This year RTVE will throw four galas featuring the premieres of films boasting its participation at the 73rd edition of the San Sebastián Festival, of which it is an official sponsor. This will be a week of coming out for the films: Parecido a un asesinato / Hidden Murder; Ya no quedan junglas / The Gentleman; La cena / The Dinner and La tregua / The Truce, all bringing superb performances from Spanish cinema’s leading stars. The event will run from 19-27 September, during which RTVE will similarly present six films boasting its participation (two of them in the Official Selection), along with the premiere of the RTVE series Zeru ahoak / Sky Mouths (Bocas de cielo), co-produced with EITB.  

Last year RTVE signed an agreement with the San Sebastián Festival thereby strengthening the almost twenty years of previously existing cooperation between the two bodies, translating into greater presence of RTVE in San Sebastián. This agreement also increases the number of galas organised by the Corporation at the event.

A week of films and galas

Antonio Hernández will present Parecido a un asesinato, a psychological thriller starring Blanca Suárez, Eduardo Noriega, Tamar Novas and the young debutant Claudia Mora. It follows a woman’s struggle to rebuild her life following a dark past. It won’t be that easy. The horror she suffered at the hands of José, her ex husband, a possessive and violent policeman, resurfaces to threaten her idyll… but nothing is what it seems. The other names on the cast are Joaquín Climent, Marián Álvarez and Raúl Prieto.

Ya no quedan junglas is a work directed by the Mexican filmmaker Luis Gabriel Beristáin, featuring an international cast headed by the North American actor Ron Perlman, alongside Megan Montaner, Hovik Keuchkerian and Karra Elejalde. A story based on three topics, love, violence and vengeance, delivered through the Gentleman, an ex soldier played by Ron Perlman, combining thriller, action and excitement.  

Manuel Gómez Pereira's La cena is a comical movie recreating a time of the post-war period never seen on screen. Film stars Mario Casas and Alberto San Juan feature alongside Asier Etxeandia, Nora Hernández, Óscar Lasarte, Martín Páez, Elvira Mínguez, Carlos Serrano, Carmen Balagué, Eva Ugarte and Antonio Resines, amongst others. Two weeks after the end of the Civil War, Franco asks for a celebratory dinner to be organised at the Hotel Palace. A young lieutenant, a punctilious maître and a group of republican prisoners with expert culinary skills must deliver the finest of banquets in record time. While everything seems to be going swimmingly, in the kitchen it’s not just the menu they’re cooking up. The escape is served.  

Finally, La tregua, the first Spanish-Kazakh co-production, is a war movie from Ángel Vivas Moreno starring Miguel Herrán and Arón Piper, alongside cast members Javier Pereira, Fernando Valdivieso, Alejandro Jato, José Pastor, Manel Llunel, Federico Pérez Rey, Sergey Ufimtsev and Dina Tasbulatova, based on true events and set in World War II. The film tells the story of Reyes and Salgado, two young Spaniards from opposing sides yet who will have to share the suffering and hope of a USSR labour camp in Kazakhstan. A co-existence that will oblige them to come together to deal with the cold, the hunger and the horror.

Two RTVE films to compete for the Golden Shell

Completing RTVE’s presence in San Sebastián are six films in its different sections: two competing in the Official Selection (Maspalomas and Historias del buen valle / Good Valley Stories), one in the Official Selection Special Screenings out of competition (Karmele), one in New Directors (Aro berria), another in Perlak (Ciudad sin sueño / Sleepless City) and yet another at the Velodrome (Rondallas / Band Together).

RTVE Play premieres ‘Zeru ahoak’

Also to be presented at San Sebastián is the new RTVE Play series, Zeru ahoak, co-produced by RTVE and EITB. A thriller from Koldo Almandoz, in 4 episodes, starring Nagore Aramburu, Josean Bengoetxea, Miren Gaztañaga, Ramón Agirre and Sara Cozar. The premiere will feature in the Official Selection Special Screenings section.