The San Sebastian Festival has added new names to its competition: the recognised French-Lebanese director Danielle Arbid, who will contend for the Golden Shell with her latest feature film, Passion simple; the Argentinian Eduardo Crespo, who will participate with Nosotros nunca moriremos / We will Never Die; and the British helmer Harry Macqueen, with Supernova. Two works on the subject of the music world will also coincide in the Official Selection: the veteran English documentary and filmmaker Julien Temple will compete with Crock of Gold: A Few Rounds with Shane MacGowan, about The Pogues’ charismatic frontman, while the North American actor Matt Dillon will present a Special Screening of his second film as a director, El gran Fellove, on the Cuban musician Francisco Fellove.

French-Lebanese Danielle Arbid (Beirut, 1970) previously participated in the Cannes Directors’ Fortnight with Maarek hob / In the Battlefields (2004) and Un homme perdu / A Lost Man (2007), as well as having repeatedly taken part in the Locarno Festival, where she has won the Golden and the Silver Leopard. The director now participates for the first time in San Sebastian’s competition with Passion simple, an adaptation of the homonymous novel by the French writer Annie Ernaux, in which Laetitia Dosch plays a woman who loses her head over a Russian diplomat embodied by Sergei Polunin.   

For his part, Eduardo Crespo (Crespo, 1983) tells the tale in his third feature film, Nosotros nunca moriremos, of the voyage undertaken by a boy and his mother to the village where his elder brother recently died. The Argentinian filmmaker, screenwriter and cinematographer is the author of Tan cerca como pueda (2012) and of the documentary Crespo (La continuidad de la memoria) (2016), both premiered at international festivals and closely connected to the Entre Ríos province of his birth.

In Supernova, the second film written and directed by Harry Macqueen (Leicester, 1984), actors Colin Firth and Stanley Tucci embody a couple whose unique focus lies in spending time together when one of them is diagnosed with early-onset dementia. The British helmer took his first steps as a director with Hinterland (2014), a film in which he developed another of his skills, that of acting, and has also worked on myriad short and full length films including Me and Orson Welles (Richard Linklater, 2008) and Provenance (Ben Hecking, 2017).

Also to be presented in competition is Crock of Gold: A Few Rounds with Shane MacGowan, a Johnny Depp production directed by Julien Temple (London, 1953) starring the talented and well-loved leader of The Pogues, an Irish folk band of punk spirit. While the English moviemaker is the author of fictional works such as Earth Girls are Easy (1988) and Bullet (1996), he is most celebrated for his work as a chronicler of rock music over the last 40 years thanks to his documentaries and music videos for artists including the Sex Pistols, The Rolling Stones, Davie Bowie, The Kinks, Joe Strummer (The Clash), Wilko Johnson and Paul Weller, among many others. Temple sat on the Festival’s Official Jury in 1986, the year he presented Absolute Beginners in the first ever marathon to run at the Velodrome. In addition, in 2010 the Festival screened his documentary The Filth and the Fury (2000) in the thematic retrospective .doc-New paths of non-fiction.

Out of competition, the Official Selection will include the special screening of the second film as a director by Matt Dillon (New Rochelle, New York, 1964), El gran Fellove, a documentary about the Cuban musician and singer Francisco Fellove (1923-2013). The North American’s debut behind the camera was the full-length fiction City of Ghosts (2002), although he enjoys greater popularity as an actor, having received the Donostia Award for his career in 2006. He has starred, among other films, in The Outsiders (Francis Ford Coppola, 1983), Drugstore Cowboy (Gus van Sant, 1989), Crash (Paul Haggis, 2004) and The House That Jack Built (Lars von Trier, 2018).

Passion simple is included on the list of films scheduled for presentation by the Festival de Cannes this year before being forced to suspend its 73rd edition due to Covid-19. The five titles will screen in San Sebastian as world premieres, joining those already announced in an Official Selection featuring a competing line up of hallowed directors, such as Pablo Agüero (Akelarre), Sharunas Bartas (In The Dusk), Naomi Kawase (Asa Ga Kuru / True Mothers), Antonio Méndez Esparza (Courtroom 3H / Sala del Juzgado 3H), François Ozon (Été 85 / Summer of 85) and Thomas Vinterberg (Druk / Another Round) alongside new filmmakers including Dea Kulumbegashvili (Dasatskisi / Beginning) and Takuma Sato (Nakuko wa ineega / Any Crybabies Around?).  

Rifkin’s Festival, Woody Allen’s latest comedy, will open the Official Selection out of competition. Apart from the competition, two new series will also be screened: Antidisturbios, by Rodrigo Sorogoyen, will be shown out of competition, while Patria, created by Aitor Gabilondo, will take the shape of a special screening.