That Ernst Lubitsch (Berlin, 1892-Los Angeles, 1947) was one of the greatest creators in the history of film is an uncontested claim recognized the world over. A highly unusual filmmaker of a style demanding its own name: his inimitable, elegant and intelligent manner of making people laugh was labelled The Lubitsch Touch.

Billy Wilder, Joseph L. Mankiewicz, Woody Allen among so many other geniuses have always looked up to a master: Lubitsch. It was he who made Greta Garbo laugh in Ninotchka (1939). And who dared, in full swing of the Nazi offensive, to ridicule Hitler in the ferocious, hilarious anti-fascist pamphlet: To Be Or Not To Be (1942). These are fully recognised achievements by the creator of comedy masterpieces including The Shop Around the Corner (1940) or Bluebeard’s Eighth Wife (1938). However, less presence is enjoyed by the extraordinary anti-war drama Broken Lullaby (1932) or the large part of his work made while movies were still silent, from the inheritance of Oscar Wilde in his version of Lady Windermere’s Fan (1925) to the delicious inventiveness of Die Austernprinzessin (1919). The San Sebastian Festival will take an in-depth look at the complete works of Ernst Lubitsch in a retrospective completing an overview of a director who was more than just a stereotyped master of sophisticated comedy, underlining the palpable traces left by his cinema even today.

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