On Friday, September 27 (at 22:00), the Kursaal will host the gala at which Penélope Cruz will receive the Donostia Award in recognition of her career. The ceremony will be followed by the screening of Wasp Network, directed by Olivier Assayas and starring the Spanish actress. Tickets for the showing are now available for purchase on the Festival website at a price of 45 euros.
Wasp Network, which will have its world premiere at the coming Venice Festival, is a co-production between France, Brazil, Spain and Belgium. Together with Penélope Cruz, other actors in the cast are Edgar Ramírez, Gael García Bernal, Wagner Moura, Ana de Armas and Leonardo Sbaraglia , among other actors. The film, which will be distributed in Spain by Wanda Vision and Avalon, focusses on the members of a Cuban spy ring taken prisoner in the USA in the late 90s, accused of espionage and murder.
Olivier Assayas (Paris, 1955) presented Désordre (Disorder, 1986), his feature film debut, in New Directors. Since then, Assayas, who won the best director award in Cannes for Personal Shopper (2016), has participated in several of San Sebastian’s sections with titles such as Fin août, debut septembre (Late August, Early September, 1998, Official Selection); Quartier des Enfants Rouges, his segment for the omnibus feature film Paris, je t’aime (Perlak, 2006); L’heure d’été (Summer Hours, 2008, Perlak); Clean (2004), which participated in 2009 in the retrospective: Backwash: the cutting edge of French cinema, and Après Mai (After May, 2012, Perlak), winner of the best screenplay award at the Venice Festival.
Havana, in the early 90s. René González, a Cuban pilot, steals a plane and flees Cuba, leaving his beloved wife and daughter behind. He starts a new life in Miami. Other Cuban deserters soon follow him and they institute a spy ring. Their mission is to infiltrate the violent anti-Castro organisations responsible for terrorist attacks on the island.