29/07/2025 - Couture, Two Pianos and Franz shine bright among the new films set to duke it out for the Golden Shell

After the announcement of the Spanish films set to participate in the upcoming 73rd San Sebastián International Film Festival, among which the new works by Alauda Ruiz de Azúa, José Luis Guerin, Alberto Rodríguez, and duo Jose Mari Goenaga and Aitor Arregi will compete for the Golden Shell (see the news), the festival has added the first round of international titles that will be vying for the award.

Leading the pack is Couture, the eagerly awaited new feature by French director Alice Winocour, who had already been invited to take part in this section with Proxima [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Alice Winocour
film profile], the winner of the Special Jury Prize. Her fifth film is a French-US co-production starring Angelina Jolie in which, in the frenzy of Fashion Week, three women cross paths in Paris, grappling with the world's tragedies and the big questions in their lives. Another French filmmaker, who will be participating in the festival for the first time with his first world premiere outside Cannes and Venice, is Arnaud Desplechin, the director of titles such as A Christmas Tale [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] and My Golden Days [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile]. His new film, Two Pianos [+see also:
trailer
film profile], starring François Civil, Nadia Tereszkiewicz, Charlotte Rampling and Hippolyte Girardot, follows a virtuoso pianist returning to Lyon, his hometown, after a long absence to experience a story of impossible love.

Poland’s Agnieszka Holland returns with Franz [+see also:
trailer
film profile], which narrates the life of writer Franz Kafka from his birth to his death. The most seasoned filmmaker of the selection has already participated twice in the section, with Total Eclipse in 1995 and Copying Beethoven in 2006, and presents her new movie after the success of her previous Green Border [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile], rewarded in Venice and nominated for the Academy Award.

Alongside these, Argentinian-born, Swiss-based filmmaker Milagros Mumenthaler locks horns for the first time at the festival after having competed at Locarno twice, bagging the Golden Leopard in 2011 with Back to Stay [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Milagros Mumenthaler
film profile]. In The Currents, a woman confronts a past she thought she had left behind. The section also welcomes Japanese duo Kentaro Hirase and Yutaro Seki, who have already participated in the New Directors section with their previous effort Roleless, co-directed with Masahiko Sato. They present SAI: Disaster, in which a mysterious man tragically enters the lives of a number of people, appearing under different identities.

Here is the selection announced so far:

Competition

Two Pianos [+see also:
trailer
film profile] – Arnaud Desplechin (France)
Maspalomas – José Mari Goenaga, Aitor Arregi (Spain)
Good Valley Stories – José Luis Guerín (Spain/France)
SAI: Disaster – Kentaro Hirase and Yutaro Seki (Japan)
Franz [+see also:
trailer
film profile] – Agnieszka Holland (Czech Republic/Germany/Poland/France/Turkey)
The Currents – Milagros Mumenthaler (Switzerland/Argentina)
Los Tigres – Alberto Rodríguez (Spain)
Sundays – Alauda Ruiz de Azúa (Spain/France)
Couture – Alice Winocour (France/USA)

(Translated from Spanish)