The 70th edition of the San Sebastian Film Festival, which will take place from September 16 to 24, has announced the Official Selection, which includes works from Japan, Argentina, Portugal, Colombia, Great Britain, the United States, the Czech Republic, Austria, Korea, France, Denmark and of course the host country, Spain.
The selection released this Tuesday, August 2, includes four Iberian films released in advance: Spring consecrationby Fernando Franco; suroby Mikel Gurrea; the motherlyby Pilar Palomero, and wild sunflowersby Jaime Rosales.
OFFICIAL SELECTION LIST
| THE SUBSTITUTE DIEGO LERMAN (ARGENTINA) Country(ies) of production: Argentina – Spain – Italy – Mexico – France Interpreters: Juan Minujin, Barbara Lennie, Alfredo Castro, Maria Merlino, Lucas Arrua, Rita Cortese Europe-Latin America Co-Production Forum 2019 Lucio, a prestigious literature professor at the university, takes a course at a school in the neighborhood where he grew up, in the suburbs of Buenos Aires. There he will try to help his father to save Dilan, a student persecuted by a group of drug traffickers. |
GREAT YARMOUTH – PROVISIONAL FIGURES
MARCO MARTINS (PORTUGAL)
Country(ies) of production: Portugal – France – United Kingdom
Interpreters: Beatriz Batarda, Kris Hitchen, Bob Elliott, Romeu Runa, Victor Lourenço, Nuno Lopes, Rita Cabaço
October 2019, Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, UK. Three months before Brexit. Hundreds of migrant workers arrive from Portugal to the city in search of a job in local turkey meat processing factories. Tania (The Mother of the Portuguese) worked in these poultry plants but is currently married to an English hotelier. No one better than her to help these Portuguese migrants get a job, but she wants to obtain British citizenship, leave this thankless business and renovate the abandoned hotels (owned by her husband) to transform them into homes for the elderly.
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| HYAKKA / A HUNDRED FLOWERS GENKI KAWAMURA (JAPAN) Country(ies) of production: Japan Interpreters: Masaki Suda, Mieko Harada, Masami Nagasawa, Masatoshi Nagase Yuriko’s mind begins to deteriorate rapidly, as she suffers from dementia. However, for her son Izumi, her mother’s memories remain as vivid as when she lived through the experience that caused them. The memory of an experience of hers haunts and torments him especially: when he thought that she had disappeared. |
 THE BOEMOPETR VACLAV (CZECH REPUBLIC) Country(ies) of production: Czech Republic – Italy – Slovakia Interpreters: Vojtech Dyk, Elena Radonicich, Barbara Ronchi, Lana Vlady 1764. For more than a year, Josef has led a precarious life in Venice. He aspires to be an opera composer. The city, full of talented and established authors, seems closed to him. Seeking work as a violinist, he falls into the orbit of a wealthy young woman. Thanks to her he has the opportunity to play in salons. But his real break comes when he becomes the lover of a rakish marchioness. She teaches him sophisticated manners, frees him from the traces of her provincial background, and introduces him to a hedonistic existence free from religious intolerance. Transformed, Josef receives an incredible commission: to write an opera for the San Carlo, the largest theater in Europe. |
 LE LYCÉEN / WINTER BOYCHRISTOPHE HONORE (FRANCE) Country(ies) of production: France Interpreters: Paul Kircher, Vincent Lacoste, Juliette Binoche, Erwan Kepoa Falé, Adrian Casse, Pascal Cervo, Christophé Honoré At 17 years old, Lucas sees his adolescence shattered in the blink of an eye. He feels that his life is a wild beast that he must tame. Between a brother living in Paris and a mother with whom he now lives alone, Lucas will be forced to fight to regain hope and love. |
 LOS REYES DEL MUNDO / THE KINGS OF THE WORLDLAURA MORA (COLOMBIA) Country(ies) of production: Colombia – Luxembourg – France – Mexico – Norway Interpreters: Carlos Andrés Castañeda, Davidson Andrés Flórez, Brahian Stiven Acevedo, Cristian Camilo David Mora “One day all men fell asleep… And the fences of the earth burned.” The Kings of the world is a film about disobedience, friendship and the dignity that exists in resistance. Ra, Culebro, Sere, Winny and Nano. Five boys from the streets of Medellin. Five kings without a kingdom, without law, without family, embark on a journey in search of the promised land. A subversive tale through a wild and endearing clan, moving between reality and delirium. A trip to nothing, where everything happens. |
 PORNOMELANCHOLIA / PORNOMELANCHOLIAMANUEL ABRAMOVICH (ARGENTINA) Country(ies) of production: Argentina – France – Brazil – Mexico Interpreters: Lalo Santos Ikusmira Berriak 2018WIP Latam 2021 Lalo is a sex-influencer: she posts photos of her naked body and homemade porn videos for her thousands of followers on social networks. Lalo directs her own life, but privately, outside the character, she seems to live in permanent melancholy. |
 REMAIN AF LIVET / FOREVERFRELLE PETERSEN (DENMARK) Country(ies) of production: Denmark Interpreters: Jette Søndergaard, Ole Sørensen, Mette Munk Plum When married couple Egon and Maren lose their grown son, the family, including their daughter Lily, is paralyzed with grief. It turns out that the three of them have very different ways of coping and quickly fall apart. Egon, Maren and Lily must now find their way back to life and family rebuilding. forever is an upbeat family drama set in South Jutland, the southernmost part of Denmark. |
 RUNNERMARIAN MATHIAS (USA) Country(ies) of production: USA – Germany – France Interpreters: Hannah Schiller, Darren Houle, Jonathan Eisley, Gene JonesAfter the sudden death of his father, Haas meets Will. runner is the story of two unknown young men who meet across the Basque landscape of the United States. |
 SPARTAULRICH SEIDL (AUSTRIA) Country(ies) of production: Austria – France – Germany Interpreters: Georg Friedrich, Florentina Elena Pop, Hans-Michael Rehberg, Marius Ignat, Octavian-Nicolae Cocis Ewald once moved to Romania. Years later and well into his 40s, he is looking to start over. He leaves his girlfriend and moves inside. With the help of local youth, he transforms a dilapidated school into a fortress. Children enjoy a new and carefree existence. But the flame of mistrust will not take long to emerge among the inhabitants. And Ewald will have no choice but to face a truth that he has kept hidden for a long time. Sparta it’s a sister movie to Rimini and culminates Ulrich Seidl’s diptych on the impossibility of escaping from the past and on the pain of finding oneself. |
 THE WONDERSEBASTIAN LELIO (CHILE) Country(ies) of production: United Kingdom – Ireland Interpreters: Florence Pugh, Tom Burkey, Kila Lord Cassidy The Irish Midlands, 1862. A girl stops eating but miraculously remains alive and well. English nurse Lib Wright is brought to a small town to observe eleven-year-old Anna O’Donnell. Abundant tourists and pilgrims gather to gaze at the girl who is said to have survived without food for months. Is the town home to a saint who “survive on manna from heaven” or are there more sinister motives? A thriller inspired by the phenomenon of the fasting girls (typical of the nineteenth century) and adaptation of the acclaimed novel by Emma Donoghue. |
 TOP / WALK UPHONG SANG-SOO (SOUTH KOREA) Country(ies) of production: South Korea Interpreters: Kwon Hae-hyo, Lee Hye-young, Song Sun-mi A middle-aged film director visits a building owned by an interior designer with his daughter, whom he hasn’t seen in years. They are there because it is what the daughter wants to study. The designer shows them floor by floor the reforms that she has carried out. The three of them go into the rooms on each floor to take a look. The movie starts like this and then we start again at the bottom and go up floor by floor. |
