San Sebastián Lineup: Pablo Larraín, Mike Leigh, Benjamín Naishtat and More
Buzzy new projects from “Jacky,” “Spencer” and “Maria” director Pablo Larraín, and Benjamín Naishtat will be joined by Mike Leigh’s “Tender Loving Care” in main competition at September’s San Sebastián Film Fes...
Buzzy new projects from “Jacky,” “Spencer” and “Maria” director Pablo Larraín, and Benjamín Naishtat will be joined by Mike Leigh’s “Tender Loving Care” in main competition at September’s San Sebastián Film Festival.
Also making the cut are new titles from Nicole Garcia – Marion Coillard starrer “7:40 ce matin-là/Milo,’ as well as Maha Harada’s “In My Father’s Room,” Hans Petter Moland’s “Growth of the Soil” and Yeşim Ustaoğlu’s “What Remains.” Announced Tuesday, the new titles reflect San Sebastián’s hallmark mix of international name auteurs – often drawn from its key source markets of Latin America, France and the Nordics – and newer talent, a key focus for San Sebastián whose New Directors strand, set to be announced on Friday, is one of the most prestigious in Europe.
A feature version of Larraín’s Netflix four-part horror miniseries produced by Fabula, “My Sad Dead” (“Mis muertos tristes”) adapts Argentinean writer Mariana Enriquez, who suggests that the true terror is not the supernatural itself, but the horrors that society hides. Top Argentine actors Mercedes Morán, Dolores Fonzi and Alejandra Flechner star.
Leigh’s “Tender Loving Care” stars Marion Bailey, Paul Jesson, Kate O’Flynn, Alice Bailey Johnson in what the festival describes as his “insightful exploration of the modern world.”
From the director of “Rojo,” a big hit at San Sebastián, Naishtat’s “Glaxo” is a tale of shattered friendship set in a small provincial town between the late 1950s and the 1980s and described as “about desire and revenge, set at a time when a whole country lost its innocence.”
San Sebastián’s newly announced Golden Shell contenders join three Spanish features in main competition which were announced on July 17: Mikel Gurrea’s “Sants,” with “The Beloved” star Vicky Luengo, top comedian Berto Romero’s time-loop relationship comedy “Five Minutes More” and Roberto Bueso’s family dramedy “El mal padre.”
The 74th edition of the San Sebastian Film Festival, the biggest film event in the Spanish-speaking world, runs Sept. 18-26 in the capital of Gipuzcoa, in Spain’s verdant and stunning Basque Country.
Newly Announced San Sebastián Main Competition Titles
“Glaxo” (Benjamín Naishtat, Brazil/Argentina)
Cast: Lali Espósito, Esteban Lamothe, and Marcelo Subiotto
Produced by Brazil’s RT Features and Argentina’s Rei Pictures with a top Argentine cast of Espósito (“Permitidos,” “Sky Rojo”), Esteban Lamothe (“The Student”) and Marcelo Subiotto (“Puan”) and a tale which explores macro historical transformation via an intimate narrative, a winning combination in Rojo’s pre-junta portrayal of “moral apocalypse,” as Variety noted.
“Growth of the Soil” (“Markens Grode,” Hans Petter Moland, Norway-Denmark-Germany)
Cast: Herbert Nordrum, Asta Kamma August, Gard B. Eidsvold
A stranger crossing the mountains of northern Norway anchors Moland’s adaptation of Knut Hamsun’s 1917 Nobel Prize-winning novel. Rootless Isak settles on barren land and attempts to build a life with Inger, a solitary woman marked by resilience and secrecy. Together they endure the elements, cultivate the soil and raise a family, only for time, hardship and desire to reshape them. Moland’s “Zero Kelvin” won San Sebastián’s Special Jury Prize in 1995.
“In My Father’s Room” (“Muyou no hito,” Maha Harada, Japan)
Cast: Aoi Yu, Ogata Issey, Nagayama Eita, Watanabe Eri
Best-selling novelist Harada makes her director’s feature debut with an adaptation of her novel “An Unnecessary Man.” The film follows an art museum employee led by a mysterious key to a room once used by her recently deceased father. Retracing his final days, she discovers a life sustained by language, tea ceremony and overlooked beauty. Bitters End handles international sales and will release the drama in Japan in January 2027.
“Milo” (“7:40 ce matin-là,” Nicole Garcia, France)
Cast: Marion Cotillard, Théodore Pellerin, Artus, Laure Calamy
Garcia reunites with Oscar winner Cotillard after “From the Land of the Moon” for the story of a woman newly released from prison who takes a café job in a provincial town to approach Milo, a young mechanic unaware of their shared past. As buried tensions surface, both face the possibility of rebuilding a bond shattered decades earlier. From Garcia, a three-time Cannes competition contender (“From the Land of the Moon,” Selon Charlie,” “The Adversary”) And 14-time Cesar Award nominee.
“My Sad Dead,” (“Mis muertos tristes,” Pablo Larraín, Argentina-Chile)
Cast: Mercedes Morán, Dolores Fonzi, Carolina Álvarez
A world premiere. Ema, who can see and hear the dead, receives an unexpected visit from her niece Julie, who shares the same unsettling gift. As family secrets and wounds, resurface the entire neighborhood senses presences and hear the distinctive sounds of their own dead. Written by Larráin and among co-scribes, Guillermo Calderón, co-writer of “Neriuda” “El Conde,” and adapting Mariana Enríquez. “Mariana’s writing is particularly visual, always brilliant, and always dangerous. It’s a casual, domestic horror that inspires,” says Larraín.
“What Remains” (“Artakalan,” Yeşim Ustaoğlu, Turkey-France-Luxembourg-Bulgaria)
Cast: Öykü Karayel, Metin Akdülger, Ali Kayra Kul, İlyas Salman
The portrait of a poet’s attempt to reclaim her inner voice. Breaking free from a suffocating domestic order, she reconnects with her conscience and begins questioning accepted ideas of family and the meaning of life. Her choices also open a different path for those around her. Ustaoğlu returns to San Sebastián, where “Pandora’s Box” won the Golden Shell in 2008 and Tsilla Chelton shared the acting prize.
“Tender Loving Care,” (Mike Leigh, U.K./U.S./Singapore)
Cast: Marion Bailey, Paul Jesson, Kate O’Flynn, and Alice Bailey Johnson.
The latest from Leigh, a Cannes Palme d’Or winner with “Secrets and Lies” and multiple Oscar nominee, set to world premiere at Toronto, sold by Cornerstone with its split still under wraps save that it offers an “insightful exploration of the modern world.”