72nd San Sebastian Festival - 20/28 September 2023
71SSIFF - 22/30 September 2023
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Z365" or "Festival all year round" is the new strategic point of the Festival in which converge investigation, accompaniment and development of new talents (Ikusmira Berriak, Nest); training and cinematic knowledge transfer (Elías Querejeta Zine Eskola, Zinemaldia + Plus, Filmmakers' dialogue); and investigation, disclosure and cinematic thought (Z70 project, Thought and Discussion and Research and publications).
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Agenda
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Cold fever
Films
Films
Cold fever
Cold fever
Per Fly
Denmark
115 min.
Although he belongs to the fourth generation of a dynasty of Danish steelworks owners, Christoffer has chosen to leave the family business and open a restaurant in Stockholm, where he is happily married to Maria, a Swedish actress. But when his father commits suicide, his mother demands that he come home to take over as managing director of the company. Inheritance won Jury Award for Best Screenplay at the San Sebastian Festival in 2003.
Lars von Trier
Denmark
158 min.
Bess, an innocent young woman who thinks she can speak to God, lives in a Scottish town governed by the strict Calvinist moral imposed by the elders. She marries Jan, a worker on a nearby oil rig and the two live blissfully while the experienced Jan introduces her to the mysteries of sex. However, obliged to return to work, Jan is paralysed in an accident. Bess cares for him with devotion and prays for his recovery. Jan, permanently medicated and severely depressed, proposes that Bess has relations with other men in the belief that it will help her to return to normal life.
Lars von Trier
Denmark
106 min.
A big party being thrown at Helge Klingenfeldt?s mansion for his 60th birthday has brought family and friends together around the patriarch and his loyal wife, Else. Helge asks his eldest son Christian to make a speech in remembrance of his twin sister Linda, who died a year ago. To everyone?s surprise, Christian accuses his father of having sexually abused both himself and his sister, giving the festivities an unexpected twist.
Lone Scherfig
Denmark
112 min.
A young, recently widowed minister arrives to his new placement in a small Danish town where his predecessor had upset the locals. He enrols for an Italian nightclass where he meets a group of people to whom fate has dealt quite serious blows. As the course advances, they all find a new will to live and come to see their futures in a more optimistic light.
Lone Scherfig
Denmark
117 min.
The modern welfare state is so rationally well-organised that special effort is required to let yourself go and follow your instincts. A group of young men and women turn their backs on established society and form a commune where they can cultivate their inner idiots. They provoke those in and outside of the group by pretending to be retarded. But is there more to their antics than casual role-playing? Where does the game end and reality begin?
Susanne Bier
Denmark
113 min.
Cecilie and Joachim are young and in love. They are considering marriage and have their whole lives ahead of them; but everything suddenly goes pear-shaped. Things change not only for Cecilie and Joachim, but also for Marie and Niels, who are both in their late thirties, have three children and enjoy a marital bliss sorely put to the test when Niels falls passionately in love with Cecilie. The question is whether Niels and Cecilie are ready to give up everything for the sake of their love.
Peter Schønau Fog
Denmark
100 min.
Life isn?t easy for 11-year-old Allan. His father regularly threatens to kill himself, his mother has given up, his older brother has moved out, his elder sister spends her nights on the couch with his father and the small family dairy store is lagging badly. His father lives for the times he gets to recite his famously eloquent eulogies and make mourners weep in chorus. Soon, Allan is lending a hand to make sure there are enough funerals to keep his father happy. The Art of Crying won the Youth Award at San Sebastian Festival in 2006.
Christoffer Boe
Denmark
93 min.
When Lene, the wife of famous Danish actor Nicolas Bro, tells her husband that she no longer loves him, Nicolas tries to save his marriage by filming a love story in which they play the starring part. His friend and film director Christoffer Boe lends him a camera and advises him to record everything, a remark which Bro takes a little too literally as the constant filming succeeds in driving his friends round the bend while Lene leaves for Berlin.
Anders Morgenthaler
Denmark
80 min.
When his sister Christina, a former porn star known as ?The Princess?, dies of an overdose, August has to leave his profession as a missionary to come home and look after his orphaned 5-year-old niece, Mia. August decides to avenge his sister?s death and, dragging Mia along behind him, sets out to destroy all of the pornographic work in which her mother appears, while desperately trying to protect the child as the only precious thing in his life.
Nicolas Winding Refn
Denmark
105 min.
Frank and his friend Tony are small-time pushers who sell the heroin supplied by Milo, a dealer from the former Yugoslavia. Busted by the police when one of the deals goes wrong, Frank is released due to lack of evidence. Only then does he realise just how much he owes Milo, who gives him two days to come up with the money or die.
Pernille Fischer Christensen
Denmark
104 min.
Unhappy, 32-year-old Charlotte leaves her boyfriend and moves into the flat next to Veronica, a transsexual who thrives on romantic TV soaps. Veronica has applied for a sex change and is waiting for her operation to receive the all-clear. The two girls meet and fall in love, but their emotions are sorely put to the test when Veronica?s sex change finally comes through.
Aki Kaurismäki
Finland
96 min.
Ilona is head waitress at the old-fashioned restaurant Dubrovnik and her husband Lauri is a tram driver. Shortly after Lauri loses his job, the Dubrovnik closes its doors. Lauri is too proud to live on social security and Ilona hardly earns anything in her new job. Hope arrives when Ilona gets the chance to open a new restaurant with some of her former workmates from the Dubrovnik.
Aleksi Salmenperä
Finland
100 min.
Worried about his wife?s mental health, Juha decides to keep the fact that he has lost his job a secret. He spends his days at a remote service station trying to think of a way out of the situation. Suddenly he finds himself naked, brushing the hair of a woman he has never met before, earning in two hours what it took him two days to earn in his old job. With the help of his friend Olli, Juha starts selling his body in earnest, despite his shame and the increasing number of lies he has to tell.
Aki Kaurismäki
Finland
97 min.
A man travelling to Helsinki in search of work is mugged and loses his memory, obliging him to start anew among the homeless and the outcast. He discovers love and other values with which he?s not ashamed to live. A little story about people who still know how to be kind. A Man Without a Past received the FIPRESCI Grand Prix for Best Film of the Year at the opening gala of San Sebastian Festival in 2002.
Aku Louhimies
Finland
130 min.
Tuomas is a young hacker who wants to do something important and useful for society. His best friend, Niko, leads a hedonistic life related to the world of alcohol and drugs. Elina is a young activist studying history and political science at university. She and Tuomas have been going out together for over a year and are planning to get married. Things are going fine until Niko forges a ?500 note and Tuomas and Elina launch a virus onto a computer network.
Ragnar Bragason
Iceland
93 min.
Karitas, a single mother of four, is desperately trying to make ends meet. Fighting a losing battle for custody of her three daughters, she?s oblivious to what?s going on with her 12-year-old son Gudmund, a victim of school bullying. Meanwhile, Gardar, a thug turned debt collector exiled from the criminal underworld and his family looking to make a fresh start in life decides to seek out Gudmund, the son he?s never seen. But his unexpected arrival in the boy?s life proves to be the catalyst for a chain-reaction of dramatic events.
Ragnar Bragason
Iceland
120 min.
Oscar, a dentist married for five years, lives with his wife and adopted children. But he?s not a happy man; he wants to have a baby of his own. Einar is a stockbroker highly successful at work but not, unfortunately, in his personal life. He has been living in a hotel for a couple of months waiting for his wife to realise the terrible mistake she made on throwing him out. Katrin Rose returns from Sweden, where she has been living for eight years, with the intention of recovering her 11-year-old son, brought up by his grandmother, and making a fresh start in Iceland.
Baltasar Kormákur
Iceland
109 min.
Thordur, a feared and respected patriarch, invites his children back to the village. He wants to set his affairs in order: their mother?s legacy and the family business, which has made him one of the most powerful men in the small fishing community. His hopes rest on Agust, his younger son, a Business Management student in Paris. But Agust has other, very different ideas for the future. The family meeting doesn?t go to plan as old ghosts rise to the surface.
Hilmar Oddsson
Iceland
93 min.
What could be better than knowing your future? And what could be worse? A love-filled childhood abruptly ends in a catastrophe that the child had foreseen yet failed to act upon. A 40-year-old man hides in a self-made prison of mundane life. Until he finally dares to break his isolation and confront his past. Amid the turbulence, the web surrounding him like a wall cutting off the light to his existence starts giving way.
Fridrik Thor Fridriksson
Iceland
85 min.
Atsushi Hirata, a young Tokyo businessman, gives up a golfing holiday in Hawaii to perform a memorial service for his parents, who died seven years ago. The ceremony can only be carried out at the place of their death, in this case a remote Icelandic river. He sets off on an arduous and eventful voyage nevertheless helping him to find himself.
Dagur Kári
Iceland
92 min.
Sick of living in a remote Icelandic village, 17-year-old Noi only dreams of leaving the place. He is a difficult student and looks strange: tall, very pale and completely bald. He spends his time in the cellar behind his grandmother?s house until he meets Iris, the petrol station attendant, and makes plans to escape with her. The glacial beauty of the surroundings envelope Noi?s past and present, finally swallowing up his future in a devastating ending, as foretold by Gylfi, the local fortune teller.
Jens Lien
Norway
95 min.
40-year-old Andreas arrives in a strange city with no memory of how he got there to find that he has a job, an apartment and even a wife. But it doesn?t take long for him to realise that all is not well. Trying to escape from the city, he discovers that there?s no way out. He meets Hugo, who has found a crack in his cellar wall through which beautiful music can be heard. Perhaps it leads to ?the other side?. A new plan for escape is hatched.
Pål Sletaune
Norway
85 min.
Roy is a postman with absolutely no professional scruples who opens other people?s mail and even throws some of it into the bin without delivering it. One day, the mysterious and attractive young Line leaves her keys in the letterbox. Hesitating for a few moments, Roy finally heads for her flat and opens the door. Roy?s life takes on a new direction from then on as he gets into something much more dangerous than simply opening other peoples? letters.
Bent Hamer
Norway
86 min.
Moe and Far are two brothers in their seventies. With the exception of Far?s weekend trip to Småland (Sweden) on his moped during the war, they have lived together all their lives. The phone rings suddenly one day. A Swedish voice says that Konrad, the son conceived by Far on his trip to Småland, has to come and stay with them for a while because his mother is seriously ill.
Hans Petter Moland
Norway
113 min.
in 1928, the young writer Henrik Larsen joins a Greenland hunting expedition. His group comprises Holm, an experienced hunter, and Randbæk, the expedition leader. Randbæk realises that Larsen is the greenhorn of the party and tries to exploit him. He doesn?t give him a moment?s rest, causing frequent arguments between the two. On Christmas Eve, after a particularly violent fight, Larsen and Randbæk discover that Holm has disappeared. Kjærlighetens kjøtere won the Special Jury Prize at San Sebastian Festival in 1995.
Bård Breien
Norway
79 min.
Geirr, 33, severely handicapped in a traffic accident, is so bitter that his girlfriend Ingvild, 30, doesn?t know what to do with him. In an attempt to save their relationship, Ingvild invites a ?positivity group? to the house. Geirr takes the endeavour as an invasion and not only refuses to consider anything from an optimistic point of view, but also gradually drags the rest of the group towards anguish and despair.
Mona J. Hoel
Norway
102 min.
The whole family happily makes its way to a rented cabin in the mountains for Christmas. But it turns out to be way too small: its frozen walls have to contain a cramped mum and dad, the four children with their respective familes, a dog and the Polish in-laws. Outside it?s 30º below zero...
Bent Hamer
Norway
95 min.
During the postwar period, experts from the Swedish Home Research Institute discovered that simply organising kitchen tasks to resemble factory assembly lines could mean enormous savings in the family budget. They therefore decided to extend their research beyond the behaviour of the Swedish housewife. To do the job, they sent 18 observers to the rural area of Landstad, in Norway, well known for its high surplus of single men, to study their kitchen routines.
Erik Richter Strand
Norway
99 min.
Lars, 25, has a temper that?s always gotten him into trouble. Learning that an elderly man is fooling around with the teenage boys in his suburb triggers a terrible rage in him and he embarks on a crusade to stop the hypothetical pervert. But things soon spin out of control, endangering those he set out to protect.
Marius Holst
Norway
96 min.
13-year-old Otto is about to spend an unforgettable summer. He?ll soon have secrets to keep as he learns much more about life than his friends who?ve gone to summer camp. Above all, it?s the summer when he meets Frank, a mysterious ruffian who turns up when everyone else is on holiday, asking him: ?Have you never done anything wrong before??
Aksel Hennie
Norway
103 min.
25-year-old David has few prospects for the future. He spends his days hanging around with petty criminals at a downtown Oslo gym. Still, it beats being at home: his father is terminally ill, his brother suffers from Down?s syndrome and he?s unable to communicate with his mother. Until one day he?s forced to take responsibility for his brother while fending off his former underworld sidekicks. But having lost everything gives him the chance to start over.
Simon Staho
Sweden - Denmark
95 min.
Dag og Nat is about people who love and want to be loved. It?s the story of a father, his young son, his unfaithful wife, her secret lover, his young mistress, his lonely sister, his forgetful mother, a fanatical football coach, a pregnant prostitute and an angel disguised as an old man. They?re all looking for the answer to the same question: If love is the answer, what?s the question?
Lukas Moodysson
Sweden
98 min.
A Hole in My Heart is a film about a father and his son and a girl and a friend. The father works in the porn industry making home-made films in his apartment. The son hates his father?s profession and stays most of the time in his own room and within his own imagination. The girl and the friend have just arrived to the father?s apartment to make a new movie.
Lukas Moodysson
Sweden
89 min.
Åmål is a quiet, boring Swedish village. Shy and withdrawn, Agnes is secretly in love with Elin, the most popular girl in school. It?s Agnes? birthday and none of her classmates come to her party, except for Elin and her sister Jessica, who decide to play a silly joke on her: Jessica dares Elin to kiss Agnes on the lips in exchange for 20 kronars. Although they leave in a fit of the giggles, Elin later returns to apologise.
Tomas Alfredson
Sweden
192 min.
The first comedy from the humorist group Killinggänget, Four Shades of Brown employs a touch of black humour to tell four different stories about human behaviour, the heroes of which come over as absurd and caricatured: a recently deceased, well-dressed man meets his fate in the shape of a little wooden man; a father tries to teach his son the joys of animal cremation; a group of people meet in the hope of learning how to cook; and, finally, the funeral of a patriarch attended by his sons has strong oriental overtones.
Björn Runge
Sweden
108 min.
Agnes and Rickard are moving to a new town. As a farewell, they ask their friends to dinner, not realising that this banal event will have a radical effect on their relationship. Anders, a bricklayer who works his fingers to the bone for his family, is offered a job he just can?t refuse, despite his family?s opposition. Anita hasn?t seen her ex-husband since he remarried to a woman 25 years younger than him 3 years previously. Suddenly, she has the chance to see him again and finally clear things up between them. It?s the most important night in their lives.
Roy Andersson
Sweden
97 min.
Throughout a series of unrelated vignettes, all marked by absurd black humour, the film?s characters stand witness to an utterly motionless traffic jam, the pathetic firing of an employee, a violent attack on an immigrant in a busy street, a magic trick gone horribly wrong... Amid the chaos is the overriding presence of Karl, covered in soot from a fire which he himself started in his furniture store for the insurance money.
Ingmar Bergman
Sweden
107 min.
After a separation of 30 years, Marianne feels the need to see her ex-husband, Johan, and heads for their old summer house. Johan?s son Henrik and his granddaughter Karin are also there. Although relations between father and son are tense, both are highly protective towards Karin. Not only that, but Anna, Henrik?s wife deceased two years previously, remains present in their lives. Marianne soon realizes that things are not as they should be. Saraband is the last film by the brilliant Ingmar Bergman, who died on 30th July 2007.
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