Radio Televisión Española (RTVE), official sponsor of the San Sebastian Festival, will present at its 68th edition the feature films Sentimental / The People Upstairs, by Cesc Gay, and Explota explota / My Heart Goes Boom!, by Nacho Álvarez, as well as the series Inés del alma mía, based on the book of the same name by Isabel Allende.

The first of the three titles with TVE participation will be screened as a world premiere at the RTVE Gala in the Victoria Eugenia Theatre. Cesc Gay (Barcelona, 1967) returns to the Festival after participating with feature films including Hotel Room (New Directors, 1998), En la ciudad (In the City, Official Selection, 2003) and Truman (Official Selection, Best Actor Silver Shell awarded jointly to Ricardo Darín and Javier Cámara in 2015). The comedy Sentimental / The People Upstairs, starring Javier Cámara, Belén Cuesta, Griselda Siciliani and Alberto San Juan, is the adaptation of a play by Gay himself (Los vecinos de arriba), where a meeting between two couples of neighbours ends in an emotional tsunami.

For his part, the Uruguayan Nacho Álvarez (Montevideo, 1986) debuts in feature films with Explota explota / My Heart Goes Boom!, a film including in its soundtrack the greatest hits of the Italian Raffaella Carrà and which will also be screened as a world premiere. The actress Ingrid García-Jonsson embodies a young singer and dancer as she tries to make her dreams come true in the grey Spain of the early ‘70s. Verónica Echegui, Fernando Guallar, Fernando Tejero, Pedro Casablanc, Carlos Hipólito and Natalia Millán feature in the cast.

Finally, RTVE will present in San Sebastian the first episodes of the series Inés del alma mía (Inés of My Soul). Directed by Cuban Alejandro Bazzano (Havana, 1963) and Chilean Nicolás Acuña (Santiago, 1972), this period drama is set in the 16th century and based on Isabel Allende’s novel of the same name. Elena Rivera will play Inés Suárez, a young girl from Extremadura who crosses the Atlantic in colonial times in search of her husband (Benjamín Vicuña), going on to live a passionate romance with the Spanish conquistador Pedro de Valdivia (Eduardo Noriega). 

IMPORTANT PRESENCE OF CINEMA WITH THE PARTICIPATION OF RTVE

As has been customary for some time now, the Festival has an important presence of films with the participation of RTVE. Worthy of note in the Official Selection are Akelarre, by Pablo Agüero, which will compete for the Golden Shell, and Rifkin’s Festival, Woody Allen’s latest comedy, to screen at the opening gala out of competition. In addition, New Directors, which includes first and second films, will include the screening of Ane, the feature film debut from David Pérez Sañudo.

RTVE participates every year in more than fifty feature films, documentaries, TV movies and animated films by established directors, young talents and independent moviemakers.
It also broadcasts 90% of all Spanish films seen on television while cinema plays the leading part in news programmes, weekly and specialised programmes, including Historia de nuestro cine, Versión española, Días de cine, Cine de barrio, ¡Atención obras!, Mañanas de cine, De película, Va de cine, El séptimo vicio and El ojo crítico.  

In its backing of the leading Spanish festivals, RTVE is the official sponsor of San Sebastian Festival, backs the Seminci, broadcasts the Goya, Forqué and Platino Awards, and presents the RNE Sant Jordi de Cinematografía Awards.

Furthermore, in April RTVE Digital launched the portal Somos cine, which includes the best in recent Spanish films plus information on new releases, films and movies currently being filmed.