 |
| Los Tigres, stars Antonio de la Torre and Bárbara Lennie Photo: Courtesy of San Sebastian Film Festival |
San Sebastian Film Festival has begun to announce the films that will join its Official Competition. Among the heavy hitters for the Basque event's 73rd edition are Arnaud Desplechin, Kentaro Hirase, Yutaro Seki, Agnieszka Holland, Milagros Mumenthaler and Alice Winocour.
French director Desplechin will be at the festival for the first time with Two Pianos, which sees a virtuoso pianist returns to Lyon, his hometown, after a long absence to experience a story of impossible love. The film features British star Charlotte Rampling alongside François Civil and Nadia Tereszkiewicz.
 |
| Arnaud Desplechin's Two Pianos Photo: Courtesy of San Sebastian Film Festival/Jorge Fuembuena |
Holland meanwhile is a veteran of the competition section, having previously vied for the Golden Shell with Total Eclipse (1995) and Copying Beethoven (1996). The Polish director's latest film, Franz, is a biopic of absurdist author Franz Kafka, played by Idan Weiss.
Wincour, who previously won a Special Jury Prize at San Sebastián with Proxima in 2019, will compete with Couture, a French/American co-production starring Angelina Jolie and Louis Garrel and set in the fashion world.
Rounding out the first tranche of international announcements is SAI by Kenaro and Yutaro. Actor Teruyuki Kagawa stars as a mysterious man who tragically enters the lives of a number of people, appearing under different identities. The directing duo were previously at the festival in the New Directors section with Restless.
The festival has previously announced there will be four Spanish productions competiting for the Golden Shell. Festival regulars Jose Mari Goenaga and Aitor Arregi (The Endless Trench, Giant) return with Maspalomas, starring Jose Ramon Soroiz as a 77-year-old having the time of his life in the Gran Canarian resort. Alberto Rodríguez (Marshland) returns for the seventh time to the competition with Los Tigres, written with Rafael Cobos, in which Antonio de la Torre and Bárbara Lennie play siblings who work as professional divers for an oil company.
José Luis Guerin, who previously competed with Work In Progress (2001), returns with Good Valley Stories, a non-fiction film shot in Vallbona, a Barcelona district with a high migrant population.
Rounding out the Spanish Golden Shell entries is Sundays by Basque filmmaker Alauda Ruiz de Azúa. It tells the tale of an idealistic young woman who feels an unexpected attraction to the contemplative life of the cloistered monastery.
