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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Thematic retrospective. BACKWASH: THE CUTTING EDGE OF FRENCH CINEMA
Films
Films
Thematic retrospective. BACKWASH: CUTTING EDGE OF FRENCH CINEMA
Thematic retrospective. BACKWASH: CUTTING EDGE OF FRENCH CINEMA
Laurent Cantet
France
100 min.
During his training period at the Human Resources Department in the factory employing his father, Frank discovers that his work is being used to lay off twelve people, his father included. This creates a huge rift between the management and Frank and he informs the unions, who call a strike. However, having put everything he has into ensuring his son?s social success, Frank?s father refuses to become involved in the conflict. New Directors Award at San Sebastian Festival in 1999.
Xavier Durringer
France
115 min.
After a heist, a mobster?s son, François, escapes death in a shoot-out. He turns for help to Cardone, one of his father?s friends, who offers him the protection of a paranoid murderer named Rufin. Soon, the other members of the gang join François as he enters the bloody world of score-settling, until he meets Claire, the only person willing to try and save him from his downward spiral into hell. J?irai au paradis car l?enfer est ici competed at San Sebastian?s Official Selection in 1997.
Jean-Francois Richet
France
100 min.
Arco, Malik and Mustapha are 16. Pretty much left to their own by their parents, they fail at school, spend their time hanging out together and fight with other kids in the Parisian suburbs. Djeff, JM, Hamouda and Pete are older, between the ages of 20 and 26, and jobless. Shots ring out in a disco carpark during a hip hop fiesta. When the police arrive on the scene there?s a shoot-out and Malik dies.... The fight?s on.
Érick Zonca
France
65 min.
Tired of his job, a young baker?s apprentice heads to Marseilles, where he lives amid the street violence and gets by on his own petty thefts. Gradually his robberies grow in size and he joins a gang of delinquents eager to prosper.
Bruno Dumont
France
148 min.
Pharaon de Winter, a depressed cop who lost his wife and baby in accident, has been living alone with his mother in a small village in the North of France ever since. Pharaon has three reasons to suffer: hopeless love for his neighbour; a tendency to share the misfortunes of others; and the investigation into the rape and murder of a little girl which gradually places the accent on universal guilt, that of our monstrous nature.
Leos Carax
France
135 min.
Pierre is a youngster from a privileged background who lives with his mother in a castle in Normandy. One day his mother tells him that the date has been set for his wedding with Lucie, his fiancée. On his way to give Lucie the good news, he runs into Isabelle, a young girl who claims to be his lost sister. Pierre becomes strangely obsessed with his alleged sibling.
Catherine Breillat
France-Italy
86 min.
Elena and Anaïs are sisters. But you?d never know. The eldest of the two, Elena, is pretty and attracts men wherever she goes, while Anaïs is fat and ugly. On holiday by the seaside, Elena meets a boy, a handsome Italian to whom she loses her virginity. Watching her sister, Anaïs comes to serious conclusions on the subject. She discovers that for men she?s nothing but an object of desire and, as such, the only thing to do is to let them have her.
Nicolas Klotz
France
126 min.
A tale of the down-and-out, homeless, vagrants, addicts and all kinds of outcasts, not necessarily immigrants, part-documentary, part-fiction, starring non-professional actors. Special Jury Prize at San Sebastian Festival in 2000.
Patricia Mazuy
France-Belgium
119 min.
Late 17th century. Madame de Maintenon, last wife of King Louis XIV, creates Saint-Cyr as a school for educating 250 youngsters from noble families ruined by the war. Her aim is to make them into free women thanks to an education ahead of its time. But the young girls? performance of Racine?s Esther before the court changes everything.
Xavier Beauvois
France
100 min.
Francis works at the same factory as his sons Matthieu and Eric. When Francis is dismissed for smoking during working hours, Matthieu attempts to stir the workers, and particularly his brother, into action. Shortly afterwards, Francis dies suddenly. Matthieu, convinced that his father was driven to suicide at the thought of being unable to find a job at his age and with barely a qualification to his name, has only one idea on his mind: revenge. The first part of his plan involves luring his boss?s wife into bed.
François Ozon
France
95 min.
Every summer, Jean and Marie holiday on the coast of France?s Les Landes region. But this year, while Marie is asleep on the beach, Jean disappears. Has he drowned? Has he run away? Alone, Marie tries to unravel the mystery surrounding the disappearance of the man of her life. Sous le sable competed at San Sebastian?s Official Selection in 2000.
Nicolas Philibert
France
104 min.
France still has a number of single-class schools dotted over its geography where all of the children from a same village are taught from nursery to the end of primary school by a single male or female teacher of extraordinary dedication. This film was made in one of these schools in deepest Auvergne, where schoolmaster Georges López guides the pupils towards adolescence, acting as mediator in their arguments and listening to their problems.
Gaspar Noé
France
99 min.
Irreversible. Because time brings everything to an end. Because certain actions are irreparable. Because man is an animal. Because thirst for revenge is a natural impulse. Because most crimes go unpunished. Because losing a loved one is like being struck by lightening. Because love is the source of life. Because premonitions don?t stop things from happening. Because time reveals all: good and bad alike.
Jacques Nolot
France
87 min.
In a Parisian porn theatre, a cashier, a 50-year-old and a young projectionist are drawn into a love affair. The cashier takes advantage of the projectionist?s naïveté to get her wicked way with the 50-year-old, who uses the cashier to do the same with the young projectionist. The cashier narrates her life, explaining how she left home at the age of 16, became a prostitute, and led the same life as the 50-year-old. He, occasional writer and former gigolo, relates his life with humour.
Philippe Grandrieux
France
102 min.
Somewhere in Eastern Europe, Melania is bought by Boyan, a pimp. Seymour, a North American tourist, goes to a striptease joint where he?s immediately attracted by Melania and pays to be alone with her. Seymour?s obssession with the girl grows and he tries to buy her, ignoring the advice of his friend Roscoe. Seymour dreams of taking Melania away with him, but Boyan is determined to keep her.
Christophe Gans
France
140 min.
France, 18th century. A mysterious creature is terrorizing the peasants, leaving a trail of mutilated corpses in its wake. In 1766, recently disembarked from America, Grégoire de Fronsac is sent by King Louis XV to find the beast. On arriving in the region of Gévaudan, Fronsac is openly sceptical about the possible existence of a monster. But it?s not long before he finds interesting clues plunging him into a story set to undermine the monarch?s authority.
Mathieu Amalric
France
65 min.
A young woman travels to Trieste on the trail of a man who died years back, searching for people who may have known him. The questions she asks seem to indicate that she?s trying to find out why this man, a great intellectual and friend of so many writers, never wrote anything. As she goes from place to place, the character acquires form, but the purpose of the search is put off, the pretext fades and gives way to an incipient certainty. Will she be happy with that?
Cédric Kahn
France-Switzerland
124 min.
A dance. She?s Léa, a schoolgirl. He?s called Kurt. He?s got a strange accent and several cars. They?ve just met at the end of the holidays in the South of France. When Léa returns to her home in Savoie, Kurt visits her repeatedly. On the road separating Savoie from the South of France a series of robberies, aggressions, rapes and inexplicable crimes occur. The French police are on the trail of a dangerous Italian criminal.
Claire Denis
France-Japan
100 min.
Just married, Shane and June head to Paris for their honeymoon. But maybe Paris wasn?t a casual choice; Shane is secretly looking for Doctor Léo Semeneau, a scientist with whom he worked in the past on some strange and probably dangerous experiments on the human libido.
Marina De Van
France
93 min.
Esther is young and ambitious. One night at a party she hurts her leg quite badly, not realising it until hours later. The incident has such a disturbing effect on her that, without actually intending to do so, she finds herself considering her body in a different way and starts cutting herself, like some kind of a test. A sclave to her self-destructive impulses, Esther struggles to save the professional future she has marked for herself and, above all, her sentimental relationship with Vincent.
Jean-Marie Larrieu, Arnaud Larrieu
France
120 min.
Despite barely knowing one another, Boris and Marilyne fall in love one evening in Paris. Five years later, Marilyne, accompanied by Boris and their two children, is in the Balearic Islands to work. Just when Boris, sick of being a househusband, decides to announce that he?s leaving her, Marilyne takes to her heels with a lover. Five years on, Marilyne reappears, this time with a group of American tourists in the Pyrenees, only to discover that the guide who is to accompany them is no other than Boris.
Olivier Assayas
France-UK-Canada
100 min.
After several years of living together, Lee Hauser and Emily Wang are finished. Lee is your typical 80s musician and the toll of easy money and fame has led them to the brink of disaster, having left a son in care of Lee?s parents and given free reign to narcotics. When Lee dies of an overdose in a motel, Emily is arrested for holding drugs and jailed. Six months later she?s out with the intention of heading for Paris and getting her son back. But to succeed, she has to rebuild her life and stay ?clean?.
Lucile Hadzihalilovic
France-UK-Belgium
117 min.
A group of girls live in a boarding school. Obedience is mandatory and any pupil trying to escape will be condemned not only to serve the others but to stay at the school forever. Hidden by foliage, a metal fireplace opens onto underground passageways leading to the basements of five houses standing in different parts of a sprawling park, cut off from the outside world by an enormous wall with no doors. In one of these houses, several of the girls gather round a coffin. Innocence won the New Directors Award at San Sebastian in 2004.
Abdellatif Kechiche
France
125 min.
A subsidised housing estate in the Parisian suburbs. Lydia is rehearsing for a play by Marivaux scheduled for the end-of-year bash. Abdelkrim, alias ?Krimo?, is captivated by his classmate. But apart from not being a man of many words, Krimo also has a reputation to maintain: how can he tell the girl his feelings without making a fool of himself? There?s only one answer: to convince his friend Rachid, who?s acting with Lydia, to let him play the part of the Harlequin. That way he?ll be able to use Marivaux? words to express his feelings.
Nicolas Boukhrief
France
95 min.
An armoured truck company is going through a profound crisis. Having been robbed three times this year, it?s on the verge of bankruptcy. The employees are at the end of their tethers with nerves. Some of them even suspect that the heisters have a contact within the company itself. In these difficult circumstances, one morning, a man, Alexandre Demarre, turns up for his first day of work. Who is he: someone on the dole, a cop, a mobster? And what does he want?
Xavier Giannoli
France
94 min.
Charlotte and Paul are twenty years old. They?re in love. Together they find out that she?s seriously and terminally ill. There?s another girl, Ninon. Paul fancies her. She?s like a breath of fresh air to him. Charlotte knows. The three strike up a life or death relationship.
Arnaud Desplechin
France-Belgium
150 min.
Two unconnected stories: one, the culmination of Nora Cotterelle as she prepares to wed; the other, the decrepitude of Ismaël Vuillard, wrongly admitted to a psychiatric hospital, and on the point of coming out in worse condition than when he was taken in. The two stories come together when Nora suggests that Ismaël adopt her son Elias.
Bertrand Bonello
France
115 min.
Based on the Greek myth of Tiresias, who was both man and woman in his life. Tiresia is a Brazlilian transexual who earns a living working as a prostitute. A man named Terranova, dazzled by her beauty, decides to kidnap her. However, no longer able to take her daily dose of hormones, Tiresia starts looking somewhat different. Displeased, Terranova blinds Tiresia and dumps her in the countryside. Taken in and cared for by Anna, Tiresia suddenly discovers while recovering that she has the gift of premonition.
Jacques Audiard
France
107 min.
At 28, Tom seems determined to follow his father?s footsteps in the murky world of the real estate business. Until a sudden meeting retrieves his faith in a lifelong dream: to become a concert pianist like his mother. Without leaving his job, he prepares for an audition by taking classes with a Chinese piano virtuoso. She doesn?t speak a word of French and they communicate through music alone. But pressure from his work soon becomes difficult to handle.
Robin Campillo
France
110 min.
The dead of the last ten years come back to life, leaving the cemeteries and making their way back to the places where they lived when alive. The phenomenon is worldwide and has no logical explanation. Family relations, lovers and friends of the deceased experience all sorts of contradictory feelings. The resurrection of these dead people (most of them elderly) affects life in a pleasant small French town that will have to accept them back as full citizens.
Jean-Claude Brisseau
France
100 min.
While filming a nude scene for a detective movie he?s making, François experiences the pleasure felt by certain women on pushing the boundaries of small erotic taboos. This inspires the director to shoot a new film in which, combining reality with fiction, he explores little pleasure-producing transgressions in a search that will eventually lead him, like Icarus on getting too near the sun, to ?burn his wings?.
Alain Guiraudie
France
92 min.
The plot centres on the search for a bandit, Manjas-Kébir, accused of kidnapping the daughter of one of the most powerful men in Obitanie. The occasion unites three warriors, Fogo Lompla, Radovan Rémila Stoï and Jonas Soforan. But the trio ends up doubting the truth of its mission and learns about the poor exploited shepherds who adopt banditry as a way out of their misery.
Alexandre Bustillo, Julien Maury
France
80 min.
Sarah spends Christmas Eve alone the day before giving birth. Someone knocks. At the door is a woman ready to go to any lengths to take Sarah?s unborn baby.
Benoît Delépine, Gustave Kervern
France
83 min.
The kidnapping of a millionaire's dog by a deaf-mute and two ketamine addicts goes wrong. The wealthy woman takes advantage of the situation to make them fullfil her last wishes.
Christophe Honoré
France
95 min.
A love triangle narrated in song. For love, Julie accepts to form a trio with Alice, her boyfriend Ismaël?s colleague from work. The relationship has its moments of happiness and outbursts of jealousy. But the situation gets too heavy for Julie, who?d like to go back to having Ismaël to herself. When an incident puts an end to the love triangle, everything loses its balance, particularly for Ismaël, who just can?t get over his confusion.
Jalil Lespert
France-Canada
85 min.
It?s Christmas Eve and four paths cross in a single night. A young mother struggling to regain custody of her son gets into Didier?s taxi, kicking off a string of meetings starting with Marie and continuing with Cris. During their long evening ride, the lives of our heroes change radically. They all have pending issues with their families, with life, with their own selves. Although they have nothing in common, they all have their eyes set on the same thing: less loneliness, more love.
Damien Odoul
France
75 min.
Richard O. gives free reign to his lust for women. Accompanied by his sidekick, The Big, he explores the sinuous mysteries of eroticism, giving vent to his own sexual desires and to those of the people who populate the Parisian summer. In a bar one night he meets a young girl whose fantasy is to be raped. She asks him to play out her dream. Although Richard initially accepts, he goes on to decline the offer and a violent argument explodes between the two.
Serge Bozon
France
102 min.
France. Autumn 1917. The war is in its last throes. Camille?s husband, a soldier, writes, telling her that things at the front have ground to a halt, that the enemy is suffering just as much in their trenches as they are in theirs, that the ground gained on any night is lost again the following morning... One day his last letter arrives, bidding her farewell, he?s leaving her. Having none of it, Camille dons men?s clothing and heads for the front to find him.
Pascal Laugier
100 min.
Lucie, who has been missing for a year, is found wandering by the side of the road. The police find the place where she was held captive, an abandoned slaughterhouse. The girl is admitted to a clinic. Deeply traumatised and refusing to remember what happened, her only solace lies in her friendship with another internee, Anna. Fifteen years later, Lucie turns up on the doorstep of a suburban house. In her eyes, anger; in her hands, a shotgun.
Patrick-Mario Bernard, Pierre Trividic
France
97 min.
Anne-Marie leaves Alex. He?d like to lead a married life. She wants to be free. They go their own ways as good friends and continue to see each another. But when Anne-Marie learns that Alex has another girlfriend, she explodes with jealousy, falling into an anxious state in which she sees signs and threats wherever she goes.
Laurent Cantet
France
27 min.
Short film
A remote villa in a Cassis cove. Eric is 18 and hates going on holiday with the family. One night, on August 15, he decides to have a party of his own.
François Ozon
France
15 min.
Short film
It's summer. Sébastien loves Sheila. Lucia loves boys. And all Frédéric wants is a nice tan...
Marina De Van
France
11 min.
Short film
A young girl from a good family is obliged to behave with equally good manners at the dinner table as when she?s performing fellatio. The secret of perfection is an education leaving absolutely no detail untouched. The role of dedicated parents is no other than that of educating the sexuality of their children to teach them elegance, precision and efficacy.
Xavier Giannoli
France
18 min.
Short film
Ten years ago, a young journalist landed an interview with one of the last Hollywood myths.
Pierre Vinour
France
10 min.
Short film
The panic of a man in his 60s tormented by doubts, his escape to the Millevaches plateau and the experience of his strange metamorphosis.
Denis Gaubert
France
25 min.
Short film
On 22 July 1969, Simon Edelman is sectioned to Dr. Arthur Glass's Neurology Department in Richmond Hospital, with the note: "Abandoned, confused and disoriented. Identity unknown." We only know that he?s French. The nurses christen him Monsieur William.
Gérard Cairaschi
France
10 min.
Short film
Délices plays on the overlapping of images which, through the pulse of rapid editing, interweave in a graphic and colorful shimmer. A journey between images, between two worlds, between the conscious and the unconscious.
PLEIX
France
3 min.
Short film
The dynamic of destruction and the purely physical aspects of an explosion. Can destruction result in evolution? The origin of this project is 9/11. Despite the ?sordid? aspect of this event, its makers were fascinated by the scale and dynamic of the images shown on TV. They also had in mind the explosion scene of Zabriskie Point, the Antonioni film. Sometimes is an association of these two visions.
Hendrick Dusollier
France
12 min.
Short film
Largely made with computer-animated photos, Obras takes us on a poetic, graphic and sonorous journey visually recreating the savage and irreversible mutations suffered by a city, taking as an example the destruction and reconstruction of a Barcelona neighbourhood.
Laurent Achard
France
9 min.
Short film
One November day in the countryside a young boy is afraid to go into his house. He waits for his mother to join him in the garden.
Samuel Collardey
France
17 min.
Short film
Michel, a cattle farmer in the eastern French region of Franche-Compté, makes the most of the peaceful winter period to enjoy the company of Francis, the young apprentice. A solid friendship will bond the two.
Nassim Amaouche
France
28 min.
Short film
Rwasched stands on the border, in no man?s land; it?s the last Jordanian city before Iraq.
Bertrand Bonello
France
15 min.
Short film
The story of a photographer, Cindy Sherman, a brunette, and her model, a blonde, who strangely resemble one another (both roles are played by the same actress).
Jalil Lespert
France
23 min.
Short film
During the 48 hours following his release from jail, a young man returns to his family and circle of friends.
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