The San Sebastian Festival is launching a new line of official posters, with the one chosen for the 66th edition featuring the French actress Isabelle Huppert.

The official poster follows the line of the Festival’s new graphic identity, according to which the composition of all posters combines photography and illustration. The black and white image of the actress is superimposed over the coloured lines of the different sections.

“It is an honour for the Festival that one of the best working actresses, who brings us marvellous new films every year, has accepted to be the image of the San Sebastian Festival,” said the Festival Director, José Luis Rebordinos.

The connection between the Parisian actress and the Festival dates back more than 15 years when she presented La vie promise (Ghost River) in the Official Selection. In 2003 she collected the Donostia Award in recognition of her contribution to the world of cinema, translating into participation in more than 130 films, for which she has harvested more than some hundred acknowledgements since obtaining a Bafta in 1978 as the Most Promising Newcomer for her work in La dentellière (The Lacemaker).

She garnered Golden Globe and Academy Award nominations for Elle (Pearls, 2016), and won the Silver Bear in Berlin (8 femmes / 8 Women, Pearls 2002), two Best Actress Awards in Cannes, in 1978 (Violette Nozière) and in 2001 (La pianiste / The Pianist, Pearls 2011), two Césars (La cérémonie, 1995, and Elle, 2016,) two Volpi Cups in Venice for La cérémonie (1995) and Une affaire de femmes (Story of Women, 1988) and a special Golden Lion for Gabrielle; two David de Donatellos (Best Foreign Actress for La dentellière and one for her life achievement in 2003), three European Film Academy Awards for La pianiste, 8 femmes and for her extraordinary film career, and five Lumière Awards (La céremonie, Merci pour le chocolat, Gabrielle, Elle and one honorary award), among others.

Her films have been programmed around 15 times in San Sebastian. She has worked with the top European, American and Asian directors, such as Jean-Luc Godard, Michael Haneke, Mia Hansen-Løve, Raúl Ruiz, Brillante Mendoza, Paul Verhoeven, David O’Russell, Hong Sangsoo, Hal Hartley, Claire Denis, François Ozon, Olivier Assayas, Rithy Panh, Andrzej Wajda, Joseph Losey, Diane Kurys (in Coup de foudre, winner of the Fipresci Award in San Sebastian in 1983), Michael Cimino, Bertrand Tavernier, Otto Preminger and the already-mentioned Claude Chabrol, among many others.

A thousand copies of the official poster will be printed and distributed to the different shops and to the usual Festival hubs. It will also figure on the covers of the catalogue and of the film guide.

The official poster has been created on the basis of a Getty Images photograph by the design studio from San Sebastian, TGA, headed by Nagore García Pascual, Julen Cano Linazasoro and Txema García Amiano. The same studio created the other Festival posters and the new graphic identity.