|
This year, the San Sebastian Festival programme will feature
a series of important names from world cinema, such as Adolfo
Aristarain, (Golden Shell in 1992 with Un lugar en el mundo),
François Dupeyron, (Golden Shell in 1999 with C’est
quoi la vie?), Robert Guédiguian, Goran Paskaljevic,
John Sayles (Retrospective in 1994), Carlos Sorín, (Special
Jury Prize in 2002 with Historias mínimas), Michael Winterbottom
(Retrospective in 2003).
As previously announced, the Festival will open with the special
screening of Woody Allen’s MELINDA AND MELINDA,
in which the director from New York combines romantic comedy
and drama, in a tale set in Manhattan, and starring, among others,
Will Ferrell, Jonny Lee Miller, Radha Mitchell, Amanda Peet,
Chloë Sevigny and Wallace Shawn. As one of the characters
says in the movie: “He’s depressed, he’s desperate,
he’s on the verge of suicide”. The laughs are served.
PREVIEW PROGRAMME
| Woody ALLEN |
MELINDA AND MELINDA, USA. Opening film
(Out of competition)
|
| |
|
| XU Jinglei |
A LETTER FROM AN UNKNOWN
WOMAN, China. |
| Carlos SORÍN |
BOMBON-EL PERRO, Argentina-Spain. |
| Susanne BIER |
BRØDRE (BROTHERS),
Denmark. |
| María Victoria MENIS |
EL CIELITO (LITTLE SKY), Argentina-France. |
| SONG Il-gon |
GEO-MI-SOOP (SPIDER FOREST),
South Korea. |
| Manolo MATJI |
HORAS DE LUZ, Spain. |
| François DUPEYRON |
INGUÉLÉZI, France. |
| Robert GUÉDIGUIAN |
MON PÈRE EST INGÉNIEUR (MY
FATHER IS AN ENGINEER), France. |
| Michael WINTERBOTTOM |
NINE SONGS, UK -USA |
| Pete TRAVIS |
OMAGH, Ireland-UK. |
| Adolfo ARISTARAIN |
ROMA, Spain-Argentina. |
| Goran PASKALJEVIC |
SAN ZIMSKE NOCI (A MIDWINTER
NIGHT'S DREAM), Serbia & Montenegro. |
| John SAYLES |
SILVER CITY, USA. |
| Víctor GAVIRIA |
SUMAS Y RESTAS, Colombia-Spain. |
| Daoud AOULAD-SYAD |
TARFAYA, Morocco-France. |
| Bahman GHOBADI |
TURTLES CAN FLY, Iran-Iraq. |
| 
|
A LETTER
FROM AN UNKNOWN WOMAN. Xu Jinglei. China. Cast: Xu Jinglei,
Jiang Wen. Competing for the Altadis-New Directors Award |
| To make her second
movie as a director, actress Xu Jinglei (My Father and I,
2003) decided to adapt Stefan Zweig’s novel, of which
there already exists a splendid adaptation by Max Ophüls.
Xu Jinglei’s oriental point of view endows with numerous
beautiful, sensitive and intelligent moments, the tale of
this unknown girl in love with an unsuspecting man tinged
with the gentle sadness and nostalgia of a love that could
have been but wasn’t. |
| 
|
BOMBON-EL
PERRO, Carlos Sorín. Argentina-Spain. Cast: Juan
Villegas. |
| Carlos Sorín
continues to explore Patagonia not only geographically,
but from inside his characters. In this case he focuses
on a jobless, solitary man and a dog which, without realising
it, will become not only his friend, but his hope for a
better life. Fourth work by the director who won the Special
Jury Prize in 2002 with Historias Mínimas. |
| 
|
BRØDRE
(BROTHERS) Susanne Bier. Denmark. Cast: Connie Nielsen,
Ulrik Thomsen, Nikolaj Lie Kaas. |
| Susanne Bier surprised
the San Sebastian Festival two years ago with a film entitled
Open Hearts. Now she’s back with a family melodrama
gradually spiralling into a drama of deeper echoes. A tale
of brothers and sisters whom, in war, pain and love, merge
into a triangle of unforeseeable consequences. |
| 
|
EL CIELITO
(LITTLE SKY). María Victoria Menis. Argentina-France.
Cast: Leonardo Ramírez, Dario Levy, Mónica
Lairana. |
| A young boy lands
a job in exchange for food and lodgings on a farm in a remote
village owned by a broken couple with a baby of which he
eventually takes charge. The film breathes a sense of observation
and gusto for little sparks of emotion. This movie is one
of the projects presented at last year’s Films in
Progress 4, at which it dazzled with its sensitive tale
of responsibility and love. |
| 
|
GEO-MI-SOOP
(SPIDER FOREST). SONG Il-gon. South Korea. Cast: KAM Woo-sung,
SUH Jung, KANG Kyeong-heon. Competing for the Altadis-New
Directors Award |
| Having fainted
and being found on a road, a young boy recalls having seen
two corpses in a small house in “spider forest".
Gradually, he discovers the mystery concealed by the forest
while the border between reality and the supernatural merge
into one another. The film, with its strange beauty, takes
its first steps as a noir thriller, eventually making its
way into the darkest corners of the human mind and soul.
Second movie by one of the most brilliant directors of new
Korean cinema, whose first feature, Flower Island, won the
Award for Best Opera Prima at Venice Festival in 2001. |
| 
|
HORAS
DE LUZ, Manolo Matji. Spain. Cast: Emma Suárez, Alberto
San Juan. |
| Juan José
Garfia and Marimar meet in 1991. He is condemned to more
than a hundred years and she works as a nurse in the prison
where he is serving his sentence. Together they start a
love story despite the opposition of their friends on both
sides of the bars. Thanks to Marimar, Garfia learns how
to say he's sorry. But the three murders he committed in
1987 bear heavily on his life and inexorably bring him into
confrontation with society. Can light emerge from the darkest
of darknesses? |
| 
|
INGUÉLÉZI.
François Dupeyron. France. Cast: Eric Caravaca, Marie
Payen. |
| This latest film
by the winner of the Golden Shell for C’est quoi la
vie? is a tale of reconciliation. A woman who has just lost
her husband finds herself, without quite knowing how, helping
a Kurdish immigrant in his quest to reach the UK. The two
characters immersed in this silent voyage search for a reason
to live. A remarkable about-turn in the career of a director
continuously seeking new filming methods in the endeavour
to tell his stories with more intimacy and energy. |
| 
|
MON PÈRE
EST INGÉNIEUR (My Father is an Engineer). Robert
Guédiguian. France. Cast: Ariane Ascaride, Jean-Pierre
Darroussin |
| He’s a doctor,
she’s a paediatrician, and they’ve been in love
since the age of 14. Every year they ask themselves whether
to continue the relation or end it. She finally decides
to end it because she doesn’t want to follow him in
his political career and prefers to set up her surgery in
a skid-row neighbourhood. One night she is raped by a fascist
neighbour proclaiming left-wing beliefs and ends up suffering
from catatonia. He, by now married with a daughter, returns
to cure her and continue their relationship. Guédiguian
and his regular actors offer us a film about political disenchantment
without straying from his line as a militant, committed
director. |
| 
|
NINE
SONGS. Michael Winterbottom. Gran Bretaña-EE.UU.
Int.: Margo Stilley, Kieran O’Brien. |
| The British director
to whom the Festival dedicated its last year’s Retrospective
never stops experimenting. In this case he has decided to
take a look at two subjects for which he has a real passion
–music and sex– from a completely different
angle than your unusual conventional cinema, following the
life of a couple who spend their nights at fantastic rock
concerts (Primal Scream, Franz Ferdinand, The Black Rebel
Motorcycle Club, etc.) and their days enjoying great and
explicitly portrayed sexual encounters. All filmed documentary-style
evolving into a beautiful love story. |
| 
|
OMAGH.
Pete Travis. Ireland-UK. Cast: Gerard McSorley, Michelle
Forbes. Competing for the Altadis-New Directors Award |
| Written and produced
by the director of Bloody Sunday, Paul Greengrass, this
movie recalls the terrible terrorist attack which took place
in Omagh on 15 August 1998, when a Real IRA bomb literally
massacred innocent people in the city centre. The investigations
of Michael Gallagher, who lost his 21-year-old son in the
attack, is the thread of a tale eventually turning into
a denunciation of the political situation of the time, while
portraying the racking pain of losing a loved one. |
| 
|
ROMA.
Adolfo Aristarain. Argentina-Spain. Cast: Juan Diego Botto,
José Sacristán, Susú Pecoraro. |
| Aristarain once
again works with José Sacristán and Juan Diego
Botto in a movie focussing on the memory. Based on the relationship
between an Argentine writer exiled in Spain and the youngster
helping him to write his biography, he portrays the Argentina
of the 50s, 60s and 70, featuring the predominant figure
of Roma, the writer’s mother. Latest work by the winner
of the Golden Shell in 1992 with Un lugar en el mundo (A
Place in the World). |
| 
|
SAN ZIMSKE
NOCI (A MIDWINTER NIGHT'S DREAM). Goran Paskaljevic. Serbia
& Montenegro. Cast: Lazar Ristovski, Jasna Zalica, Jovana
Mitic. |
Serbia, Winter
2004. Lazare returns home after ten long years of absence.
He is a different man today: having regained his liberty,
he has decided to free himself from the heavy burden of
his past and to start a new life in a country that also
seems to want a better future.
The apartment where he formerly lived is now occupied by
Jasna, a single mother who is raising her autistic 12-year-old
daughter Jovana. Refugees from Bosnia, they have been squatting
in Lazare's apartment for some time now. Jasna, whose husband
never accepted their daughter's autism and abandoned them,
also wishes to turn the page on a difficult past.
Since mother and daughter have nowhere else to go, Lazare
doesn't have the heart to make them leave. Little by little,
among these three beings marginalized by society, a special
kinship will develop... |
| 
|
SILVER
CITY. John Sayles. USA. Cast: Chris Cooper, Richard Dreyfuss,
Danny Huston. |
| John Sayles reunites
some of his favourite actors in a political tale set in
a small Colorado town during the election campaigns for
governor. An unexpected and bothersome corpse in the lake
sparks a plot unveiling the corruptions and mysteries of
North American political life. Richard Dreyfuss, Danny Huston,
Billy Zane, Tim Roth, Thora Birch, Daryl Hannah and Maria
Bello… in the choral cast of the latest work by the
director to whom the Festival dedicated a Retrospective
in 1994. |
| 
|
SUMAS
Y RESTAS. Víctor Gaviria. Colombia-Spain. Cast: Juan
Carlos Uribe, María Isabel Gaviria, Fredy York Monsalve,
Fabio Restrepo. |
| People of a certain
social position in Colombia, brought together by the cocaine
trafficking business, hounded by suspicion, jealousy and
betrayal, are drawn into a spiral of violence no-one can
stop. The director of the impressive La vendedora de rosas
(The Rose Seller), surprises us once again with his new
movie, portraying the lesser known aspect of the drug trade
in today’s Colombia. |
| 
|
TARFAYA.
Daoud Aoulad-Syad. Morocco-France. Cast: Touria Alaoui,
Mohamed Bastaoui, Mohamed Harraga. |
| The director of
Le cheval de vent, screened last year as part of our «Amongst
Friends and Neighbours, Open Door to the Maghreb»
Retrospective, now reflects the harrowing reality of the
immigrants who dream of arriving to the coast of Spain from
Africa in search of a better world as a universe of human
stories. One of these is the tale of Miyriam, a young 28-year-old
desperately trying to gain freedom. The hellish experience
of her attempts to succeed in her venture is the main theme
of this brave Moroccan movie. |
| 
|
TURTLES
CAN FLY, Bahman Ghobadi. Iran-Iraq. Cast: Avaz Latif, Soran
Ebrahim. |
| On the Iran-Iraq
border, weeks before the invasion of the latter by USA troops,
in a camp of Kurdish refugees attempting to escape from
Sadam’s repression, a kid who has taken the lead procures
a satellite dish to keep up-to-date with the news, translating
it as he sees fit, organizing mine defusing operations and
trying to help two Kurdish kids encumbered with a baby...
A comical opening for one of today’s tragedies. Latest
movie by one of the best Kurdish directors in Iran, author
among others of A Time for Drunken Horses, winner of the
Caméra d’Or at Cannes in 2000. |
|
