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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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The latest films from Edward Berger, Claire Denis, Dolores Fonzi, Joachim Lafosse, Olmo Omerzu, Xiaoyu Qin and James Vanderbilt will join the Official Selection competition for the Golden Shell, alongside the debut film from actress Juliette Binoche as a director and the latest work from Junji Sakamoto showing as Special Screenings out of competition.
After competing for last year’s Golden Shell with Conclave (2024), winner amongst other accolades of the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay and of the BAFTA for Best Film, Edward Berger (Wolfsburg, 1970) competes once again with Ballad of a Small Player, a production from the UK starring Colin Farrell as a high-stakes gambler in Macao whose past and debts start to catch up with him. The film also stars Fala Chen, Tilda Swinton and Alex Jennings. Berger landed the Academy Award for Best International Film with Im Westen nichts Neues (All Quiet on the Western Front, 2022), which also won the statuettes for Best Cinematography, Best Original Score and Best Production Design.
Claire Denis (Paris, 1946), who carried off the FIPRESCI Prize in San Sebastián with High Life (2018), will compete for the Golden Shell for the second time with Le Cri des Gardes / The Fence. The film, which is based on Bernard-Marie Koltès' play Combat de nègre et de chiens, stars Isaach de Bankolé, Matt Dillon, Mia McKenna-Bruce and Tom Blyth. The author of such famous works as Nénette et Boni (Golden Leopard at Locarno, 1996), Beau travail (1999), Trouble Every Day (The Backwash: the cutting edge of French cinema retrospective, 2001) and White Material (2010), Denis has received awards at festivals such as Cannes and Berlin, where she respectively won the Jury Grand Prix for Stars at Noon (2022) and the Silver Bear for Best Director for Avec amour et acharnement (Both Sides of the Blade, 2022). The latter featured as the Donostia Award Screening following the honorary award presented to the actress Juliette Binoche. She was the president of San Sebastián Festival’s official jury in 2023.
The Argentinian actress, screenwriter and director Dolores Fonzi (Buenos Aires, 1978), who made her debut behind the camera with Blondi (2023), presented in Horizontes Latinos following its premiere at the BAFICI, will compete in the Official Selection with her second work as a director. Starring herself alongside Camila Plaate and Laura Paredes, Belén recreates a true story in which Fonzi plays a lawyer from Tucumán as she leads the fight to free a woman imprisoned for having a miscarriage. As a prolific actress, Fonzi has taken part in the San Sebastián Festival on numerous occasions; in the Official Selection alone she has participated with El aura / The Aura (Fabián Bielinsky, 2005), Truman (Cesc Gay, 2015) and Distancia de rescate / Fever Dream (Claudia Llosa, 2021). She sat on the official jury of the San Sebastián Festival in 2017.
Six jours ce printemps-là / Six Days in Spring is the title of the latest full-length film from Joachim Lafosse (Uccle, 1975), a Belgium, France and Luxembourg co-production in which Eye Haïdara plays a desperate woman who borrows her ex in-laws’ house on the French Riviera to spend a few days’ holiday with her children. This will be the third participation by the Belgian director in the Official Selection, where he won the Silver Shell for Best Director with Les chevaliers blancs / The White Knights (2015) and to which he returned with Un silence / A Silence (2023). Lafosse, who participated in Un Certain Regard at Cannes with À perdre la raison / Our Children (2012), has competed at Venice with Nue propriété / Private Property (2006) and with Elève libre / Private Lessons (2008) in the Quinzaine des Cinéastes, to which he returned with L’économie du couple / After Love (Perlak, 2016). He also presented Continuer (2018) in the Giornate degli Autori at Venice and Les intranquilles / The Restless (Perlak, 2021) at the Festival de Cannes.
A recently divorced father and his two teenage children are enjoying what appears to be a pleasant camping holiday in Ungrateful Beings, a production of the Czech Republic with Slovenia, Poland, Slovakia, Croatia and France. This is the first participation in the Official Selection by the Slovenian Olmo Omerzu (Ljubljana, 1984), who came to New Directors with his second feature film, Rodinny Film / Family Film (2015). With his first film, A Night Too Young (2012), he was selected for the Berlinale Forum and, with the third, Winter Flies (2018), won the Best Director Award at Karlovy Vary, where he premiered his following work, Bird Atlas (2021).
The Chinese filmmaker Xiaoyu Qin (Hohhot, 1974) will present his debut fiction feature film, Jianyu Laide Mama / Her Heart Beats in Its Cage, whose original protagonists recreate the true story of a woman who reunites with her 10-year-old son after spending ten years in prison for killing her husband. The director is the author of two non-fiction works, Wo de shi pian / The Verse of Us (2015), winner of the Best Documentary Award at the Shanghai Festival and a competitor at the IDFA Festival in Amsterdam, and One More Day (2021).
Following his debut with Truth (2015) starring Robert Redford and Cate Blanchett, James Vanderbilt (Connecticut, 1975) will take part with the film Nuremberg, in which Rami Malek plays the part of the real-life character Douglas Kelley, a North American psychiatrist who, on the eve of the Nuremberg trials, assessed 22 Nazis, among them Hitler’s right-hand man, Hermann Göring, played by Russell Crowe. Vanderbilt, who has adapted the book The Nazi and the Psychiatrist by the journalist and writer Jack El-Hai, is also a producer and has co-written the screenplays of films such as Zodiac (David Fincher, 2007), The Amazing Spider-Man (Marc Webb, 2012) and Scream (Neve Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett, 2022).
These titles join the competitive Official Selection alongside the other participants who were previously announced: Deux pianos / Two Pianos, by Arnaud Desplechin; Maspalomas, by Jose Mari Goenaga and Aitor Arregi; Historias del buen valle / Good Valley Stories, by José Luis Guerin; Franz, by Agnieszka Holland; Las corrientes / The Currents, by Milagros Mumenthaler; Los tigres, by Alberto Rodríguez; Los domingos / Sundays, by Alauda Ruiz de Azúa; SAI / SAI: Disaster, by Yutaro Seki and Kentaro Hirase, and Couture, by Alice Winocour.
Special Screenings out of competition
Figuring in the Special Screenings section is the directorial debut from Juliette Binoche (Paris, 1964), IN-I In Motion, a non-fiction looking back at the experience of In-I, the hybrid dance and theatre show produced by the actress in 2007 with the dancer and choreographer Akram Khan. Over a career of almost 40 years, Binoche has participated in some 70 films by famous filmmakers, and, amongst other distinctions, has obtained the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role in The English Patient (1996), as well as several acting awards at festivals such as Cannes, Berlin and Venice, in addition to the Donostia Award for her life achievement received in 2022
Also showing out of competition is Teppen no mukou ni anata ga iru / Climbing for Life, based on the true story of the great Japanese mountaineer Junko Tabei, the first woman to reach the summit of Mount Everest. Its director, Junji Sakamoto (Osaka, 1958) is the author of films such as Kao / Face (2000), winner of the Best Director Award bestowed by the Japanese Academy after competing in San Sebastián’s Official Selection and winning the Youth Award, and Yami no kodomo-tachi / Children of the Dark (2008), Kita no kanaria-tachi / A Chorus of Angels (2012), Fuyu Soubi / A Winter Rose (2022) and Sekai no Okiku / Okiku and the World (2023).
OFFICIAL SELECTION - In competition
When his past and his debts start to catch up with him, a high-stakes gambler laying low in Macau encounters a kindred spirit who might just hold the key to his salvation.
A vast public works project in West Africa. Horn, the construction site manager, and Cal, a young engineer, share lodging behind the double gates of their compound. Leone, Horn's recent bride, comes to join them the same night that a man appears at the fence. His name is Alboury. Like a specter in the darkness, he demands the body of his brother who died earlier that day on the site. He will hound the two men all night long until they return it, as Leone watches the disaster play out before her.
Tucumán, Argentina, 2014; a young woman is admitted to a hospital with severe abdominal pain, unaware she is pregnant. She wakes up handcuffed to a gurney and surrounded by police. She is accused of having self-induced an abortion and, after two years in detention, is sentenced to eight years in prison for aggravated homicide. A female lawyer from Tucumán will fight for her freedom with the support of thousands of women and organizations, who unite to change the course of history.
Despite adversity, Sana wants her twins to have a spring vacation, but all her plans fall through. They secretly decide to stay in her former in-laws' villa on the Riviera, without telling anyone. Six days of sunshine that mark the end of innocence.
David takes his two children on holiday to the Adriatic Sea, hoping to hold their fractured bilingual family together. His 17-year-old daughter, Klara, struggling with an eating disorder, falls in love with a local boy, Denis. When he is accused of murder, David rushes the children back home. Klára’s condition spirals, landing her in hospital. The only thing uniting her parents is their need to save her. And desperate times call for desperate measures.
Hong has been in prison for ten years for killing her husband. Due to her contribution to the inmates' art troupe, Hong unexpectedly gets a chance to reduce her sentence. Her son, Lele, has been raised by his grandmother and has never been ready to live with his mother. After their reunion, Lele always treats her coldly. With a lonely grandmother who wants Lele to come back to her, and a society that is not kind to ex-prisoners, will Hong be able to escape the intangible prison and regain the freedom of her heart?
Nuremberg plunges us into the centre of the trials held in the 80s by the Allies following the defeat of the Nazi regime. American psychiatrist Douglas Kelly is tasked with assessing the mental health of the Nazi prisoners and determining if they are fit to stand trial for their war crimes. From one day to the next, Kelly will find himself thrown into a complex battle of wits with Hermann Göring, Hitler's right-hand man and one of the world's most feared men.
OFFICIAL SELECTION - Special Screenings
In 2007, Juliette Binoche and Akram Khan paused their careers to co-create In-I, a daring performance toured worldwide. Today, Juliette Binoche revisits that inspiring journey. Through unseen footage, she reflects, as a filmmaker, on creation, the risks it entails, and the personal transformation it brings.
In 1975, a woman made her way to the summit of Mount Everest. Her name is Junko. She became the first woman in history to conquer the world's highest summit. Her glorious achievement captivated the world, casting a radiant light but also a deep shadow on her friends and family. In her later years, even though she was diagnosed with a terminal illness, Junko continued to challenge the mountains throughout her life. What did Junko last see beyond the top?
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