Today, 8th September, the San Sebastian International Film Festival held a press conference at which it announced this year’s Donostia Awards, the members of the different juries and the last selected titles.

DONOSTIA AWARDS

One of European cinema’s great veterans, face of Ingmar Bergman and versatile actor in the big USA productions, Max von Sydow; and one of the youngsters of America’s 80s generation whose skill has seen him mature until receiving an Academy Award nomination this year for Crash (2004), Matt Dillon, will receive the Donostia Awards at this year’s 54th San Sebastian International Film Festival.

Apart from their well-rounded personalities and having skilfully avoided typecasting without losing the particular features of their respective talents, Max von Sydow and Matt Dillon have added directing to their busy acting lives in a show of just how much they are capable of within their art.

With almost 130 films behind him as an actor, Max von Sydow is still fully active, having shot L’Inchiesta this year. And Matt Dillon has made two of his most acclaimed performances in the last two years, Factotum (2005) and Crash (2004).

MAX VON SYDOW

The dramatic strength of his face, his impressive figure and a talent for representing all aspects of the human being, from the vilest to the most delicate, have made Max von Sydow one of European cinema’s greatest actors, and one of the most continuously visible in North American cinema. Born in 1929 in Lund, Sweden, Max Von Sydow was a timid child who saw acting as a way of overcoming his communication problems with others. He first trained in dramatic art at the Stockholm Royal Academy, before debuting in cinema in 1949 with Alf Sjöberg’s Bara en mor. But he didn’t earn a solid place in the field until Ingmar Bergman added him to the cast of Det sjunde inseglet (The Seventh Seal, 1957), as the knight who challenges the Grim Reaper. Bergman saw in Max von Sydow a spokesman for his own concerns, making him into one of his must-be actors in films like Smultronstället (Wild Strawberries, 1957), Ansiktet (The Face, 1958), Jungfrukällan (The Virgin Spring, 1960), Sasom i en spegel (Through a Glass Darkly, 1961), Nattvardsgästerna (Winter Light, 1962), Vargtimmen (Hour of the Wolf, 1968) and Skammen (Shame, 1968), among others.

In 1965, he launched a far-reaching international career on playing Jesus in George Stevens’ The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965), continuing with the missioner in George Roy Hill’s Hawaii (1966), or the coronel in The Kremlin Letter (1970). The self-sacrificing peasant Karl Oskar from Jan Troell’s diptych, Utvandrarna (The Emigrants, 1971) and Nybyggarna (The New Land, 1972), was another of his great parts until the arrival of Father Merrin in William Friedkin’s The Exorcist (1973).

Max von Sydow has made brilliant appearances in numerous big North American productions: as the German captain in The Voyage of the Damned (1976) and Victory; the tyrant Ming of Flash Gordon (1980); King Osric in Conan the Barbarian (1982); and all sorts of villains like the one in Never Say Never Again (1983). And he has alternated this work with European productions by outstanding directors, including Valerio Zurlini’s Il Deserto dei Tartari (The Desert of the Tartars, 1976) and Bertrand Tavernier’s La mort en direct (Deathwatch, 1980). He worked for Woody Allen in Hannah and Her Sisters (1986), and in the Sweden of 1987 gave one of his most famous performances, precisely for a disciple of Bergman, Bille August, in Pelle erobreren (Pelle the Conquerer). As a self-denying father on a quest to find a better life for his son Pelle, Max von Syndow landed a nomination for the Oscar for Best Actor and garnered the European Film Award, among many others.

In 1988, in Sweden, he made his only film as a director, the romantic drama Ved vejen. With almost 130 titles on his filmography, including the Spanish film by Juan Carlos Fresnadillo, Intacto (2001), or Steven Spielberg’s Minority Report (2002), he continues to work tirelessly and has recently completed Giulio Base’s L’Inchiesta (The Inquiry, 2006).

MATT DILLON

From the moment Francis Ford Coppola gave depth to his teenage parts, until his recent excellent performances in Crash and Factotum, Matt Dillon has matured as one of the actors with greatest personality and charisma in North-American cinema. He landed his first parts thanks to his attractive phsyique and defiant expression. Born on 18th February 1964 in New Rochelle (Nueva York), Matthew Raymond Dillon was a student at Hommocks School when he was discovered by the talent-spotter responsible for his earliest parts. But it was two movies directed by Francis Ford Coppola, The Outsiders (1982) and Rumble Fish  (1983), that opened the road to greater things for Matt Dillon, who cleverly veered away from the “hard guy” stereotype to endow his characters with a melancholy and humanity soon to distinguish his always well-rounded presence, along the lines of mythical actors like Marlon Brando and Paul Newman.

Gene Hackman became his greatest influence when they coincided on Arthur Penn’s thriller, Target (1985), shortly after which he went on to become the gambler in The Big Town (1987). Far from trying to type-cast himself in big production movies, he put himself into the hands of the then scarcely even heard of Gus Van Sant, who gave him one of his most impressive parts, the heroin junkie in Drugstore Cowboy (1989). He worked again with the same director two years later, alongside Nicole Kidman, on To Die For (1995). By that time he had already found a place in independent cinema from which to demonstrate his versality, from the ambiguous character in James Dearden’s A Kiss Before Dying (1991), to romantic author comedies like Cameron Crowe’s Singles (1992); Ted Demme’s Beautiful Girls (1996) (which competed at San Sebastian Festival); or Allison Anders’ Grace of My Heart (1996), before returning to thrillers, with Kevin Spacey at the helm, on Albino Alligator (1996).

While convinced that comedy is what comes hardest to him, he has shown his potential for the genre with films like Frank Oz’ In & Out (1997), or his hilarious part as the private eye in Bobby and Peter Farrelly’s There’s Something About Mary (1998).

A keen jogger and lover of Cuban music, fervent vinyl-record collector and a fan of the New York Mets baseball team, Matt Dillon debuted as a director with the excellent thriller finely set in Cambodia, City of Ghosts (2002), for which he co-wrote the screenplay with Barry Gifford and played the leading part. Another actor, Kevin Bacon, directed Dillon in Loverboy (2005), before he became Henry Chinaski, the alter ego of fiction writer Charles Bukowski, in one of his best parts in Bent Hamer’s Factotum (2005). His part as the perverse yet sensitive cop in Paul Haggis’ Crash (2004) earned him Oscar and Golden Globe nominations as Best Supporting Actor, and an Independent Spirit Award, a prize he had already landed in 1990 as Best Actor for Drugstore Cowboy.

OPENING FILM

GHOSTS
UK
Director: Nick Broomfield
Cast: Ai Qin, Zhan Yu, Zhe Wei, Man Qin Wei

On 5th February 2004, 23 illegal Chinese immigrants died on the north coast of England while cockle picking. One of the few survivors of the tragedy, Ai Qin personally stars in the tale of her journey from China to England and the harsh working conditions she is obliged to face in the effort to secure a better life for her son. A movie based on real events shot on the border between fiction and documentary by one of genre's leading renovators, Nick Broomfield, director of the controversial Kurt & Courtney.

CLOSING FILM

LONELY HEARTS
USA
Director: Todd Robinson
Cast: John Travolta, James Gandolfini, Salma Hayek, Jared Leto, Laura Dern.

In the 40s, Martha Beck and Raymond Fernandez were the most wanted couple in America. Known as the "Lonely Hearts Killers", these lovers of duplicity, easy money and kinky sex would swindle and viciously murder the war widows and wealthy women unlucky enough to answer the personal ads in which Ray would describe himself as a sexy Latin Lover. Martha posed as his sister. They committed around twenty crimes. Detective Elmer C. Robinson participated in their capture in 1949. Lonely Hearts reconstructs these true facts.

Two new titles in Zabaltegi-Pearls and a Zabaltegi Special Screening round off the selection of films available for viewing at the 54th Festival:

ZABALTEGI – PEARLS

THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA (Zabaltegi closing film)
USA
Director: David Frankel
Cast: Meryl Streep, Anne Hathaway, Stanley Tucci, Simon Baker.

Run by the all-powerful Miranda Priestly, Runway magazine is feared by anyone wanting to make it in the dizzy world of fashion in New York. To make Runway the bible of world fashion, Miranda has had to wipe out everything that lay in her path… including a long list of personal assistants who didn't measure up for a job that millions of youngsters would die for. Andy Sachs, fresh out of college, slovenly and who has nothing to do with the world of haute couture, doesn't seem to be the ideal person for the job but her determination and drive mean that Miranda finally finds her ideal assistant.

SHUT UP AND SING
USA
Directors: Barbara Kopple and Cecilia Peck

In 2003, during a gig in London, the country music group Dixie Chicks spoke out against President Bush. From being one of the country groups to sell most albums, they were boycotted by the American radio and press, putting out a tremendously negative image of its members, who even received death threats. The documentary made by the multi-awardwinning Barbara Kopple and Cecilia Peck, follows the political, artistic and human progress of the group through these years while offering a critical image of the USA under Bush.

ZABALTEGI – SPECIAL SCREENINGS

HÉCUBA, UN SUEÑO DE PASIÓN,
Spain
Directors: José Luis López-Linares and Arantxa Aguirre

What does the profession of an actor involve?. What are the reasons that lead an apparently normal person to put themselves in other characters' shoes and experience their joys and anguish?. Through testimony from the cream of Spanish cinema ranging from Carmen Maura to Antonio Banderas, and including Victoria Abril, Emilio Gutiérrez Caba, Fernando Fernán-Gómez and many others, and making intelligent use of excerpts that illustrate their respective careers, the famous documentary maker José Luis López Linares shows the reality of the situation of the acting profession, with all its ups and downs.

THE JURIES

• OFFICIAL JURY
  • Jeanne Moreau (Chairwoman)
  • Bruno Barreto
  • Isabel Coixet
  • Sara Driver
  • Bruno Ganz
  • Manuel Gómez Pereira
  • José Saramago
    
    
• JURY – ALTADIS-NEW DIRECTORS AWARD
  • Patricia Reyes Spíndola (Chairwoman)
  • Gilbert Adair
  • Carlos Losilla
  • Susana de Moraes
  • Per Nielsen
  • Martine Offroy
  • Kirmen Uribe

This same Jury will grant the Montblanc Award for New Screenwriters

• JURY – HORIZONTES AWARD
  • Román Chalbaud (Chairman)
  • Lola Millás
  • Jorge Ruffinelli