San Sebastian Film Festival ::

Vojtech Jasný

Federal Republic of Germany

113 min.

Germany 1960. Hans Schnier, 30, profession: clown. He recognises in the post-war period the lying (smug) and tricking aspect of the Nazi period in the social morals he denies. He prefers to be a clown before a hypocrit. Mary, his wife, abandons him because Hans has decided that the child she is expecting will not receive a Catholic education. His life is full of bitterness. The happy clown croned with success degrades himself to the point of begging. He is sitting on the stairs of the station. He sees Mary, who has re-married, returning from her honeymoon. He sings accompanied by his guitar as he waits for the first alms to fall into his hat. Germany 19...?

Ansikte mot ansikte / Face to face

Ingmar Bergman

Sweden

135 min.

Doctor Jenny is a psychiatric doctor in a clinic, she has a husband who is away for three months, a lover to take his place, and a daugther who studies in the University. As she finds herself alone at home she returns to the flat she has as a single woman; the first night she cannot sleep as she is harassed by all the ghosts of ther past. At the hospital again the doctor is determined to save the life of a woman whose insanity has been unable to be cured until now. One day she receives a call that her patient has scaped, and finally they find the woman stretched out on the floor of Jenny's home. When Jenny arrives home two men attack her and one of them tries to rape her; this produces an enormous trauma and she begins to take drugs to calm herself down. In spite ot the friendship of Doctor Jacobi, who is trying to calm her, Jenny is steadily going mad; she takes a bottle of sleeping-pills and waits for death; she is present at her own funeral and speaks about her past life in a long monologue with Doctor Jacobi who is at the side of the coffin.

Not in competition

Atentat u Sarajevu

Veljko Bulajic

Yugoslavia

120 min.

The vital beliefs and political ideas of the "Bosnia youth group" for the fight against the Austro-Hungarian Empire develop under the influence of the revolutionary and progressive ideas of the Europe of that time. Four youths decide to assassinate Franz Ferdinand. The four will die -one of them in the Sarajevo police station- a concious sacrifice through his desire ofr liberty. The next day produces the assassination of Prince Franz Ferdinand and the accidental death of his wife, Sofía. Europe rises in arms.

Caddie

Donald Crombie

Australia

107 min.

The autobiographical story of a woman who wants to keeo secret her true name. Caddie discovers that her husband is having a love affair with her best friend and reacts in an unusual way for the age she lives in (the twenties): she abandons all hoome comforts and takes away her children. From then on she will suffer the social reverses of the solitary woman, with few happy alternatives for new friendships, a passing love... until she succeeds in joining the fragments of her broken life, assume her own identity and reintegrate into society.

Cousin cousine

Jean-Charles Tacchella

France

100 min.

Because of the marriage of Biju (50 years) and Gobert (60 year-old), Ludovic (the groom's nephew) and Marthe (the bride's daugther), are made cousins and meet each other. The escape of their spouses, Karine and Pascal, who have an adventure, causes the meeting. Friendship is born between them. First they meet in the parties and family reunions. Then, away from them as their relationship is purely spiritual. Family events happen without affecting their relationship. Nevertheless, nobody believes in the innocence of it. In fact, one day it becomes physical and passionate. Their happiness bursts forth. But, after a Christmas Eve dinner, they see themselves as obliged to go away. Pascal will return to his extramarital adventures and Karine will start a rest cure.

Dedicato a una stella

Luigi Cozzi

Italy

140 min.

A love story between a forty-year old unsuccessful pianist, Richard Lasky, and a young woman overflowing with the joi de vivre: Stella Gisset. Richard lives to find work and Stella to find her father. He tries to win her over to his side by the age differente and his financial state, but ends up giving way. She discovers that the pianist is very talented and encourages him in hiss efforts. Stella finds her father in Paris, but she realises she has nothing in common with him and his family, and her only place is at Richard's side. He, after tremendous efforts, achieves his triumph. But at the same time that he reaches his glory, the incurable illness that Stella suffered from carries her away forever.

El Apando

Felipe Cazals

Mexico

90 min.

The story takes place in the prison at Lecumberri. It tells of the difficult situation of Carajo (one of the prisoners) who causes repugnance among the rest because of the wounds and sores with which he is covered from his attempts at suicide. For this repugnance he is the victim of the rest of the prisoners who often beat him causing further crisis in which he tries to take his life. One occasion, nevertheless, his mother succeeds in getting into the prison a drug which the wives of the other younger convicts cannot "pass" through the minute searches of the guards. A guard discovers the prisoners smoking marijuana and they are confined to the punishment cells. The visits of the wivef provokes a confrontation between themselves, the prisoners and the guards.

El Desencanto

Jaime Chavarri

Spain

90 min.

Leopoldo Panero, poet, died at Astorga, where he was born, in the year 1962. Fourteen years later the people more intimately tied to him, Felicidad Blanc, his widow, and his three sons, Juan Luis, Leopoldo and Michi, remember that heating August day. But the remembrance isn't limited to that date. Other happenings emerge. By means of the word and the survey through the rooms, objects, streets and lost places, appears the story of some years and some people united by family ties which never run away from the expression of their differences and identities.

Fiebre

Juan Santana, Alfredo J. Anzola, Fernando Toro

Venezuela

86 min.

Based on the novel by Miguel Otero Silva, Fever is about the student rebellion in 1928 against Juan Vicente Gómez, one of the cruelest dictators in Venezuela's history. On the failure of that movement, Vidal enlists in the guerrilla groups of the country's interior. With them he realises that the problem is not Gómez as an individual, but a whole feudal system that keeps the country in a state of misery and backwardness. On dying in a concentration camp, Vidal leaves his political testament: "I know that up to the moment we haven't done anything... But our lives have not passed uselessly, for after us, other hands will reap the harvest that our hands have sown".

Fighting Mad

Jonathan Demme

USA

90 min.

Tom Hunter is disillusioned with city life and marriage. He decides to return with his 5 year-old son Dylan, to his father's town in Arkansas. On returning, the drastic change in the zone makes a great impression on him. Crabtree Industries, a mining concern, has taken posession of nearly the whole place, destroying nature and harming the crops of many local farmers. All who oppose Crabtree, are threatened by him whose intentions are to change this community into a "progressive" industrial zone. After the "accidental" death of Tom's brother and his wife, Tom begins to avenge himself on the Industries up to the point of almost losing his life on various occasions with the Crabtree "gorillas". But he continues until he destroys the man who threatens the whole community.

Gusanos de seda

Francisco Rodríguez

Spain

88 min.

The wealthy father of a woman with mental deficiency forces her to marry a man somewhat pusillanimous. As she can not get pregnant, she persuades her maid's husband to rape the girl.

Harry and Walter Go to New York

Mark Rydell

USA

112 min.

Harry and Walter, vaudeville actors, go to jail for robing a wallet from one of the audience. There they become servants of Adam Worth, the best specialist in safe-breaking in New York. His helper gives them the plans of a new safe. Lissa Chestnut, the owner of a newspaper, decides to interview Worth and visits the jail. There she takes pity on Harry and Walter (who falls in love with her) and promises to bring about their liberty. Through a series of circunstances Worth, Harry and Walter leave jail. The "gangster" one way, and the two actors and Lissa by another, begin a race against time to try and rob the safe.

Opening Film (In competition)

L'innocente

Luchino Visconti

Italy

130 min.

The Innocent of Luchino Visconti is a free adaptation of the novel of the same name by Gabriel D'Annunzio. It is a sombre and tormented story situated in the atmosphere of the splendid villas and the beauty of the hills of Tuscany, where the drizzle and mists of autum have not yet arrived. It is the sroty of a couple, Tullio and Giuliana, who have a strange but very modern relationship, in which each one is free. But they become accomplices in crime when Giuliana has a child by another man. They decide, then, to kill the recentrly-born child. And it is Tullio himself who leaves the baby exposed to the Christmas cold. In the novel, Tullio is a neurotic man who refuses to feel guilty. In Visconti's film, on the other hand, commits suicide.

Libertad provisional

Roberto Bodegas

Spain

98 min.

An unimportant young delinquent and a prostitute try a form of living-together sharing plans of mutual liberty. The two of them realising their limitations, try to gain the established through the false door of prevailing social conventions. This longing for conventionatily carries with it the seeds of its own destruction. Their story as couple constitutes an ironic portrait of the degraded forms of marriage and family respectability. Which today gefuddles the consumer middle-class.

Na samote u lesa

Jirí Menzel

Czechoslovakia

98 min.

A comedy about a Prague family looking for a house in the country as a second home. With the help of some friends they find old Komarek's one, at the foot of a mountain. They like it and agree with the old man first to move in renting it for Sundays and holidays and later for him to sell it to them. Time passes, and the old man holds back the sale. In winter he falls ill and his illness appears to worsen. He asks for his mountain home back to die there. The tennants, having found out, go to a lawyer and rush to get the sale through before the seller dies. A surprise awaits them.

Retrato de familia

Antonio Giménez-Rico

Spain

92 min.

1936. In a city in Old Castille lives the Rubesn family: Cecilio, a businessman, his wife Adela, and his son, Cecil. After the elections there starts a chain of assaults against right-wing and socialists, and even against Cecilio who is neutral. Then Paulina arrives who was the lover of Cecilio Rubes and knows his son Cecil. He, when the war breaks out, has a morbid fear. his father tries to free him from enlistment, but in vain. He finds him a position in a service corps under the command of a cousin of Adela. Cecil dies in an accident. Cecilio, seeing himself without descendents, tries to have nother child by his wife, but without success. He goes to Paulina who says she is pregnant by Cecil. Cecilio Rubes also comes to the end of his life and the only vestige of the Rubes family is left at the womb of Paulina.

Skazany

Andrezj Trzos-Rastawiecki

Poland

93 min.

Zygmunt Bielczyk, a successful boxing trainer, feels sick. The doctors predict a short life for him. Zygmunt lives away from his brother, with whom he does not have a good relationship; but he, Riszard, finds out about Zygmunt's imminent death and he discretely begins to concern himself with him. He, to gain time, works with wnormous intensity, he obtains extraordinary sucess. In the end, the incurably sick man, who suffers attacks with growing frequency, decides to poison himself. Ryszard discovers him dying, and, through compassion, lets him die. For this he is judged.

Sola

Raúl de la Torre

Argentina

100 min.

Alejandra is separated and must face up to the world without knowing how. Neither the proposal of her mother to go and live with her, nor the advantages of the new situacion, defeat her desire to live alone, to not be dependant upon somebody. She thinks of working and looks for a job; in the search a fleeting relationship is born with a company sales manager. But, from that moment on she becomes a catalyst in the misfortunes of all the men that come into her life, touched by her position as a single woman. Deception and depression appear after every failure. She returns to her solitude, the need to love. And in this situation comes a new meeting with Gustavo, her husband.

Tabor ujodit v niebo

Emil Loteanu

USSR

95 min.

Zobar, Babulia and Talimón, three gypsies flee from the Austro-Hungarian frontier guards on stolen horses. In their flight, they separate. Zobar, wounded, goes into a wood. The beautiful gypsy, Rada, cures him and disappears. Luiku Zobar continues with his adventures and on finding Rada is invited to her camp. He robs a white mare and when he goes to give it to her he finds the camp empty. The gendarmes arrest him and the gallows await him. Finally Rada agrees to marry Zobar. But at the moment of asking the father for her hand the two die tragically. A solitary cross in the steppes marks Luiki Zobar's grave. His faithful horse paws the ground close by.

Talpuk alatt fütyül a szél

György Szomjas

Hungary

95 min.

Charged with the drama and suspense of folk ballads, it is a mixture of Hungarian folklore and cowboy films. In 1837, an army of workers are diging a canal in the centre of the great Hungarian Steppe, threatening an end to the pastures and shepherds, the region's traditional form of life. The shepherds attack the workers and in the fight a young blond man distinguishes himself. The shepherds are supported by the legendary bandit, Gyurka Farkes Csapé, whom the police-chief, Mergés, a peasant wympathiser persues with little interest. The youth sells himself to the "Diggers", and with the help pf the landlord's wife who is the bandit's lover, they hatch a plot to capture Gyurka. Gyurka settler accounts with the young traitor. But the diggers capture him. He will be judged and condemned.

Closing film out of competition

That's Entertainment, Part II

Gene Kelly

USA

129 min.

A montage of scenes that in their day formed a part of the famous films produced by Metro, in the best years of Hollywood cinema. The numbers are presented by Gene Kelly (who is also the director of the film) and Fred Astaire. Apart from the fragments of old films Kelly has filmed new sequences, with original songs and dances interpreted by Fred Astaire and himself.

The Omen

Richard Donner

United Kingdom

111 min.

The Thorp couple adopt a child when their true son dies at childbirth. When the boy is five her nanny commits suicide and a priest tells Thorp that his child is a son of Satan. At first Richard Thorp does not believe it, but the death of the priest, his wife's abortion and finally her death as the priest had foretold, make Richard begin to investigate. Now that he is also threatened with death Richard joins up with a photographer also interested in the case. They visit an exorcist who tells Richard he must kill the child. Richard refuses but the death of the photographer makes him decide. When he is trying to kill the child the police arrive and...

The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea

Lewis John Carlino

United Kingdom

105 min.

A young English widow and an American sailor fall in love. For her, the stranger is the solution and the way-out of a life of sexual repression since the death of her husband. For him, the meetings and love present a happier form of life than his travels with which he is tired and disillusioned. The visitor becomes the idol of the widow's son, a thirteen-year old precocious child. The lovers intend marrying. But the child does no wish to lose the image of his sailor hero, on whom he has based his adolescent dreams. And so, with four friends, he plots to spare the foreigner "The impure days, far from the state of grace that comes from the sea".

Une femme fidèle

Roger Vadim

France

98 min.

1825. By chance, Count Charles of Palma, infamous seductor, meets Mathilde Leroy, whose husband is away, in London. Charles, more for the gamble than any else, proposes to and succeeds in beating Mathilde's resistance, and seduces her. But falls in love with her. His further meetings with Flora de Saint-Gilles, his first lover, only exacerbate this love. And when Flora tries on her own account to 'cure' him, and return him to his previous frivolity, she only achieves the tragic end of Mathilde and Charles.

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