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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Official Selection
Official Selection
Official Selection
Films
Films
Opening Film (In competition)
Roger Michell
USA
97 min.
A woman summons her whole family to tell them that she doesn’t want to continue living. The announcement will reveal hidden family grudges, but also the love that her two daughters feel for their mother.
Closing Film
François Girard
Canada - UK - Hungary
111 min.
As Europe erupts into World War II, 9-year-old Martin comes to love his new adopted brother Dovidl, a gifted violin prodigy of the same age and recently arrived Polish-Jewish refugee in London. But hours before Dovidl's debut concert performance at the age of 21, he vanishes without a trace, meaning shame and ruin for his family. A lifetime later, a young violinist shows a 56-year-old Martin a stylistic flourish that could only have been taught by Dovidl.
Not in competition
Adilkhan Yerzhanov
Kazakhstan - France
130 min.
A boy is murdered in a Kazakh village. Detective Bekzat wants to wrap up the inquiries quickly: after all, the perpetrator has already been found by local police officers. But when a journalist arrives from the city, everything falls to pieces. For the first time in his career, Bekzat must conduct a real investigation according to procedure.
Ina Weisse
Germany - France
99 min.
Anna Bronsky is a violin teacher at a music high school. Despite the opposition of all the other teachers, Anna drives through the admission of a boy in whom she detects a remarkable talent. She will work with Alexander with great dedication and prepares him for the midterm exam - neglecting her son Jonas at the same time. From her husband, the French violin maker Philippe Bronsky, she distances herself more and more. Her colleague Christian, with whom she has an affair, persuades her to join a quintet. When she fails during their joint concert the pressure mounts. With Alexander now her vehicle, she drives him ever onwards and upwards. Come the day of the exam, events take a tragic turn...
Louise Archambault
Canada
124 min.
Three elderly hermits live deep in the woods, cut off from the rest of the world. While wildfires threaten the region, their quiet life is about to be shaken by the death of the eldest among them, Boychuck, and the arrival of an octogenarian unjustly institutionalised her whole life. A photographer charged with interviewing survivors of the region's deadliest forest fire finds their hiding place. The two women will discover hundreds of paintings by Boychuck narrating his tragic past in the wildfires. Film based on the novel And the Birds Rained Down by Jocelyne Saucier.
Belén Funes
Spain
102 min.
Sara has been alone all her life. She’s 22, has a baby, and wants to form a normal family with her young brother and the father of her child. Her own father, Manuel, decides to come back into their lives after years of absence and his release from prison. Sara knows he’s the main obstacle to her plans and she makes a difficult decision: to distance him from herself and her brother. Debut film.
Aitor Arregi, Jon Garaño, Jose Mari Goenaga
Spain - France
147 min.
Higinio and Rosa have only been married for a few months when the Civil War breaks out, representing a serious threat to his life. Helped by his wife, they decide to use a hole dug into their own home as a provisional hiding place. The fear of potential reprisals and the love they feel for one another will condemn them to an imprisonment that will last for more than 30 years.
Sonthar Gyal
China
110 min.
Lhamo and Skalbe are unable to marry when they discover that Skalbe already has a registered marriage. Memories rush back as Skalbe embarks on a journey in search of his ex-wife Cuoyehe, only to discover that the girl had renounced her secular life when she broke their marriage promise four years ago. Cuoyehe's religious identity greatly hampers Skalbe's attempt to secure a divorce. Meanwhile, Lhamo grows distant. Pressured into rehearsing for a Tibetan opera called the Epic of King Gesar for the Chinese New Year, Lhamo plays the leading role of Ngada Namo, a "sinful" woman who has fallen into hell. As Lhamo's antipathy towards the character grows, her fear of marriage also begins to surface from a secret buried deep inside her heart.
David Zonana
Mexico
82 min.
Francisco and a group of construction workers are building a luxury house in Mexico City. Following the accidental on-site death of his brother, Francisco learns that his widowed sister-in-law will not receive compensation from the wealthy owner of the house. After enduring a succession of further abuses against himself and his colleagues, and having made several attempts to obtain justice, he finally takes the law into his own hands - but will the world he's fighting against end up consuming him?
Alejandro Amenábar
Spain - Argentina
107 min.
Spain. Summer 1936. The famous writer Miguel de Unamuno decides to publicly support the military coup which promises to bring order to the tumultuous situation in the country. He is immediately removed from office as dean of Salamanca University by the Republican government. Meanwhile, General Franco succeeds in appending his troops to the rebellious front and launches a successful campaign in the secret hope of gaining sole command of the war. The bloody continuation of the conflict and the imprisonment of some of his colleagues leads Unamuno to question his initial stance and to reconsider his principles. When Franco moves his headquarters to Salamanca and is named Head of State of the nationalist zone, Unamuno heads to his palace, determined to beg him for clemency.
Paxton Winters
Brazil
120 min.
Tati, an introspective 13 year old girl struggles to connect with her estranged father, Jaca, after he is released from prison in the turbulent wake of the Rio Olympics. As Brazilian Pacification Police battle to maintain a tenuous occupation of the surrounding Rio favelas, Tati and Jaca must navigate the clashing forces threatening to derail their hope for the future. Born of a seven-year creative collaboration between the community of 'Morro dos Prazeres' and writer/director, Paxton Winters, Pacificado / Pacified offers a bracingly intimate portrait of a family trying to find peace in the ever-shifting urban battlefield they call home.
Gonçalo Waddington
Portugal - Germany
103 min.
Mário, an 8-year-old boy abducted in central Portugal during the spring of 1999, resurfaces 12 years later in a Parisian jail. This period of disappearance hides a terrible secret and all the complexities of this mysterious character.
Alice Winocour
France - Germany
107 min.
Sarah is a French astronaut training at the European Space Agency in Cologne. She is the only woman in the arduous program. She lives alone with Stella, her seven-year-old daughter. Sarah feels guilty about not being able to spend more time with her child. Her love is overpowering, unsettling. When Sarah is chosen to join the crew of a year-long space mission called Proxima, it creates chaos in the mother-daughter relationship.
Sarah Gavron
UK
93 min.
Rocks is a teenager with big dreams for the future, brilliant loyal friends, and a little if rather cheeky adoring brother, Emmanuel. Rocks loves going to school (just like any other youngster) and lives a full and exciting life in East London with her friends. Rocks’ world is turned upside down when she comes home from school to find that her mother is gone, leaving a little money and a note giving no other explanation than “I'm sorry”. Determined to stay with her brother and lead the welfare system on a merry dance, Rocks leaves her home and hides around East London. As each day becomes tougher and their secret gets more difficult to hide, Rocks pushes away those who love her and her friendship squad begins to fracture. When the authorities finally catch up with her, there is only one solution: her friends. A film about the joy, resilience and spirit of girlhood.
Guillaume Nicloux
France
93 min.
It's been five years since The Kidnapping of Michel Houellebecq. Michel and Gérard Depardieu coincide at a sea water therapy centre in Cabourg. Together they try to survive the health regime that the centre attempts to impose upon them. While Michel remains in constant contact with his kidnappers, a series of unexpected events will derail their routine.
Małgorzata Szumowska
Ireland - Belgium - Poland - USA
96 min.
Selah is a young girl born into an alternative religion known as the Flock. The members of the Flock – all women and female children – live in a rural compound, and are led by one man, known only as the Shepherd. Selah, who is on the cusp of teenage-hood, is an incredibly devoted follower, but begins to bond with Sarah, an outcast wife who has grown skeptical of the Shepherd's teachings. Selah is given the great honor of participating in the sacred ritual of the birthing of the lambs –upon which they depend for survival– where she has a shocking and transformative experience. She begins to have strange visions that make her question her own reality, and everything the Shepherd has taught her and her sisters.
José Luis Torres Leiva
Chile - Argentina - Germany
89 min.
Two women who have spent their whole lives together must deal with the illness affecting one of them. The sick woman decides not to have treatment and they move into a cabin in the woods to wait for the day that death will come into their lives. The situation sees the resurfacing of the love that time had buried under the routine. Gradually their relationship will strengthen as death bides its time outside the cabin.
James Franco
USA
96 min.
Based on the novel by Steve Erickson, Vikar, a socially awkward architecture student inspired by the few films he has seen, rides the bus into Hollywood. With a tattoo of Montgomery Clift and Elizabeth Taylor as they appear in A Place in the Sun on his shaved head, Vikar makes an impression on the beautiful actress Soledad. Soon breaking into film as a designer and eventually a film editor, Vikar begins a dreamlike journey into the world of films that eventually ends in tragedy and almost horrific discovery.
Not in competition
Daniel Sánchez Arévalo
Spain
109 min.
As part of the rehabilitation program at a juvenile detention center, 17-year-old Hector creates an unbreakable bond with a dog as timid and aloof as himself. When his therapy dog doesn't appear one day because it has been adopted, Hector escapes to look for it. Thus begins an unexpected journey in the company of his older brother Ismael, their grandmother Cuca, two dogs, a cow and other animals.
Not in competition
Sebastián Borensztein
Argentina - Spain
115 min.
In Argentina, the term gil refers to a good, naïve and rather gullible person, like the group of inhabitants from a town in the Buenos Aires region who decide to place all their savings in a bank to create an agricultural cooperative which, they believe, will change their fate. However, the victims of a racket, they lose all their money. Led by Perlassi, a local football legend, the eight giles decide that this time they’ll take the law into their own hands in what will be the most legendary night of their lives.
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Opening hours
Monday to Thursday: 09:00h - 15:00h
Friday: 10:00h - 14:00h
Monday to Thursday: 09:00h - 15:00h
Friday: 10:00h - 14:00h
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