74th San Sebastian Festival - 18/26 September 2026
74SSIFF - 18/26 September 2026
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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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Retrospective - José Giovanni
Films
Films
José Giovanni
José Giovanni
Retrospective
Retrospective
1959 - TF1 DROITS AUDIOVISUELS - ZEBRA FILMS
© 1959 - TF1 DROITS AUDIOVISUELS - ZEBRA FILMS
Claude Sautet
France - Italy
110 min.
This time it was Claude Sautet who took to the screen another novel by Giovanni, who was starting to find himself in great demand in the cinema. Lino Ventura is Abel Davos, a criminal who succeeds in fleeing to Italy with his family, duping the police blockade. But after a skirmish at the border, the protagonist is left alone with his children. The film is based, with the name slightly changed, on the story of a gangster who collaborated with the French Gestapo during the occupation.
1960 STUDIOCANAL - Magic Film S.P.A
© 1960 STUDIOCANAL - Magic Film S.P.A
Jacques Becker
France - Italy
132 min.
In his posthumous film, Jacques Becker adapted the novel by Giovanni in which he narrated his attempted escape from La Santé prison. The writer ended up actively participating in the screenplay and providing all of the elements making for extreme realism. The four protagonists share a cell. When they are about to make their flight, they are assigned a fifth and subversive prisoner in the same, small space.
Album / Bridgeman Images
© Album / Bridgeman Images
Jean Becker
France - Italy
102 min.
Robert La Rocca abandons criminal life and moves to the country, but his goal is to achieve the freedom of his best friend, Xavier, sentenced to several years in jail. A string of events see him incarcerated in the same penitentiary. Some time later they are offered the possibility of a shorter prison term if they help to defuse the land mines left on the beaches after the war. First adaptation of his novel L’Excommunié.
1963 WARNER BROS ENTERTAINMENT FRANCE – PATHE FILMS – DEAR FILM (Rome) – ULTRA FILM (Rome)
© 1963 WARNER BROS ENTERTAINMENT FRANCE – PATHE FILMS – DEAR FILM (Rome) – ULTRA FILM (Rome)
Jacques Deray
France - Italy
110 min.
Four wealthy men aim to increase their income by pooling their money in a huge narcotics deal. A fourth man (played by Giovanni himself) is tasked with bringing the shipment from Marseille. But things don't go to plan and they soon start fighting one another. This is the first of the productive collaborations between Giovanni and Jacques Dray, with the participation of Claude Sautet on the script.
Jacques Deray
France - Italy - Germany
93 min.
Immersion by Giovanni and Deray in spy stories. Lino Ventura is Paul Fabre, a French secret agent sent to Vienna to find out if the Austrian head of French intelligence is in fact a double agent. Fabre is called up for the mission, trusting in his experience and instinct, and because he's one of the suspect's best friends.
1966 Productions Charles Lumbroso / Editions René Chateau
© 1966 Productions Charles Lumbroso / Editions René Chateau
Jean-Pierre Melville
France
150 min.
Having escaped from jail, a dangerous criminal called Gustave Minda (Lino Ventura) seeks to reactivate his men, only to find himself caught up in a mass killing between rival bands. A police inspector closes in as he tries to organise a last heist and flee the country. First and last collaboration between two of the great architects of the French crime thriller genre, Giovanni –author of the novel and co-screenwriter– and Jean-Pierre Melville.
1968 - TF1 DROITS AUDIOVISUELS - MEGA FILMS
© 1968 - TF1 DROITS AUDIOVISUELS - MEGA FILMS
Robert Enrico
France - Italy
107 min.
One of the few cases in which Giovanni would not participate in writing the script adapting one of his novels. Jean-Paul Belmondo plays a former racing car driver. He has stopped racing since one of his friends died in an accident and now drives the getaway car for small-time gang of criminals. Gradually the idea of a solo heist takes shape in his mind.
STUDIOCANAL
© STUDIOCANAL
José Giovanni
France - Italy - Mexico
113 min.
The second film directed by Giovanni, based on Scottish writer John Carrick's novel The Vulture, stars a hitman (Lino Ventura) hired by a group of revolutionaries to kill a Latin American president. Unscrupulous, deeply cynical and inflexible, the killer, known as "Le Rapace", will participate in this coup d'état without realising its immediate consequences.
Images courtesy of Park Circus/Disney
© Images courtesy of Park Circus/Disney
Henri Verneuil
France
115 min.
A man jailed for murder is freed by members of the clan of a highly-respected Sicilian gangster. Together they plan to hijack a plane travelling to New York carrying precious gems, while the police rush to apprehend them. Adaptation of a novel by André Le Breton conceived as a major international production. It reunites the big three polar actors: Delon, Gabin and Ventura.
STUDIOCANAL
© STUDIOCANAL
José Giovanni
France - Italy
100 min.
Lino Ventura plays a hardened cop exiled from his job when he arrests an influential lawyer's drunk-driving son. His new stomping ground is a suburban police station where he is initially assigned to rooting out sexual perverts. Teamed up with a rookie partner (Marlène Jobert, Eva Green's mother), the two are tasked with the mission of finding a protected witness with the only clue of his last known address.
José Giovanni
France - Italy - Spain
120 min.
A chamber thriller adapted from a North American novel featuring in the Série Noire collection published by Gallimard. Fresh from a failed bank hold-up, and accused of a crime he didn't commit, the protagonist sets out to solve a string of problems in his recent past. The story had already been taken to the screen by Robert Siodmak in the film noir Cry of the City (1948).
STUDIOCANAL
© STUDIOCANAL
José Giovanni
France - Italy
110 min.
The film stars an actor generally associated to comedy, Rufus, who had formerly appeared in Un aller simple (One Way Ticket). This is a film of marked political overtones: working for a pacifist association dedicated to freeing political prisoners, Tom gradually realises that the non-violence in which he had always had faith doesn't work, pushing him to change sides and join the armed struggle.
STUDIOCANAL
© STUDIOCANAL
José Giovanni
France - Italy
105 min.
Not altogether happy with Jean Becker's version of his novel L'Excommunié in Un nommé La Rocca, Giovanni personally set about adapting the work, in colour by now, but with the same actor, Jean-Paul Belmondo. The film lends greater detail than its predecessor to the life of organised crime in the Marseilles of the 30s, prior to the character ending up in jail and returning to civilian life after a series of adventures.
José Giovanni
France - Italy
100 min.
Construed as a protest against the death sentence, the film tells the tale of a criminal and his attempts to go straight as he returns to society on release from jail. He succeeds thanks to the help of a social worker; however, a series of events, added to the harassment of a cop who knows all about his past, drive him back into a life of crime. Produced by Alain Delon, who stars alongside Jean Gabin.
STUDIOCANAL
© STUDIOCANAL
José Giovanni
France - Italy
102 min.
In his second collaboration with Giovanni as an actor and producer, Alain Delon plays Hugo Sennart, a French gypsy wanted by the police for a string of crimes. Hugo is preparing what may be his last heist, but his plans cross with those of a jewel thief, wanted by the same police inspector as himself. Despite its fictional nature, the film proposes a documentary look at the gypsy camps and their way of life.
1979 TF1 DROITS AUDIOVISUELS - CENTRAL FILMS
© 1979 TF1 DROITS AUDIOVISUELS - CENTRAL FILMS
José Giovanni
France
115 min.
Adaptation of the autobiographical novel by Albert Spaggiari, who masterminded one of the biggest bank robberies committed until then. One day in July 1976, Spaggiari and his sidekicks tunnelled through the sewers until breaking into the vault of the Société Général Bank in Nice, where they stayed for a whole weekend and stole 60 million francs, plus bonds and valuables. It was called the robbery of the century.
U.P.C.T., Selta Films, France Régions 3 et Prodis – 1980
© U.P.C.T., Selta Films, France Régions 3 et Prodis – 1980
José Giovanni
France
107 min.
In this film, Giovanni tells the tale of a falsely accused man, Simon Risler (Claude Brasseur), who escapes police custody after being tried and sentenced to death for a crime he didn't commit. He hides at the home of his defence lawyer (Annie Girardot), with whom he sets about proving his innocence and uncovering a corrupt plot involving high-ranking officers in the Financial Brigade of the French police force.
Dominique Le Strat, Collection La Cinémathèque française
© Dominique Le Strat, Collection La Cinémathèque française
José Giovanni
France
100 min.
Midway between adventure and espionage, the film opens with the kidnapping of a high-ranking NATO general by a terrorist group. The French secret services therefore recruit an unruly bunch of individuals and train them to become the commando who will free the general. The shoot was complicated, but very much to Giovanni's liking, with underwater scenes and others showing the breathtaking climbing of vertical cliffs.
STUDIOCANAL
© STUDIOCANAL
José Giovanni
France
115 min.
Another of Giovanni's films with biographical overtones. It focuses on a young man who, to get out of jail during the occupation, agreed to collaborate with the Nazis. Some time later, as the war draws to an end, he will try to seek redemption by helping a French intelligence officer to unmask the citizens and police who participated during the repression, including his own brother.
STUDIOCANAL
© STUDIOCANAL
José Giovanni
France
115 min.
Based on his novel Il avait dans le coeur des jardins introuvables, Giovanni makes a heartfelt tribute to his father, Joe Damiani, who never blinked in the endeavour to free his son, sentenced to death for his part in a murder. The father (Bruno Cremer) will try to find evidence to prove his innocence. Giovanni bids farewell to the cinema with this journey through time to one of the most dramatic periods in his life.
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Monday to Friday: from 9:00 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.
Monday to Friday: from 9:00 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.
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