New films by Arnaud Desplechin, Kentaro Hirase and Yutaro Seki, Agnieszka Holland, Milagros Mumenthaler, and Alice Winocour will compete for the coveted Golden Shell at the 73rd San Sebastián International Film Festival. The fest, taking place over Sept. 19-27 in the Basque city, is the biggest film event in the Spanish-speaking world.
French auteur Desplechin will take part for the first time in the festival’s Official Selection, playing in its main competition, with “Two Pianos,” in which a virtuoso pianist returns to his hometown of Lyon after a long absence to experience a story of impossible love. The film’s cast includes François Civil, Nadia Tereszkiewicz, Charlotte Rampling and Hippolyte Girardot.
Renowned Polish filmmaker Agnieszka Holland returns to San Sebastián competition with “Franz,” an ambitious biopic of iconic Czech writer Franz Kafka, while Alice Winocour brings the star power to the seaside city with the Angelina Jolie-led “Couture,” trailing three women whose paths cross during Paris’s bustling fashion week. Jolie is joined in the cast by Louis Garrel, Anyier Anei, and Ella Rumpf.
Kentaro Hirase and Yutaro Seki, who were part of the New Directors strand at the festival in 2022 with “Roleless,” will compete in the Official Selection with their sophomore effort, “SAI: Disaster.” Lauded Japanese actor Teruyuki Kagawa stars in this dark tale following a mysterious man who tragically enters the lives of people under different identities.
Argentine filmmaker Milagros Mumenthaler is another San Sebastián veteran, back in town with “The Currents,” which tells the story of an Argentine stylist who must confront hidden truths of her past following an incident after an awards ceremony in Switzerland. The film has been picked up by Paris-based sales agent Luxbox Films ahead of its world premiere in Toronto.
“Franz” courtesy of San Sebastián Film Festival
These titles join the four previously announced Spanish productions that will also compete in the Official Selection: “Maspalomas,” by Jose Mari Goenaga and Aitor Arregi; “Good Valley Stories,” by José Luis Guerin; “Los Tigres,” by Alberto Rodríguez, and “Sundays” (“Los Domingos”), by Alauda Ruiz de Azúa. The remainder of the competition will be announced in the coming weeks.
More details on the films added to the San Sebastián competition below:
“Two Pianos” (“Deux pianos”)
Director: Arnaud Desplechin
Country of production: France
Cast: François Civil, Nadia Tereszkiewicz, Charlotte Rampling, Hippolyte Girardot
Returning to France after a long exile, pianist Mathias Vogler reunites with his mentor, Elena, to prepare a concert. In a park, an encounter with a child who looks just like him will lead him to Claude, the woman he once loved.
“SAI: disaster” (“SAI”)
Director: Yutaro Seki, Kentaro Hirase
Country of production: Japan
Cast: Teruyuki Kagawa, Anne Nakamura, Kaito Miyachika, Pistol Takehara
Four people lead ordinary lives in different places, their paths never crossing. A mysterious man appears in each story, always as someone else. One moment, a cram school instructor; the next, a truck driver, a barber – his identity constantly shifting. Then, death strikes. A detective pursues the truth, closing in on a revelation…
“Franz”
Director: Agnieszka Holland
Countries of production: Czech Republic, Germany, Poland
Cast: Idan Weiss, Peter Kurth, Jenovéfa Boková, Ivan Trojan, Sandra Korzeniak
Award-winning director Agnieszka Holland is embarking on her most ambitious project to date, a biopic of the iconic 20th-century Czech writer Franz Kafka. Conceived as a kaleidoscopic mosaic, the film follows the imprint Kafka left on the world from his birth in 19th-century Prague to his death in post-WW1 Vienna. Franz will give the audience a brand new perspective on the life of the man behind the literary giant.
“The Currents” (“Las Corrientes”)
Director: Milagros Mumenthaler
Countries of production: Switzerland, Argentina
Cast: Isabel Aimé González Sola, Esteban Bigliardi
At the height of her career, Lina, a 34-year-old Argentine stylist, is driven by a sudden impulse after an award ceremony in Switzerland. Back in Buenos Aires, she says nothing, but something in her has shifted – quiet and invisible, it subtly unravels a past she thought she had left behind.
“Couture”
Director: Alice Winocour
Countries of production: France, USA
Cast: Angelina Jolie, Anyier Anei, Ella Rumpf, Louis Garrel
In the frenzy of Fashion Week, three women cross paths in Paris, grappling with the world’s tragedies and the questions of their lives: Maxine, an American film director in her forties, discovers she has cancer; Ada, a young South Sudanese model, escapes a predetermined destiny to be thrust into a deceptive universe and French makeup artist Angèle, a small hand working in the shadows of the catwalks, dreams of escaping her life.
