72nd San Sebastian Festival - 20/28 September 2023
71SSIFF - 22/30 September 2023
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Z365" or "Festival all year round" is the new strategic point of the Festival in which converge investigation, accompaniment and development of new talents (Ikusmira Berriak, Nest); training and cinematic knowledge transfer (Elías Querejeta Zine Eskola, Zinemaldia + Plus, Filmmakers' dialogue); and investigation, disclosure and cinematic thought (Z70 project, Thought and Discussion and Research and publications).
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Agenda
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Official Section
Films
Films
Esther Gronenborn
Germany - Yugoslavia
89 min.
A promising debut film by a German documentary maker. The run-down neighbourhoods of East Berlin form the backdrop to the lives of Sabine and Eddie, two teenagers involved in a story of love and death. Filmed with a camera that gives the actors a lot of freedom, this is a portrait of the new German youth that has sprung up since the Berlin wall came down.
Bong Joon - Ho
South Korea
110 min.
This year Korean cinema is showing signs of enjoying an enviable state of health. Bong Joon-ho is a fine example of this. This director's debut is set in a middle-class district of Seoul. It is a neighbourhood where people live peacefully, if it were not for an irritating dog who never stops barking and causes the main character to have a nervous breakdown with unexpected results.
Kevin Liddy
Ireland
92 min.
Jack is 12 years old. He lives with his widowed father and his elder brother on a farm in a small Irish village, in the 70's. The death of an old uncle, a communist and ex-member of the international brigades, brings his aunt to the village. She is a warm woman who transforms the life of Jack's sad family, until the past intrudes again and violence once again takes hold of this peaceful place.
Salvador García
Spain
132 min.
For his second film the director of Mensaka has chosen an adaptation of the novel of the same name by Elviro Lindo, in which he has aimed to give a special priority to feelings. Marcelo has struggled all his life to get away from and forget about the district of Vallecas where he has left no relatives, friends or even acquaintances. Suddenly Ramón Fortuna appears in his life along with stacks of memories that he thought had disappeared.
Junji Sakamoto
Japan
123 min.
Starring one of the great Japanese stage actresses, Naomi Fujiyama, the ninth film by this independent director tells the story of a woman, Masako, who commits a murder provoked by the humilation that she has had to endure, and then in search of freedom she loses herself among the people and becomes a face that the police are looking for.
Reza Parsa
Sweden
106 min.
The first film by a young Iranian director (Teheran, 1968) who has lived in Sweden since 1980. Set in a small town, its main characters are Leo, a lonely 12 year-old child and Ali, an Iranian taxi driver, who is married to a Swede and is the father of two girls. The accidental friendship that unites these two characters, begins at a time when both of them have to take on the responsibility for their own actions.
Elie Chouraqui
France
130 min.
Elie Chouraqui goes into an open wound in the heart of Europe, - the war in the former Yugoslavia, to tell a love story. When her husband Harrison disappears in the siege of Vukovar, Sarah refuses to accept that he is dead and sets off to look for him, prepared to do anything just to find him. An excellent cast of international actors in a film with an American look and French production.
Opening Film (In competition)
Alex de la Iglesia
Spain
112 min.
A draw by Real Sociedad in the Molinón Stadium, that was historic for Real fans, is for other motives the reason for the latest film by Álex de la Iglesia from Bilbao. Starring Carmen Maura, in its director's own words it is, "an insane drama of black humour and twisted, claustrophobic and domestic neighbourhood terror". A delirious version of the famous house at 13 rue del Percebe.
Arturo Ripstein
Mexico - Spain
98 min.
A new investigation on film by the prolific Arturo Ripstein. Based on the medium-length film Dos deudos, produced by Canal+, Paz Alicia Garciadiego wrote an entertaining enlargement of the story of these two murderers who stone an old bigamous friend of theirs. One of the most daring films that this veteran Mexican director has made.
Closing Film
Karl Francis
Spain - UK
110 min.
Jeff Goldblum plays the mythical American director Herbert J. Biberman, one of the men who was most persecuted during Senator McCarthy's witch hunts. Greta Scacchi plays his wife, the actress Gale Sondergaard and Ángela Molina has the role of Rosaura Revueltas, the legendary star of The salt of the earth. Karl Francis has made a film that talks about cinema in the cinema and about cinema as a political tool.
Not in competition
Nicolas Klotz
France
125 min.
The story of the 18 year-old Víctor and the 25 year-old Momo. The former loses his job in a video-club at the same time as he gets thrown out of the house. The latter lives on his wits in the street. When Víctor meets Momo, he discovers a way of life the he knew absolutely nothing about: as a social outcast. It is based on an article by Hubert Prolongeau, and Cheb Khaled and Eddy Mitchell collaborate on the soundtrack.
Imanol Uribe
Spain
119 min.
Uribe has taken a novel by Antonio Muñoz Molina as a basis for a strange personal film, that has one of the most burning contemporary issues as a backdrop to a love story: child abuse. Starring the Argentinian actor Miguel Ángel Solá and Adriana Ozores, Plenilunio is, according to Uribe "a reflection on horror and love, which sometimes co-exist so close to one another.
Not in competition
Herbert J. Biberman
USA
A long, hard strike in the mines of Silver City (New Mexico) in the early 50s and the prejudice against the Mexican workers who sought to receive the same treatment as their white co-workers, is the storyline and backdrop for this combative story. One of the most important films of American cinema, it was directed, produced and acted by a group of progressive professionals, all of whom were persecuted by Senator McCarthy·s witch hunt.
Special Screenings
John Irvin
UK
100 min.
The story of a man who pins all his hopes of becoming a millionaire on his son's career as a young promising boxer. The character of Billy "Shiner" Simpson was especially written for Sir Michael Caine who admits that this role is one of his favourites, as he grew up himself in a neighbourhood very like the one portrayed by the veteran director John Irvin.
Not in competition
María Novaro
Mexico - Spain
120 min.
Aurelia (Tiaré Scanda) is a young single mother determined to change her destiny, Anna (Aitana Sánchez-Gijón) is an international prehistoric art dealer who is running away from a corrupt policeman. Two completely different women who meet on the road, get to know each other, deceive each other and end up becoming friends and embark on a amazing journey across Mexico from Ciudad Juárez to Cancún.
François Ozon
France
90 min.
Ozon made a name for himself at San Sebastián a few years ago with the disturbing medium-length film Regarde la mer. He is now back at the festival with another film that takes place at sea. A mysterious strange film starring Charlotte Rampling, in which a man vanishes while his wife is asleep on the beach. Has he drowned? Has he run off? His wife will have to face up to a new life without him.
Kathryn Bigelow
USA
110 min.
The latest film by the director of Blue Steel and Strange Days, shot on this occasion during a weekend on a peaceful island that conceals dark passions. It is the setting for a double murder that took place in 1873, the memory of this event upsets the relationship between a writer, (Sean Penn), and his wife, (Catherine McCormack), who is obsessed with this terrible crime.
Francisco J. Lombardi
Spain - Peru
121 min.
Lombardi returns to Lima to tell a dark tale, although it is tinged with red blood, based on a real character, a veteran accident and crime reporter in the Peruvian capital, who is accompanied on his adventures by a young news-hound and a quiet photographer. It stars two Peruvian actors, Gianfranco Brero and Giovanni Ciccia, accompanied by the Spaniards Fele Martínez and Lucía Jiménez.
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Friday: 10:00h - 14:00h
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Friday: 10:00h - 14:00h
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