Presentation of the Donostia Award to the Japanese filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki kicked off the 71st San Sebastian Festival, whose opening gala provided the opportunity to present the programme and celebrate animated cinema. Eva Hache and Gorka Otxoa presented the ceremony at the Kursaal Auditorium and promised a “feast” of cinema over nine days in which 232 titles will screen in different sections.

“Thank you to the San Sebastian Festival for this prestigious award. Right now, I am in the studio every day creating exhibitions for the Ghibli Park. I hope you enjoy the film”, said Miyazaki in a video sent to the Festival in which he poses beside the Donostia Award statuette. Immediately afterwards, the audience enjoyed the European premiere of the opening film, Kimitachi wa do iki ruka / The Boy and the Heron, the new work by the Japanese master of animation.

José Luis Rebordinos, director of the Festival, presented the award to Hayao Miyazaki, and he said that "the profound content of his stories is accompanied by a masterful mise-en-scène and an artistic proposal of great beauty". "In addition, he has created worlds and characters that make us dream and travel inside his mind, the mind of an intelligent man with an extraordinary imagination who makes us a little better with his films", he concluded.

This year, another two animated films will participate in the Official Selection: El sueño de la sultana / Sultana’s Dream, by Isabel Herguera, and They Shot the Piano Player, by Fernando Trueba and Javier Mariscal. Thus, the gala taken through its steps by Mireia Gabilondo and written by Bob Pop included a video looking back at the images of several animated movies to have screened at the festival, including, among many others, One Hundred and One Dalmatians (1961), Kalabaza tripontzia (1985), Vals Im Bashir / Waltz with Bashir (2008), Futbolín (2013), Spirited Away (2001), The Boy and The Beast (2015) and Black is beltza (2018).

Artists including Sofía Otero, Ane Gabarain, Kepa Errasti, Dolores Fonzi, Telmo Irureta, Bob Pop and Cayetana Guillén Cuervo participated in the gala at which the British actor Dominic West presented the FIPRESCI Grand Prix. For the third time, this distinction has gone to the Finnish moviemaker Aki Kaurismäki for the film Kuolleet ledhet / Fallen Leaves, included in Perlak. The award was collected on his behalf by Stefan Schmitz, Director General of the production and distribution company, Avalon.

"A PLACE OF CREATION"

Also making an appearance on stage were the members of the Official Jury who have the task of deciding the Golden Shell and the other festival awards: the French filmmaker Claire Denis, president of the Jury; the Chinese actress Fan Bingbing; the Colombian producer, director and writer Cristina Gallego; the French photographer Brigitte Lacombe; the Hungarian producer Robert Lantos; the Spanish actress Vicky Luengo, and the German filmmaker Christian Petzold.

In her speech, Claire Denis referred to the responsibility of chairing a jury as a “challenge”. “A film festival is something very exciting, a place of creation where it’s not the competition that matters. All the members of the jury are driven by a commitment to cinema and that will be the spirit that guides us. Thank you and happy festival," she said.

Art Deco style set was created by Cesc Calafell while Audience, a band from Gernika, had the task of providing the music at the gala with their live songs. One of the most moving moments of the evening came when María Berasarte sang Al alba, by Luis Eduardo Aute, in memory of the recently deceased persons to whom this edition is dedicated: Manolo Pérez Estremera, Guadalupe Echevarría, Tito García Camino, Berenice Reynaud, Jose Luis Rubio and Seve Sánchez.