noche (My Big Night).
Paco Plaza, co-creator of the film REC with Jaume Balagueró, will present his latest genre movie, Verónica.
Made in Spain
ANÁLISIS DE SANGRE AZUL (ANALYSIS OF BLUE BLOOD) BLANCA TORRES, GABRIEL VELÁZQUEZ (SPAIN) Cast: Anders Lindstrom Análisis de sangre azul narrates the adventures of a British aristocrat who suffered a fall in the Pyrenees only to come round in a mental asylum early last century. The doctor in psychiatry Pedro Martínez records with his 16mm camera the progress of this man suffering from disorientation and memory loss. However, the doctor’s hidden intentions will drive him to take advantage of this “rare specimen’s” arrival to test his theories of evolution. DEMONIOS TUS OJOS (SISTER OF MINE) PEDRO AGUILERA (SPAIN – COLOMBIA) Cast: Julio Perillán, Ivana Baquero, Lucía Guerrero, Nicolás Coronado, Elisabet Gelabert, Juan Pablo Shuk One night, Oliver, a young film director living in Los Angeles, discovers on an erotic website that one of the stars of the explicit videos is his younger sister, Aurora. Surprised and bewildered, he decides to go to Madrid; it’s been years since he saw his family. Thus begins an obsessive search for answers, an intimate journey towards confusion and the truth of the image, a tale of domination and manipulation, of moral limits and the loss of vital and audiovisual innocence. EL BAR (THE BAR) ÁLEX DE LA IGLESIA (SPAIN – ARGENTINA) Cast: Blanca Suárez, Mario Casas, Carmen Machi, Secun de la Rosa, Jaime Ordóñez, Terele Pávez, Joaquín Climent, Alejandro Awada Nine in the morning. A motley crew are having breakfast in a bar in the centre of Madrid. One of them is in a hurry; on his way out the door he’s shot in the head. No-one dares to help him. They’re trapped. ESTIU 1993 / SUMMER 1993 CARLA SIMÓN (SPAIN) Cast: Laia Artigas, Paula Robles, Bruna Cusí, David Verdaguer In summer 1993 and following the death of her parents, 6 year-old Frida is taken from Barcelona to the Catalonian countryside. She lives with her aunt and uncle, her new legal guardians. Life in the country is a challenge for her – time passes differently in her new home and the surrounding nature is mysterious and distant. Now she has a younger sister to look after. She also has to deal with new feelings, like jealousy. The family works hard to achieve a fragile balance and bring normality to their lives. Occasionally they listen to jazz in the garden, go on family outings to a fiesta or to the swimming pool. These are happy times. Slowly, Frida starts realising she’s there to stay and must adapt to her new environment. Before summer ends, Frida will have to face up to herself. INCERTA GLÒRIA / UNCERTAIN GLORY AGUSTÍ VILLARONGA (SPAIN) Cast: Oriol Pla, Terele Pávez, Luisa Gavasa, Juan Diego, Marcel Borras, Núria Prims, Bruna Cusi The Aragon Front, 1937. Lluís, a young Republican officer sent to a temporarily inactive post, meets and falls for Carlana, an enigmatic widow. The girl convinces him to forge a document giving her the title of Lady of the region. Lluís’s best friend, Solèras, a demoted officer, discovers the fraud and, in exchange for keeping quiet about it, demands that he moves away from the Barcelona bombardments Trini, Lluís’s wife, with whom he is secretly in love, and her son. When Trini comes to the village, it won’t be long before she discovers Lluís’s betrayals as a ‘state of war’ settles in between the two, shaking all of their moral foundations. JÚLIA IST ELENA MARTÍN GIMENO (SPAIN) Cast: Elena Martín, Oriol Puig, Jakob D’Aprile, Laura Weissmahr, Carla Linares Júlia decides to go on Erasmus to Berlin. She will leave home for the first time, giving it little thought, launching herself into adventure. The city, cold and grey, will give her a frostier welcome than expected and she will face her expectations with reality: her existence will seem far removed from the new life she had dreamt of in the lecture rooms of Barcelona School of Architecture. LA MANO INVISIBLE (THE INVISIBLE HAND) DAVID MACIÁN (SPAIN) Cast: Josean Bengoetxea, Bárbara Santa-Cruz, Marta Larralde, Luis Callejo, José Luis Torrijo, Marina Salas, Daniel Pérez Prada, Edu Ferrés, Esther Ortega, Elisabet Gelabert, Bruto Pomeroy In an industrial building, eleven people are hired to go about their work in front of an audience: a bricklayer, a butcher, a seamstress, a telephone operator, a waiter, a message boy, a mechanic, a computer specialist and a cleaner. Artwork, reality show, macabre experiment: they don’t know what’s in store for them, or who is behind the hand that moves the strings of this perverse little puppet theatre. NO SÉ DECIR ADIÓS (CAN´T SAY GOODBYE) LINO ESCALERA (SPAIN) Cast: Nathalie Poza, Juan Diego, Lola Dueñas Carla gets a call from her sister: her father, with whom she fell out some time ago, is ill. That same day, Carla takes a flight to Almeria, to the home of her childhood. There, the doctors say that her father has only months to live. She refuses to accept the diagnosis and, against everyone’s opinion, decides to take him to Barcelona for treatment. The two embark on a journey to escape from a reality that neither dares to confront. And it will be in this flight that they will finally find one another and have the opportunity to say their goodbyes. PIELES (SKINS) EDUARDO CASANOVA (SPAIN) Cast: Macarena Gómez, Jon Kortajarena, Candela Peña, Carmen Machi, Ana Polvorosa, Secun de la Rosa, Joaquín Climent Physical appearance conditions us in regard to society, whether or not it is our choice. Pieles is the tale of physically diverse people whose differences have forced them to hide, shut themselves away or group together. Samantha, a woman with an inverted digestive system, Laura, a girl with no eyes, or Ana, a woman with a deformed face. Lonely people who struggle to find their place in a society that only understands one kind of physical appearance, and which excludes and mistreats those who don’t fit in. SELFIE VÍCTOR GARCÍA LEÓN (SPAIN) Cast: Santiago Alverú, Macarena Sanz, Javier Carramiñana, Pepe Ocio, Alicia Rubio, Clara Alvarado A government minister has just been arrested by the police, accused of corruption, embezzlement of public funds, money laundering and another eighteen money-related crimes. This is the tale of his son. The adventures of Bosco from the moment he is thrown out of his luxurious chalet in Moraleja until he approaches the Podemos HQ to ask for a job; his sentimental torment after his girlfriend of perfect teeth and lazy lip leaves him, until he is accepted by a blind social worker, educator in a school for the disabled; his miseries from the moment he is expelled from his exclusive Master in Directing until his fearful wanderings around the streets of the Lavapiés district. If this was a romantic comedy, Bosco would learn a lesson; life would teach him something… and finally there would be a ray of light, the hope of change. He would find the love of his life. Or perhaps renew his faith in humans. Or simply a new path… or some kind of love for animals. Something. Unfortunately, this is not a romantic comedy. VERÓNICA PACO PLAZA (SPAIN) Cast: Sandra Escacena, Bruna González, Claudia Placer, Iván Chavero, Consuelo Trujillo, Ana Torrent Madrid, the 90s. In the middle of the night, the police receive a call. Amid screams of terror, they hear children shouting out about the presence of strange phenomena in their flat, deep in a working-class district. Two days earlier, Verónica, their older sister, had used the Ouija board at school. Without realising it, she has just opened the door to something supernatural, inexplicable, which will move into her house over the next hours, becoming increasingly more incontrollable and, above all, very, very dangerous.
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Michael Winterbottom’s THE TRIP TO SPAIN to Close San Sebastian Film Festival Culinary Zinema Program
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THE TRIP TO SPAIN[/caption]
Culinary Zinema, the San Sebastian Film Festival section combining food and film will feature seven films, and close with The Trip to Spain directed by Michael Winterbottom.
The opening film, Michelin Stars – Tales from the Kitchen, looks at the highs and lows of the Michelin Guide in this golden age of gastronomy. It is directed by Rasmus Dinesen, author of the films Det forbudte landshold (The Forbidden Team), about the first Tibetan national football team; Verdens bedste kok (World’s Finest Chef), about the victory of Danish chef Rasmus Kofoed at the Bocuse d’Or championship; and the documentary TV series Star Chefs about Michelin-starred restaurants.
Laura Collado collaborated with Justin Webster (Muerte en León and El fin de ETA / The Demise of ETA, Zinemira 2016) on the Al Jazeera series People & Power. Jim Loomis has worked as a cinematographer and editor for productions by BBC, ARTE and CNN. Together they helm the feature film Constructing Albert, about the “most underrated chef in the world”, Albert Adrià, brother of the man who created El Bulli.
In her first feature film, E il cibo va / Food on the Go, Mercedes Córdova, director of the prize-winning short Acá nunca está nublado, looks at the tradition of Italian food in the diaspora a hundred years after millions of Italians immigrated to Argentina.
Another first work is The Cakemaker, by Ofir Raul Graizer, whose short film La discotheque screened in the Directors’ Fortnight at Cannes in 2015. The film, a co-production between Germany and Israel which competed at Karlovy Vary, tells the tale of a young German pastry chef who heads for Jerusalem in search of answers when his lover dies.
Koki Shigeno, a veteran director of TV documentaries, has now made his first feature-length film, Ramen Heads, selected for Hot Docs (Canadian International Documentary Film Festival). The film follows Osamu Tomita, today’s king of the ramen in Japan, on a 15-month tour of the lives of the masters of this dish and its legions of followers.
Masakazu Fukatsu debuts in feature films with Papa no obento wa sekaiichi / Dad’s Lunch Box, the true story of a father and his daughter -which went viral on social media- brought together by the bento box in which people carry their packed lunches in Japan.
Michael Winterbottom, to whom the Festival dedicated a retrospective in 2003, formerly competed in the Official Selection with Nine Songs (2004), winner of the Best Cinematography Award, Tristam Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story (2005) and Genova (2008), recognized with the Silver Shell for Best Director. The Trip to Spain, selected for Tribeca, is his first incursion to Culinary Zinema. After The Trip and The Trip to Italy, Winterbottom renews his collaboration with actors Steve Coogan (Philomena) and Rob Brydon (Would I Lie to You?) to analyze six meals in six places on a road trip through Spain, from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean coast.
To complete the experience, the screenings will be followed by meals linked to the content of the films.
2017 San Sebastian Film Festival – Culinary Zinema – Films
MICHELIN STARS – TALES FROM THE KITCHEN RASMUS DINESEN (DENMARK) OPENING NIGHT FILM At a moment in time when humanity is obsessed with food –photographing every dish, worshipping cooks and flaunting trophy meals on social media–, this documentary goes under the surface and offers an in-depth, honest and relevant view into the world and day-to-day of Michelin chefs and restaurants. Telling tales from a grand menu of culinary temples as well as digging into the greatness and flaws of the Michelin Guide in this golden age of gastronomy. THE CAKEMAKER OFIR RAUL GRAIZER (GERMANY – ISRAEL) Cast: Tim Kalkhof, Sarah Adler, Zohar Strauss, Sandra Sade, Roy Miller Thomas, a young German pastry maker, is having an affair with Oren, a married Israeli man who makes frequent business trips to Berlin. When Oren dies in a car accident in Israel, Thomas heads for Jerusalem in search of answers to his death. Using a false name, Thomas worms himself into the life of Anat, his lover’s recently widowed wife, to the point of becoming assistant chef in her bar. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQ7144Mc2lw RAMEN HEADS KOKI SHIGENO (JAPAN) Osamu Tomita, Japan’s reigning king of ramen, takes us deep into his world, revealing every single step of his obsessive approach to creating the perfect soup and noodles, and his relentless search for the highest-quality ingredients. This is a documentary record of 15 months in the lives of Japan’s top ramen masters and their legions of devoted fans. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3E9MGOK4LY E IL CIBO VA / FOOD ON THE GO MERCEDES CÓRDOVA (ARGENTINA – ITALY – USA) Gastronomic culture is the result of man’s travels in search of new things to eat. For proof, we only have to look at how Italian food journeyed to America with the mass migrations. Almost a hundred years later, retracing the steps of food and its voyage to New York and Buenos Aires, we now find the foundation of a new tradition of Italian food in exile. What relationship does it bear to its country of origin? Can we talk about Italian food outside of Italy? PAPA NO OBENTO WA SEKAIICHI / DAD’S LUNCH BOX MASAKAZU FUKATSU (JAPAN) Cast: Toshimi Watanabe, Reina Takeda This is a heart-warming true story of the father and daughter connected by bento, the Japanese packed lunch in a box. Throughout her three years at high school, the young girl would eat the bento made for her every day by her father. On her last day she found that her lunchbox contained a picture of the very first bento that her father had made for her with a handwritten message from him. The girl tweeted the occurrence, making 350,000 people cry on Twitter. The message was retweeted more than 80,000 times and got 260,000 ‘likes’. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ftIP00C0Uu0 CONSTRUCTING ALBERT LAURA COLLADO, JIM LOOMIS (SPAIN – ESTONIA) At the dawn of the 21st century, El Bulli restaurant revolutionized the world of gastronomy, making chef Ferran Adrià the king of haute cuisine. Behind such a success, was an unrecognized creative genius: Ferran’s younger brother, Albert. In 2013, Albert Adrià was considered the world’s most underrated chef. Enigma, the crown of his gastronomic empire opens with a clear goal: to become one of the best restaurants in the world. This is Albert’s attempt to escape the shadow of legendary El Bulli and enter the Pantheon of great chefs. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdFwpOAR-o4 THE TRIP TO SPAIN MICHAEL WINTERBOTTOM (UK) Cast: Steve Coogan, Rob Brydon CLOSING NIGHT FILM Michael Winterbottom is on the road for the third time with Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon, after their success with The Trip and The Trip to Italy. Six meals in six different places on a road trip through Spain from the North Atlantic to the Mediterranean coast – visiting Cantabria, the Basque Country, Aragon, Rioja, Castile La Mancha and ending in Andalucia. Steve, now turned 50, is still chasing love – he wants to get back together with his ex-girlfriend Mischa, but she is with another man. Rob’s acting career is going from strength to strength, his family life is fulfilling – he has had another child since Steve last saw him. Steve has just starred as a chef in a US TV series and is asked to do a set of restaurant reviews in Spain to publicise the show. As usual Rob will write the newspaper articles, this time using Don Quixote as inspiration. Meanwhile Steve is hoping to write a more ambitious book based on this trip and his earlier experiences in Spain. He imagines himself in the tradition of writers such as Orwell, Hemingway, and Laurie Lee. After all, Steve is now an Oscar nominated writer… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fTvy8ab1NSo