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
François Ozon
France
100 min.
Alexis, almost 16, is on the point of drowning when his boat capsizes off the coast of Normandy. Luckily, 18-year-old David heroically saves him. Alexis has just met the friend of his dreams. But will the dream last for more than one summer? The summer of 85.
2020 Mediaproducción S.L.U., Gravier Productions, Inc. y Wildside S.R.L. - Foto de Quim Vives
© 2020 Mediaproducción S.L.U., Gravier Productions, Inc. y Wildside S.R.L. - Foto de Quim Vives
Opening Film
Woody Allen
Spain - USA - Italy
92 min.
Rifkin’s Festival centres on a married American couple who go to the San Sebastian Film Festival and get caught up in the magic of the event, the beauty and charm of Spain and the fantasy of movies. She has an affair with a brilliant French movie director, and he falls in love with a beautiful Spanish woman who lives there. A comedy-romance that resolves itself in a funny but romantic way.
Not in competition
Fernando Trueba
Colombia
136 min.
Based on the book of the same name, El olvido que seremos (Forgotten We'll Be) portrays the life of a good man, Héctor Abad Gómez, a prominent doctor and human rights activist in the violent Medellin of the 70s. The story follows the life of the doctor, a family man worried not only for his own children but for those of the underprivileged classes as well. His home was imbued with vitality and creativity, the result of an education based on tolerance and love. Nothing could foretell that a terrible cancer would take the life of one of his beloved daughters. Driven by sadness and rage, Héctor devoted himself to the social and political causes of the time. But Medellin’s intolerant society would harass him until he was finally silenced. An intimate story seen through the eyes of his only male son, Héctor Abad Faciolince, one of the most outstanding writers in contemporary Colombia.
Not in competition
Pablo Agüero
Spain - France - Argentina
90 min.
Basque Country, 1609. The men of the region are at sea. Ana joins other girls from the village to dance in the woods. Judge Rostegui, given the task of purifying the region by the King, arrests the women and accuses them of witchcraft. He decides to do what it takes to make them confess what they know about the akelarre, a ceremony with magical connotations during which the Devil is said to initiate his servants and mate with them. Winning project of the Arte Kino International Prize at the VI Europe-Latin America Co-Production Forum in 2017.
Europe-Latin America Co-production Forum 2017
Naomi Kawase
Japan
140 min.
After a long and unsuccessful struggle to get pregnant, convinced by the discourse of an adoption association, Satoko and her husband decide to adopt a baby boy. A few years later, their parenthood is shaken by a threatening unknown girl, Hikari, who claims to be the child's biological mother. Satoko decides to confront Hikari directly.
Antonio Méndez Esparza
Spain - USA
115 min.
The Tallahassee Unified Family Court (Florida) specialises in judicial cases involving minors. It is the only court in the United States that deals with matters relating to children and parents. The families are summoned to this court when accused of abuse, abandon or negligence in regard to the minors. The objective of this court according to the Law is to reunite families as quickly and safely as possible. The movie takes its inspiration from the words of James Baldwin: “If one really wants to know how justice is administered in a country, one goes to the unprotected and listens to their testimony”.
Julien Temple
UK
124 min.
Combining unseen archive footage from the band and MacGowan’s family with animations by Ralph Steadman, amongst others, Crock of Gold is a celebration of the Irish punk/poet Shane MacGowan, lead singer and songwriter of The Pogues. Produced by Johnny Depp.
Dea Kulumbegashvili
France - Georgia
125 min.
In a sleepy provincial town, a Jehovah Witness community is attacked by an extremist group. In the midst of this conflict, the familiar world of Yana, the wife of the community leader, slowly crumbles. Yana’s inner discontent grows as she struggles to make sense of her desires.
Thomas Vinterberg
Denmark - Sweden - Netherlands
116 min.
There’s a theory that we should be born with a small amount of alcohol in our blood, and that modest inebriation opens our minds to the world around us, diminishing our problems and increasing our creativity. Heartened by that theory, Martin and three of his friends, all weary high school teachers, embark on an experiment to maintain a constant level of intoxication throughout the workday. If Churchill won WW2 in a heavy daze of alcohol, who knows what a few drops might do for them and their students?
Takuma Sato
Japan
109 min.
A man is caught on live national TV naked and drunk in the middle of the sacred Namahage festival, where men dressed in ogre-like costume visit homes to scare kids into behaving during the next year. Tasuku, a young father, is ostracised for shaming the village and its tradition and flees to Tokyo alone. Two years later he returns to his hometown to make it up to his ex-wife and their little daughter, only to find himself faced with a very difficult situation.
Eduardo Crespo
Argentina
83 min.
Rodrigo and his mother travel to the town where his elder brother has just died. The first moments of their mourning are spent in this calm place. Rodrigo will gradually come to grips with the adults’ pain and will unwittingly start to leave his childhood behind. His mother will endeavour to uncover the mysteries of that death. A delicate film, with melancholy and a touch of humour, with solitary characters who try to dispense a little affection. A story suspended in time, in the floating of the province’s lost places.
Danielle Arbid
France - Belgium
99 min.
“Since last September I have done nothing but wait for a man: for him to call me and come to my place... Everything about him was so precious to me, his eyes, his mouth, his penis, his childhood memories, his voice..."
Harry Macqueen
UK
93 min.
Sam and Tusker have spent twenty years together, and they are as passionately in love as they have ever been. But in the two years since Tusker was diagnosed with young-onset dementia, their lives have had to change. As autumn comes, they plan a road trip while Tusker is still able to travel, to reconnect with friends and family and visit the places of their past. As their trip together progresses, their individual ideas for their future begin to collide. Secrets are uncovered, private plans unravel, and their love for each other is tested like never before.
Šarūnas Bartas
Lithuania - France - Czech Republic - Serbia - Portugal - Latvia
128 min.
Lithuania, 1948. War is over, but the country is left in ruins. 19-year-old Untė is a member of the Partisan movement resisting Soviet occupation. They do not fight on equal terms, but this desperate struggle will determine the future of the whole population. At the age of discovery of life, Untė discovers violence and treachery. The lines are blurred between the burning passion of his youth and the cause for which he is fighting. He will invest himself wholeheartedly, even if it means losing his innocence...
Zhou Ziyang
China
108 min.
Yang Hua and Miao Wei form a happily married couple living in Wuhai, a small city surrounded with astonishing desert scenery in Inner Mongolia. Yet, the husband, Yang Hua, often feels stressed over the financial differences between his and his wife’s families. He partners with his friend Luo Yu in commercial lending, but unfortunately the business fails and he becomes bogged down in debts. One day, Yang Hua's family, friends, debts collectors, and debtors come one after another, depriving him of his last bit of dignity.
Rodrigo Sorogoyen
Spain
304 min.
Series
Six riot police proceed with an eviction in the centre of Madrid, but things go wrong and a man loses his life. An Internal Affairs team is given the task of investigating the facts and the six riot police are accused of manslaughter. The squad set about trying to find their own way out, leading to their separation and, finally, complicating the situation even more. Laia, one of the Internal Affairs team, becomes obsessed with the case and ends up discovering that, behind the fateful eviction, there’s a lot more than meets the eye. Series of six episodes, each running for 50 minutes.
Not in competition
Matt Dillon
Mexico - Cuba - USA
91 min.
El Gran Fellove is a documentary film from actor and filmmaker Matt Dillon, that chronicles the musical career of Cuban scat singer and showman Francisco Fellove and the recording of his last album. Through a series of interviews, archival photos and videos, as well as Matt's own footage, the film recounts Fellove's life as a struggling musician in Cuba, his eventual success in Mexico, and the contagious love he had for music until the very end.
Special Screenings
Aitor Gabilondo
Spain
428 min.
Series
The day ETA announces its plan to give up weapons, Bittori heads for the cemetery to tell the tomb of her husband, El Txato, murdered by the terrorists, that she has decided to return to the village where they had lived their whole lives. Can she live alongside those who hounded her before and after the attack that shattered her life, and that of her family? Can she discover the identity of the hooded man who killed her husband as he headed for his transport company? Bittori’s presence disturbs the village’s false appearance of tranquillity, and above all that of her neighbour Miren, a close friend in other times, and the mother of Joxe Mari, a jailed terrorist. What happened between these two women? What poisoned the lives of their children and their husbands, so close to one another in the past? With their hidden torments and their unshakeable convictions, with their wounds and their bravery, the passionate story of their lives before and after the crater left by El Txato’s murder tells us about the impossibility of forgetting and the need for forgiveness. Eight-episode series based on Fernando Aramburu's honomymous novel and first production in Spanish by HBO Europe.
Special Screenings
Luca Guadagnino
Italy
446 min.
Series
Fraser has just moved to an American military base in Veneto. This is where he meets Caitlin, a girl his age. Both are experiencing confusion over their sexual and gender identities. They grow close, help one another out and end up pretending to be in a relationship to avoid pressure from their peers and the outside world. While Caitlin rejects a feminine side she wants no part of and which generates a void between her and her father, Fraser develops a crush for an older guy, Jonathan, who works with his mother Sarah. Their first experiences of love will have an explosive effect on their lives.
Special Screenings
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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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