San Sebastian Film Festival ::

Rouben Mamoulian

USA

Greta Garbo's talent has made this film an essential classic. Her performance as the queen who lived like a boy and who abdicated for love is still one of her best, especially for the expression on her face in the final shot. Many people renamed the film ?Queen Garbo of Sweden?.

A Woman Rebels

Mark Sandrich

USA

A classic with Katharine Hepburn in the role of a young English girl who challenges the conventionality of the Victorian period by deciding not to get married and to organise her life on her own. A lively melodrama that Hepburn intended to provide support for the struggle for women's rights, its first title, ?Portrait of a rebel?, wasn't approved.

Every Day’s a Holiday

A. Edward Sutherland

USA

Mae West was the sexual revolutionary of the 1930s, constantly involved in lawsuits with the censors and the police. This film is one of the best examples of the daring way that she talked about taboo subjects and of her biting sense of humour. She not only sells Brooklyn Bridge but also wins a political election by standing in for her boyfriend.

Jezebel

William Wyler

USA

The rebellious girl from the South who chooses a red dress for the great annual ball when tradition requires single women to wear white, seems to be a character that is tailor-made for Bette Davis. In actual fact she won her first Oscar for this film while its director, William Wyler, won an award at the Venice Film Festival.

L’onorevole Angelina / Angelina

Luigi Zampa

Italy

At the height of Italian neo-realism, this indirect reflection on power won the great Anna Magnani an award for her performance at the Venice Festival. The way she builds up the character of a hungry courageous mother who leads a group that protests against speculators is utterly brilliant.

Sólo para hombres / For Men Only

Fernando Fernán-Gómez

Spain

Based on the theatrical comedy Sublime decisión by Miguel Mihura, it tells in highly humorous fashion the story of the scandal caused by the decision of a girl of marriageable age to choose to start work instead of waiting for a fiancé to appear. An ironic satire of the Spain of the Restoration period and an intelligent manifesto about the social limitations of the role of wo...

Based on the theatrical comedy Sublime decisión by Miguel Mihura, it tells in highly humorous fashion the story of the scandal caused by the decision of a girl of marriageable age to choose to start work instead of waiting for a fiancé to appear. An ironic satire of the Spain of the Restoration period and an intelligent manifesto about the social limitations of the role of women.

La vieille dame indigne / The Shameless Old Lady

René Allio

France

Based on a story by Bertolt Brecht, it tells the story of an 82-year-old woman who when she becomes widowed, feels liberated and starts to live life on her own, in the face of the scandalised reaction of her relatives. It was considered to be the best film of the year by French critics, and the veteran actress Sylvie was awarded a prize by American critics.

7 Women

John Ford

USA

Without a precise historical context although it's set in the 1930s, the film tells the story of the sacrifice made by an agnostic doctor to save the lives of a group of missionaries kidnapped by a "Chinese warlord". A portrait of women from different social classes with a variety of moral outlooks, with an extraordinary Anne Bancroft in the leading role.

La Raulito

Lautaro Murúa

Argentina

The story of an innocent deprived young girl who struggles to achieve her independence, told with great sincerity and verve, with an admirable performance by Marilina Ross. It was a big hit in Spain, which helped its authors to flee into exile from the bloody military governments in their country.

Retrato de Teresa / Portrait of Teresa

Pastor Vega

Cuba

A textile worker, married with 3 children, joins a theatre group. Her husband doesn't approve of the fact that she doesn't devote all her free time to him. A critique of the male chauvinism of the Cuban revolution, which won Daisy Granados the Prize for best actress at the Moscow Film Festival for her courageous recreation of a woman who wants to be free.

Norma Rae

Martin Ritt

USA

The growing awareness of a naïve woman who has the courage to demand her union rights is "told with passionate sensitivity and complex simplicity", according to the critic Angel Fernández-Santos. The director and actress won awards at the Cannes Film Festival. Sally Field also won an Oscar for her performance in 1980.

Messidor

Alain Tanner

France - Switzerland

Two girls meet by chance on the road and decide to share their adventures on a journey, perhaps in search of an impossible dream. However, reality will soon provide them with all sorts of obstacles. A perceptive chronicle by Alain Tanner about his native Switzerland, and by extension, about a society that won't allow anyone to step out of line.

Gloria

John Cassavetes

USA

A woman who's been around a lot runs off together with a six-year-old boy who she wants to defend from the mafia that she herself is mixed up with. A fascinating portrait of an unusual character and an unfamiliar New York, it was awarded the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival, and its actress, Gena Rowlands, was nominated for an Oscar.

Dolores

José Luis García Sánchez, Andrés Linares

Spain

A biographical sketch of Dolores Ibárruri La Pasionaria, "a symbol of Communist fighting spirit for some, a symbol of the red peril for others, but beyond either of these ideological positions, Dolores Ibárruri represents the miracle that gave a voice to a social class doomed not to have one" in the words of Manuel Vázquez Montalbán.

Frances

Graeme Clifford

USA

As they weren't prepared to put up with her constantly rebellious attitude, the actress Frances Farmer was accused by the Hollywood studios of being insane, which meant that she was shut away in various mental hospitals. A biopic in which Jessica Lange gives a magnificent performance as the legendary actress. She was nominated for an Oscar for this.

Rosa Luxemburg

Margarethe von Trotta

Germany - Czechoslovakia

Biography of the socialist revolutionary who founded the Spartakus party, murdered by soldiers in 1919. The film, which didn't come out in Spain, provides an overview of her private life and her political thinking, which was always critical of the Left in which she was politically active. At the Cannes Film Festival the actress Barbara Sukowa won an award for her sensitive perf...

Biography of the socialist revolutionary who founded the Spartakus party, murdered by soldiers in 1919. The film, which didn't come out in Spain, provides an overview of her private life and her political thinking, which was always critical of the Left in which she was politically active. At the Cannes Film Festival the actress Barbara Sukowa won an award for her sensitive performance in the role of an extraordinarily complex fascinating character.

Thelma & Louise

Ridley Scott

USA

Two women worn down by the mediocrity of their lives go on a long journey in search of freedom. A furiously-paced generous story, that has already become a classic, it won the Oscar for best original script and was nominated for five more, including nominations for the director and for the actresses Geena Davis and Susan Sarandon.

Fried Green Tomatoes

Jon Avnet

USA - UK

Based on the best seller by Fannie Flag, a Pulitzer Prize candidate, this comedy melodrama was nominated for two Oscars for acting performances but it could have been nominated for several more. Interwoven stories about women tyrannised by their husbands in 1930's Alabama. The secret of life? It's in the sauce.

Meeting Two Queens

Cecilia Barriga

Spain

A short film made with archive material which in highly humorous fashion brings together the two greatest stereotypes from the Mecca of film, Greta Garbo and Marlene Dietrich, as if this was a love story between them.

Sara

Dariush Mehrjui

Iran

Presented with the Golden Shell and the award for best actress (Niki Karimi) at the San Sebastian Festival in 1993 this is a free version of Ibsen's Doll's House; all the more surprising as it comes from a country like Iran, where women's liberation is still an illusion. It also won the Audience Prize at the Nantes Film Festival.

Mujeres insumisas / Untamed Women

Alberto Isaac

Mexico

Four Mexican women decide to ditch their husbands and children to live in freedom. Their doubts and their various adventures form a comedy with dramatic touches in which the ever-combative Patricia Reyes Spíndola stands out. Another fine actress, Margarita Isabel, won the Mexican acting awards that year.

Dolores Claiborne

Taylor Hackford

USA

Is Dolores Claiborne a murderer? A delivery man has seen her trying to finish off her employer. Did she murder her husband years ago just like the inspector believes? Will her daughter be able to save her, even though she hates her? A Stephen King novel turned into an exciting film dominated by a stunning performance by Kathy Bates.

Agnes Browne

Anjelica Huston

USA - Ireland

Second full-length film by Anjelica Huston, it won the Youth Award at the San Sebastian Film Festival in 1999. A bittersweet tragicomedy about an Irish fruit seller who when she is widowed has to feed her 8 children. Portrait of a mother courage who combines naivety and strength of spirit.

Boys Don’t Cry

Kimberly Peirce

USA

Hilary Swank hogged the acting awards in this year, including the Oscar and Golden Globe for her sensitive performance as the young Brandon Teena, the girl who wanted to be a boy. This story about freedom of sexual choice, based on real events, has been the only full-length film that the director Kimberly Peirce has made up to now.

Inch’Allah dimanche / Inch’Allah Sunday

Yamina Benguigui

Algeria - France

An Algerian husband demands that his wife come to France, where he works. Accompanied by her tyrannical mother-in-law and her 3 children, Zouina will have to face up to a hostile new world and at the same time to domestic tyranny. It won awards at festivals in Toronto, Marrakech, Bordeaux and Amiens.

Bend It Like Beckham

Gurinder Chadha

UK - Germany

A huge hit at the box-office in Britain, this carefree comedy tells the story of the lengths that a British-Asian girl goes to in order to play football, which her family frowns on. The youngster's adventures are an intelligent metaphor for ignorance of other cultures and the problems that emigrants have integrating into society.

Heroína / Heroin

Gerardo Herrero

Spain

A group of mothers of young heroin addicts decides to organise themselves to fight against drug trafficking and save their children from drugs. This is the true story of the Galician Carmen Avendaño (played by Adriana Ozores) and some other spirited women, who show that utopias can become reality.

Ni locas ni terroristas

Cecilia Barriga

Spain

A 50-minute documentary that rounds off the fictional film Heroína by Gerardo Herrero, which is also being shown in this short season. The Chilean director Cecilia Barriga investigates the story of the five women who in 1984 decided to stand up to the drug dealers, tormented by the fact that their children have been trapped or killed by drugs.