The feature film Los domingos / Sundays (Spain-France), directed by Alauda Ruiz de Azúa, carried off the Golden Shell at the 73rd edition of the San Sebastián Festival, whose official jury has given the Silver Shell exaequo for Best Leading Performance to Jose Ramon Soroiz, for his role in Maspalomas (Spain), and to Zhao Xiaohong, for Jianyu laide mama / Her Heart Beats in Its Cage (China). Besides these, Camila Plaate landed the Silver Shell for Best Supporting Performance for her part in Belén (Argentina).

Joachim Lafosse, who won the Silver Shell for Best Director with Les chevaliers blancs / The White Knights (2015), received the same award again for Six jours ce printemps-là / Six Days in Spring (Belgium-France-Luxembourg), as well as the Jury Prize for Best Screenplay, the award he shares with Chloé Duponchelle and Paul Ismaël. The Best Cinematography accolade went to Pau Esteve for his work in Los Tigres (Spain).

Furthermore, the Jury Special Prize fell to Historias del buen valle / Good Valley Stories (Spain-France), by José Luis Guerin, who formerly won the same accolade with En construcción / Work in Progress (2001). This time round, the jury has given the award to "a film that turns its camera on the periphery, on faces and landscapes not often filmed, in order to compose a take flowing with generosity and humanity on time, evoking, on this journey, the very essence of the cinema".

The filmmaker J.A. Bayona presided over the Official Jury tasked with drawing up the list of winners along with the Portuguese filmmaker Laura Carreira and the North American director Gia Coppola; the actress Zhou Dongyu; the Argentinian singer and performer Lali Espósito; the British actor Mark Strong and the French producer Anne-Dominique Toussaint.

The actress Itsaso Arana and the actor Óscar Lasarte presented tonight's closing ceremony in the Kursaal, where the awards announcement was followed by a screening of the film closing the edition, The Winter of the Crow. The showing enjoyed the presence of its director Kasia Adamik, the actress Lesley Manville and the producer Stanislaw Dziedzic.

OTHER OFFICIAL AWARDS

Vaegtloes / Weightless (Denmark), the first film from Emilie Thalund, won the Kutxabank-New Directors Award, whose jury included a special mention for another debut, this time from Irati Gorostidi Agirretxe, Aro berria (Spain), which participated at its project stage in the Ikusmira Berriak residencies programme, organised by the San Sebastián Festival, Tabakalera and the Elías Querejeta Zine Eskola (EQZE).

The Make & Mark Horizontes Award went to Un poeta / A Poet (Colombia-Germany-Sweden), a film by Simón Mesa Soto which had its premiere in the Un Certain Regard section at Cannes, where it won the Jury Prize. The jury also gave two special mentions: one going to another project developed at Ikusmira Berriak, Hiedra / The Ivy (Ecuador-Mexico-France-Spain), by Ana Cristina Barragán, former student at the EQZE who, with this title, won the Best Screenplay Award in the Orizzonti section of the Venice Mostra, and another going to Un cabo suelto / A Loose End (Uruguay-Argentina-Spain), the film by Daniel Hendler premiered in the Venezia Spotlight section which participated in the Europe-Latin America Co-Production Forum in 2023 and won the WIP Latam Industry Award last year.

On the other hand, the Zabaltegi-Tabakalera Award went to La tour de glace / The Ice Tower (France-Germany), the latest work from Lucile Hadzihalilovic, who won a Silver Bear for Outstanding Artistic Contribution at the Berlinale's Official Selection. The jury also decided to give two special mentions to Duas vezes João Liberada / Two Times João Liberada (Portugal), by Paula Tomás Marques, and to Blue Heron (Canada-Hungary), by Sophy Romvari; the first is the work of another former student at the EQZE and had its premiere in the Perspectives section of the Berlinale, while the second won the Swatch First Feature Award in the Concorso Cineasti del Presente section of the Locarno Festival, as well as the Best Canadian Discovery Award at the Toronto Film Festival.  

The short film Ako počúvať fontány / How to Listen to Fountains (Slovakia), directed by Eva Sajanová (Academy of Music and Performing Arts - FTF VSMU, Slovakia), won the Nest The Mediapro Studio Award, while The Old Bull Knows, Or Once Knew (India), by Milan Kumar (Film & Television Institute of India, Pune, India), received a special mention. The Movistar Plus+ Award for Best Short Film and the Tabakalera Award went, respectively, to A solidão dos lagartos / The Loneliness of Lizards (Spain-Portugal), by Inês Nunes (Elías Querejeta Zine Eskola - EQZE, Spain), and to So ist das Leben und nicht anders / Life is Like That and Not Otherwise (Germany), by Lenia Friedrich (Academy of Media Arts Cologne - KHM, Germany).

The Culinary Zinema Award went to Mam (France), by Nan Feix, and the Eusko Label Award to the short films Hatsa (Spain) and Gatz Harana (Spain), with which Josu Ozaita Azpiroz and Saioa Miguel landed the first and second prizes, respectively. Regarding the competition for short films on social topics, the first work to win the Loterías Award was Maruja (Spain), by Álvaro G. Company, and the second, Medusas (Spain), by Iñaki Sánchez Arrieta.

Los domingos / Sundays (Spain-France), the film by Alauda Ruiz de Azúa, not only won the Golden Shell, but also the FIPRESCI Prize, awarded by international critics, and the Irizar Basque Film Award, whose jury gave a special mention to El último arrebato / The Last Rapture (Spain), the directorial debut from Marta Medina and Enrique López Lavigne included in the Zabaltegi-Tabakalera section.

The City of Donostia / San Sebastián Award decided by the audience of the Perlak section, went to The Voice of Hind Rajab (Tunisia-France), the film by Kaouther Ben Hania which received the Silver Lion-Grand Jury Prize in Venice, while the Audience Award for Best European Film was carried off by the animated film Amélie et la métaphysique des tubes / Little Amélie or the Character of Rain (France), with which Maïlys Vallade and Liane-Cho Han participated in the special screenings at the Festival de Cannes and won the Audience Award at the Annecy Festival.

Finally, La misteriosa mirada del flamenco / The Mysterious Gaze of the Flamingo (Chile-France-Germany-Spain-Belgium), the debut film by Diego Céspedes included in the Horizontes Latinos section, claimed the DAMA Youth Award. Having previously won the post-production award at the Ikusmira Berriak program during its development phase, the film went on to receive the Un Certain Regard Award at this year's Cannes Film Festival.