The new features by Edward Berger, Claire Denis, Dolores Fonzi, Joachim Lafosse, Olmo Omerzu, Xiaoyu Qin and James Vanderbilt will be duking it out – in the official section – for the Golden Shell at the upcoming San Sebastián Film Festival (19-27 September). They thus join the previously announced names (see the news), as listed below this article. In addition, the gathering has confirmed that in the Special Screenings, audiences will be able to see the debut film directed by actress Juliette Binoche as well as the latest outing by Junji Sakamoto.

After locking horns for the Golden Shell last year with Conclave [+lire aussi :
critique
bande-annonce
interview : Tapis rouge @ European Fil…
fiche film], which ended up winning the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay, and previously picking up the same statuette for All Quiet on the Western Front [+lire aussi :
critique
bande-annonce
interview : Edward Berger
fiche film] (2022), but this time the one for Best International Feature Film, Germany’s Edward Berger returns to the San Sebastián competition with Ballad of a Small Player, starring Colin Farrell as a gambler in Macao whose past begins to catch with him (see the news).

French filmmaker Claire Denis (Grand Jury Prize at Cannes for Stars at Noon [+lire aussi :
critique
bande-annonce
fiche film] and Silver Bear for Best Director at the Berlinale for Both Sides of the Blade [+lire aussi :
critique
bande-annonce
fiche film]), who took home the FIPRESCI Award from San Sebastián with High Life [+lire aussi :
critique
bande-annonce
interview : Claire Denis
fiche film] in 2018, will be competing at the Basque gathering for the second time with The Fence, an adaptation of Bernard-Marie Koltès’ work Black Battles with Dogs. Her new feature is set in the living quarters of a construction site in West Africa, and stars Isaach de Bankolé, Matt Dillon, Mia McKenna-Bruce and Tom Blyth.

Six Days in Spring is the title of the new feature by Joachim Lafosse, in which Eye Haïdara plays a desperate mother who borrows the house of her ex-parents-in-law on the Costa Azul in order to spend a few days there on holiday with her children. This will be the Belgian auteur’s third time taking part in the Official Section, where he scooped the Silver Shell for Best Director with The White Knights [+lire aussi :
critique
bande-annonce
interview : Joachim Lafosse
fiche film] in 2015 and to which he returned with A Silence [+lire aussi :
critique
bande-annonce
interview : Joachim Lafosse
fiche film].

A recently divorced father and his two teenage children enjoy staying on a camping site for a seemingly pleasant holiday in Ungrateful Beings, which marks Slovenian helmer Olmo Omerzu’s first time taking part in the Official Section of San Sebastián. Previously, he partook in the New Directors sidebar with his second feature, Family Film [+lire aussi :
critique
bande-annonce
interview : Olmo Omerzu
fiche film] (2015). With his debut, A Night Too Young [+lire aussi :
bande-annonce
interview : Jiří Konečný
fiche film], he was selected for the Berlinale Forum, and with his third movie, Winter Flies [+lire aussi :
critique
bande-annonce
interview : Olmo Omerzu
fiche film], he won Best Director at Karlovy Vary in 2018.

Argentinian actress-screenwriter-director Dolores Fonzi, who made her debut behind the camera with Blondi [+lire aussi :
critique
bande-annonce
interview : Dolores Fonzi
fiche film] two years ago, which was presented in Horizontes Latinos following its premiere at BAFICI, will be competing in the Official Section with her second directorial outing. Belén, which once again stars Fonzi herself, recreates a true story about a lawyer from Tucumán who fights to secure the freedom of a young woman who has been locked up in prison after suffering a miscarriage.

Meanwhile, Chinese director Xiaoyu Qin (The Verse of Us) will be at the Basque event to present his first fiction feature, Her Heart Beats in Its Cage, which recreates a true story with its original protagonists: it revolves around a woman who, after spending a decade behind bars for killing her husband, is reunited with her ten-year-old son. And after making his debut in 2003 with Truth, US helmer James Vanderbilt will be partaking with his movie Nuremberg, in which Oscar winner Rami Malek breathes life into the real-life character of Douglas Kelley, a US psychiatrist who evaluated 22 Nazis, including Hitler’s right-hand man, Hermann Göring, who is played by Russell Crowe in this adaptation of the book The Nazi and the Psychiatrist by author Jack El-Hai.

On the other hand, standing out in the Special Screenings sidebar is the feature-length directorial debut by actress Juliette Binoche (who won an Oscar for The English Patient): IN-I in Motion, a non-fiction flick that revisits her experience in In-I, the hybrid dance-theatre show that the thesp staged in 2007 together with dancer and choreographer Akram Khan. Also freshly announced, out of competition, is the presence of the movie Climbing for Life, based on the true story of Japanese mountaineer Junko Tabei, who was the first woman to reach the summit of Mount Everest. Its director, Junji Sakamoto, was behind films such as Face, which won the Award for Best Director from the Japanese Academy after competing in the Official Section of San Sebastián in 2000 and scooping the Youth Award.

Here is the full list of films announced so far:

Competition

Ballad of a Small Player – Edward Berger (UK)
The Fence – Claire Denis (France)
Two Pianos – Arnaud Desplechin (France)
Belén – Dolores Fonzi (Argentina)
Maspalomas – José Mari Goenaga, Aitor Arregi (Spain)
Good Valley Stories – José Luis Guerín (Spain/France)
SAI: Disaster – Kentaro Hirase, Yutaro Seki (Japan)
Franz [+lire aussi :
bande-annonce
fiche film] – Agnieszka Holland (Czech Republic/Germany/Poland/France/Turkey)
Six Days in Spring - Joachim Lafosse (Belgium/France/Luxembourg)
The Currents – Milagros Mumenthaler (Switzerland/Argentina)
Ungrateful Beings - Olmo Omerzu (Czech Republic/Slovenia/Poland/Slovakia/Croatia/France)
Los Tigres – Alberto Rodríguez (Spain)
Sundays – Alauda Ruiz de Azúa (Spain/France)
Nuremberg - James Vanderbilt (USA)
Couture – Alice Winocour (France/USA)
Her Heart Beats in Its Cage – Xiaoyu Qin (China)

Special Screenings

Bocas de cielo – Koldo Almandoz (Spain) (series)
Karmele – Asier Altuna (Spain)
IN-I in Motion – Juliette Binoche (France)
Flores para Antonio – Isaki Lacuesta, Elena Molina (Spain)
La suerte – Paco Plaza, Pablo Guerrero (Spain) (series)
Climbing for Life - Junji Sakamoto (Japan)