San Sebastian Film Festival ::

Robert Zemeckis

USA

116 min.

"Doctor, are you trying to tell me that you've made a time machine out of a DeLorean car?" asks the amazed Mary McFly, a student at Hill Valley High who is always late for class. This will not happen again after that night when the doctor says: yes, the thing is a nuclear-powered car that can travel faster than time. So, Marty will make it to class thirty years ahead of time. The year is 1955 and, after hiding the car and taking a short walk in his hometown, the boy runs into two teenagers who will one day be his parents. Marty, who normally plays the guitar in his own band, finds himself in an age where there is still no rock and roll or Diet Pepsi. Both the director of the movie, Zemeckis, and the screenwriter, Gale, remember the time and say: "We think what happened in the 50's to make us so nostalgic for them in the following decades was that they were the first years when teenagers took control, and they've had control ever since".

Not in competition

Cocoon

Ron Howard

USA

117 min.

A "Cocoon" is a space capsule, very similar to the cocoon of a worm, in which several extra-terrestrials live for years as they navigate across the Earth's oceans. And three daring ederly people who live in a St. Petersburg (on the Florida coast) rest home take to visiting the splendid swimming pool of an abandoned hotel. One day they discover near the pool several giant and never-before-seen seashells. After their swim their aging physiques show signs of rejuvenation. In the nest few days mysterious visitors appears around town, four strange and intriguing types, one of them a beautiful woman. Nobody, not even the most imaginative of the retirees, can imagine the place of origin of theses strange tourists.These ederly people and these visitors begin a singular adventure in which the present and future are intertwined. The golden-agers live in easy co-existence with the extra-terrestrials. But the happy times are not to last long. Impressed by the kindness and friendliness of the earthlings, the aliens invite them to accompany them. But..., the invited guests all fear the eternal happiness held out to them and some of them prefer to stay on this planet where their lives have been spent half in happiness and half in pain.

Not in competition

Desperately Seeking Susan

Susan Seidelman

USA

104 min.

Susan possesses a remarkable vitality and beauty, and wants to live life to the max, like some great adventure. She has just arrived from Atlantic City, after leaving her sugar daddy from whom she has stolen money and some irreplaceable Egyptian earrings. When she gets into New York she reads in the papers that the guy has been offed. The film holds up to us the lifestyle and the cutural conflicts of American culture. First there are the conflicts between the residental neighbourhoods and a place like Greenwich Village. Then too, it is the story of thwo different kinds of women. Susan, "the bad girl" and Roberta, "the good girl", a prisoner of her life-style who wants out. The characters grow obsessed with each other, to the point where they become interchangeable. Because the line between perversity and naivetée is so fine that is joins them together.

Not in competition

Extramuros

Miguel Picazo

Spain

118 min.

At the end of the reign of Philip II, the decline of Spain began. Taxes, wars and epidemics decimated the countryside and the cities, causing people to emigrate, find places in the army or take vows with some religious order. This story takes place inside a convent of nuns. Within the walls the atmosphere is one of ignorance and hunger, the convent on the verge of being closed down when one of the sisters, Sor Angela, thinks she has an idea that will save them and restore well-being to their house. With the complicity of her faithful Sor Ana, stigmata appear in her hands which promptly call the attention of faithful and devout. But fame engenders jealousies. The ederly prioress is not resigned to a loss of authority. A battle for power is waged inside the community which provokes the intervention of the Holy Office, with tragic results for Sor Angela. Only Sor Ana remains hopeful of finding in defeat the Love for which she has struggled so hard.

Figlio mio, infinitamente caro...

Valentino Orsini

Italy

115 min.

Antonio Morelli is a serious and well-known lawyer. His son, Marco, is finishing his schooling. The boy's mother died when he was very young and now father and son live alone. Antonio discovers by chance that his son mainlines heroin and his reaction is firm. This is the beginning of a dramatic conflict between the two which grows harsher and harsher. Two women are involved in the story: Francesca, Marco's companion, and stefania, the woman Antonio loves in secrecy. The fierce ardor of Antonio in his efforts to gain back his son means his progressive estrangement form his work, and, as a consequence, growing economic difficulties. With these hardships is born a wave of desperation which leads Antonio -just as Marco's continual blackmail reaches its worst extreme- to follow his son into the use of drugs. Antonio gives himself a fix in front of the boy. Now their relationship is one of equals. It is the start of a new relationship which will shake both of them out of the nightmare of drug addiction.

Gesher Tzar Me'od / On a Narrow Bridge

Nissim Dayan

Israel

110 min.

One winter morning, some Arab children in Ramallah throw stones at Major Benny Tagar's car. Tagar is doing his Reserve duty in Ramallah as Military Prosecutor for Judea and Samria; he is 43 years old, and a succesful lawyer. He is separated from his wife; she still lives in their posh house with their sons. One of these stones hits the windshild and hurts Benny's cheek. He runs after the children, with the help of another reservist, and this they get to the school of the local refugee camp. There he meets the school librarian, Laila Mansoor, who comes out in defense of the children. One of the childres is Issa, the grandson of Anwar Mansoor, one of the city notables whom the Military Governor would like to see as Mayor of the city. Laila is his son's widow, and the family's good relations force Benny to give in to Lieut. Col. Amnon Abidi, Governor of the city: instead of a complaint a festive "sulha" (reconciliations) is organized at Anwar Mansoor's house. Benny and Laila meet there again. Their mutual attraction increases, developing into a torrid love affair, to the deep sorrow of both sides. After Benny picks up Laila at Church in the middle of Sunday Mass, Anwar Mansoor sends a messenger to Rabat Amnon (Jordan) urgently requesting Laila's brother, Tony Hilo, to come and avenge the family honor, and kill his sister, his traditional right.

Golfo de Vizcaya

Javier Rebollo

Spain

90 min.

A journalist, Lucas, return to Bilbao after an absence of 15 years. He is a man with a dense past, who tries to begin a new life in the Vizcayan capital with its difficult athmosphere. He meets a woman, Olatz, with whom he begins a relationship where their differences of age and social environment come to create an intense mutual dependence. But a series of dramatic events threaten their relationship to the point of rupture.

La ciudad y los perros

Francisco J. Lombardi

Peru

135 min.

An adaptation of the novel by Vargas Llosa. The actions transpires in the Luna Military academy. A group of new students must put up with the humiliating treatment given them by the veterans. Friendships are made and the leaders of the new class are established. In a strange accident one of the student dies. The accusation lodged by a fellow student and the honest attitude of a strict liutenant, provoke a series of events which reach the point of nearly destroying the school's serious image.

La corte de Faraón

José Luis García Sánchez

Spain

98 min.

At the end of the 1940's an astonishing event takes place in Spain: an amateur company dares to put on a play without the requisite permits and censor's approval. It is the famous musical, La Corte del Faraón, banned for its political, erotic and religious daring. During a long night in a police station, the police inquire into the reasons leading the group to involve themselves in such a wild venture. The interrogation reveals the details, through the dancing and singing of the musical numbers. On the morning of the following day, several comedians remain in jail, while a wealthy family goes home...All of the film's action takes place in Madrid and the musical numbers were shot in the Bronston Studios and in the Teatro Martín. The music was recorded in the Kirios Studios with 82 professors of music performing and the coices were recorded int he Circus Studios under the direction of Luis Cobos.

La vie de famille

Jacques Doillon

France

100 min.

"La have lost memories of my own childhood, so I shall return there through memories that I invent".This film is the story of a journey, and of an attempt to settle the problem of love between a father and his daugther. Emmanuel lives in Aix-en-Provence with Mara, his second wife, and Natacha, her 15 year old daugther. Every Saturday, despite the guilt and turmoil that it provokes, Emmanuel goes to his first wife, Lili, to fetch is own daughter Elise, and spend the weekend with her. This time, Emmanuel will succeed in tearing himself away from his own quilt towards mara, the thenderness of Lili, the ambiguous relationship that he has begun with Natacha, and will take his daugther away on a long journey. Most certainly a geographical journey, but most of all interior, almost initiatory. From pretext to pretext (chasing after natacha who has run away from home, filming of a little story on video, promise to see the Goyas at the Prado, escape from threatening enemies), little by little, the father lures his daugther to the bedroom of a big hotel in Madrid, which in fact turns out to be an amorous trap. In an attempt to the gran the child which soon she will no longer be, and to destroy this unbereable distance that exists between father and daugther, despite their complicity, their common fear, the sahred need to run away...."The father is an excessive character, who asks too much... but one never asks enough. I show passion, and the passion is excesive. You have to know how to look at it". After the challenge, the battle, the laughing, this long journey, which is also the voyage of one towards the other, will end on the Tuesday morning at Madrid airport, after a night of painful explanations between the father and his daugther.

La vieja música

Mario Camus

Spain

108 min.

Martín Lobo is an Uruguayan who has lived in exile outside his country for more than thirteen years. He comes to the city of Lugo from the United States to take over as coach of the local basketball team. He is accompanied by his daugther Paloma, child of his failed marriage to an American woman who is insistent in demanding custody of the child. Father and daugther, closely united, live through this new experience with a certain uneasiness, because there are certain circumstances which make it strange and difficult. Martín has not come to Spain concerned only with fulfilling his contract with the basketball club, but rather in rearch of a woman, whose name is also Paloma, his true love who he has not seen in fifteen years. Actually, Martín knows nothing about basketball, and could not care less, and continues to look for her to the detriment of his obligations. When he finds her the tries to remake his life with her, to reconcile his past. But too many years have gone by and it is impossible. Moreover, his daugther decides to leave him and return to her mother in the United States. Martín winds up alone, and in his search for new stimulations which will help life go on, he comes to find them in basketball.

Les trottoirs de Saturne

Hugo Santiago

France

168 min.

For the famous Latin-American musician, Fabián Cortés, his exile in Paris due to military repression becomes unbereable. Neither his professional success, nor the presence of friends, French or exiles, can quell his desire to return to his country.

Los días de junio

Alberto Fischerman

Argentina

90 min.

The country is at war and the Pope visits Argentina. On the previous day another "visitor" arrives: Emilio (Norman Briski), an exiled actor who returns to take part as the leading man in a play. He also meets with his "followers", those old friends whom he had to leave eight years before and whom he now convokes: Jorge (Arturo Maly), a biologist who investigates fertility problems and who suffers the inquisitorial terror which reigns in the University; José (Lorenzo Quinteros), a lawyer who abandoned his profession after his partner's disappearance and who has taken cover working as a professor in a little known night school, and Alberto (Víctor Laplace), a bookseller who has been in jail and who makes a living manufacturing flags. Something remained pending among the four friends, a childhood oath which tests the persistence of loyalties and affestions. Aside from their pranks and regressive playfulness, the violence of their new encounter exposes un healed wounds, hidden betrayals, deferred ideals and omissions. The dictatorship has set its mark upon them and they are now at odds. A flag emerges from the challenge. An own, self-asserting, transgressive and libertarian flag, which is denied at the precise moment of its creation.

Los motivos de Luz

Felipe Cazals

Mexico

94 min.

Macho y hembra

Mauricio Walerstein

Venezuela

90 min.

In the Venezuela of 1973, flooded with the easy riches od the oil boom, Ana, Alicia and Daniel begin a strange three-way love story. Soft, shy and sensititve Ana, ourspoken Daniel and the vital, splendidly animal Alicia, will try to observe new rules in the old game of domination in affective relationships, and will be together for ten years while the country transforms itself around them, becoming more and more banal and affecting them as well. Fashions go out, the nostalgia for old things is not what it was, nor are eroticism and friendship. Neither is it easy to keep a firm hold on one's freedom, political options... or passions. Machismo is not exclusively masculine, adn in this trio the assumed roles make for a love story involving two males (Daniel and alicia) and one female )Ana), who at the end of the line will be alone to make a lucid and loving analysis of her friends and lovers. Alicia and Daniel, tamed, adapted to the society they fought against, seem, on the other hand, incapable of meditating on their experience. But who knows what will happen next time, if there is one? Will they tru it again?

Otra vuelta de tuerca

Eloy de la Iglesia

Spain

119 min.

The action, based on the well-known Gothic novel by Henry James, takes place aroun 1900 in the Basque Country. Roberto, a young seminarist, leaves the seminary for unknown reasons and goes to work as the private tutor of the grand-children of the lord of the local area. Roberto must then face a mysterious phenomenon: he insists he has seen ghostly images. The strangeness of his behaviour perturbs the souls of the children to such an extent that one winds up asking one's self: Who really sees the images? Roberto, the children,...?

Opening Film

Prizzi's Honor

John Huston

USA

130 min.

The film deals with a love triangle involving people with little to recommend them. It is a film of black humour which gradually acquires an ever more sombre tone. the man is Charley partanna (Jack Nicholson), an Italian-American, onde of the Prizzi's hired thugs. The women are Irene Walker (Kathleen Turner), a killer-for-hire as well, though he does not know this; and Maerose Prizzi (Angelica Huston), "Padrino" Prizzi's daugther, who is not at all happy with the idea os losing Charley's love to the hands and kisses of another woman. Complications arise when the two lovers receive orders to kill each other.

Not in competition

Ran

Akira Kurosawa

Japan

155 min.

1578. A sixty-year-old feudal lord decides to divide his estate up among his three sons. Each of them is to receive a castle, but this will not suffice to produce the sons acceptance, as the youngest son questions his father o his attitude towards life and in a rage the father sends him immediately into exile. The consecuences do not take long to reveal themselves and Hidetora must now confront his other two sons who have rebelled against him. The entire family perishes in a cruel battle.The director of this film sought inspiration in Shakespeare's King Lear and in the Japanese legend, Sanbon no Ya. Fifteen million dollars were invested in the film, the fulfillement of a ten-year-old dream. This ederly film-maker needed nine monts of constant shooting to complete the work, which is a story of loneliness. A story of a great lord who wishes only to retire from public life and will find himself thrown into misery and madness by his sons in their thrist of power. Of these the only one who keeps his honour even minimally intact is the youngest, Saburo, but the old man will learn this too late. For the director, Kurosawa, it has not been too late (he is 74), but rather the perfect time for the creation of a great work. "With Ran -the director says- I hope to get nearer ro what the cinema truly is. In each of my previous films there were moments of cinema. Here I wished to have cinema from one end of the film to the other".

Not in competition

Silverado

Lawrence Kasdan

USA

133 min.

Not in competition

Stín kapradiny

Frantisek Vlácil

Czechoslovakia

90 min.

The film adaptation of the popular novel by the Czech writer Josef Capek is a dramatic story of two teenage boys, Ruda Aksamit, barely eighteen, and Vasek Kala, sixteen years of age. The two boys go on a poaching excursion in a forest and shoot a deer. They are surprised by a warden and Ruda, the elder of the two, shoots him dead. Previously, Ruda hay worked in a marble quarry with his father. His dreams and desires had been related to the forest and the hunt. Now the forest has become his destiny. After the murder of the gamekeeper the boys can never return home, and so flee in confusion and perplexity from justice, with the ill-advised notion that there is a fine and adventurous life ahead of them. Ruda grows more and more irritable. He hates people and is willing to liquidate anyone who gets in his way. The boys speak to a woman on the forest road who does not return their greeting. Both become concious of their shabby appearance and sack a country house to obtain at the least suits to wear. It produces some money for them as well and they go to a railway station restaurant. An while Ruda dreams of the prostitute Valerie, for whom he previously lacked the money, Vasek comes down with fever and Ruda tires to leave him behind. But Vasek manages to catch him up and they continue their flight together. In a wood they attack a seamstress but a group of Girl Scouts chase them off. At the harvest feast in a small village the boys buy liquor. They drink in a shanty for railway workers and Ruda, drunk, shoots to death another man: it is the civil guard Marjanka, who has been pursuing them. Yet now the circle of their pursuers is tightening around the boys. The following day the story comes to and end. Ruda is killed by the manhunters and Vasek takes his own life with Ruda's pistol...The trivial case of poaching has been transformed into a suggestive ballad. The exciting plot benefits from fantastical photography and from a wise but severe humanism wich refuses to allow evil to go unpunished.

The Thief of Bagdad

Raoul Walsh

USA

155 min.

The Thief of Bagdad is an American film by Raoul Walsh, made in 1924. The film belongs to the genre of oriental adventures and was produced by and stars Douglas Fairbanks. The clever technical tricks are outstanding, and caused a sensation at the time. The film was made after the scenographic impact caused by the new German cinema, and in it the sets and designs, the work of William Cameron Menzies, were of prime importance. The story comes from The Thousand and One Nights, the work wich inspired the screenplay written by Lotta Woods and Douglas Fairbanks. The photography is the work of Arthur Edesson, and it is acted by Douglas Faisbanks, Julianne Johnson, Anna May Wang and Brandon Hurts. This masterpiece of the silent cinema will be accompanied live by the outstanding composer Carl Davis, at the 33rd edition of this Festival.

Special Screenings Not in competition

Yesterday

Radoslaw Piwowarski

Poland

87 min.

The setting is in the 1960's, ina small provincial village, where the alternatives to the school and church are the cinema and the music. Four boys who are great fans of The Beatles, decide to form a group. But very soon their problems start. first of all, from their parents, the priest and the school, and later amongst the two leaders of the group who end up being rivals caused by the fact that they both love the same firl. All this with a background of school and dreams, and daydreams of "The 60's". After some years have passed the same characters reappear but the circumstances have changed. The 60's will be a memory. The "Yesterday" which makes you wriffle inside and makes you ask why, but is incapable of saying anything logical. Maybe it is only an illusion, this sensation of "Yesterday".

Zina

Ken McMullen

United Kingdom

90 min.

Zina is the story of a young woman torn apart because she is forced to live onthe edge of events which shook the world. Escaping from Stalin's Russia, Zina seeks out a father whom she hardly knows. Their reunion is a disaster. While she craves his love and attention, he is engaged in a desperate fight against the rising tide of fascism. Feeling bitter and rejected she goes to Berlin just as Hitler is making his most serious bid for power. There she becomes the patient of a brilliant psycho-analyst, Professor Kronfeld. His attempt to cure this fascinating and complicated "victim of history" is set against the growing collapse of Europe itself.Zina takes you deep into the tragic life of Zina Bronstein, daugther of Leon Trotsky. The film Zina is being produced and directed by Ken McMullen, hailed at the London Film Festival as an emerging British talent for his award winning films Ghost Dance and Resistance.

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