Just a few weeks after the first batch of non-Spanish titles was announced for the selection – one of the strongest clutches of recent editions (which included films by Cristi Puiu, Joachim Lafosse and Robin Campillo – see the news) – the San Sebastián Film Festival continues to surprise us with its top-notch programme. The gathering headed up by José Luis Rebordinos has just announced the new titles that have been added to the competition for the Golden Shell at its 71^st edition, and standing out among them are opuses by France’s Xavier Legrand, Denmark’s Isabella Eklöf and Australia’s Kitty Green, as well as the leap to a US production by Greece’s Christos Nikou.

Xavier Legrand thus makes an almost surprise return after his successful feature debut, Custody (which made a huge splash at the 2017 Venice Film Festival, with its Silver Lion for Best Director and its Lion of the Future – “Luigi De Laurentiis” Award for a Debut Film, in addition to picking up the César Award for Best Film), with The Successor, the story of a fashion designer who, after his father’s death, discovers a terrible secret in the family home. Meanwhile, Isabella Eklöf, who rose to fame at Sundance with Holiday and co-wrote Ali Abbasi’s smash hit Border, will be at San Sebastián to present her second film, Kalak, which revolves around a Danish nurse who moves to Greenland and tries to connect with local culture through sex. Australia’s Kitty Green is also partaking with her new work, following The Assistant, a co-production between Australia and the UK entitled The Royal Hotel, again starring Julia Garner.

Standing out among the freshly announced films with no European production involvement is the new effort by Christos Nikou, who, after having turned heads at Venice in 2020 with his unusual Apples, follows in the footsteps of Yorgos Lanthimos, the director of Nikou’s first film as assistant director (Dogtooth), and kicks off an English-language career with Fingernails, a very timely dystopian tale which explores an institution that tests whether or not a couple’s love is genuine, starring popular actors Jessie Buckley, Riz Ahmed and Jeremy Allen White. The announcement is rounded off by titles by Japan’s Kei Chika-Ura (Great Absence), and Taiwanese duo Tzu-Hui Peng and Ping-Wen Wang (A Journey in Spring).

Out of competition, the festival – which recently announced that its opening film would be the highly anticipated new work by anime master Hayao Miyazaki, The Boy and the Heron, screening as a European premiere, and that its closing film would be the new outing by James Marsh, Dance First – has confirmed the inclusion of A Real Job by France’s Thomas Lilti, who rose to prominence with Hippocrates.

Furthermore, the second Donostia Award at this edition (the first of which is destined for Javier Bardem) will be bestowed upon the maestro Víctor Erice, which will entail the Spanish premiere of his first feature in 31 years, Close Your Eyes. As RTVE Galas, audiences will get to enjoy Chinas, the new film by Arantxa Echevarría, following her successful Carmen & Lola, and La ternura, the new comedy by Vicente Villanueva. Lastly, the Klasikoak section will host the world premiere of El realismo socialista, an unreleased film by Raúl Ruiz that was conceived some 50 years ago, and which his widow and regular collaborator Valeria Sarmiento has salvaged and completed.

Here are the titles announced so far:

Competition

Puan - María Alché, Benjamín Naishtat (Argentina/Italy/Germany/France/Brazil)
Red Island - Robin Campillo (France/Belgium)
The Rye Horn – Jaione Camborda (Spain/Portugal/Belgium)
Great Absence - Kei Chika-Ura (Japan)
Un amor – Isabel Coixet (Spain)
Kalak - Isabella Eklöf (Denmark/Sweden/Norway/Netherlands/Finland)
The Royal Hotel - Kitty Green (Australia/UK)
Sultana’s Dream - Isabel Herguera (Spain)
All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt - Raven Jackson (USA)
A Silence - Joachim Lafosse (Belgium/France/Luxembourg)
The Successor - Xavier Legrand (France/Belgium/Canada)
Fingernails - Christos Nikou (USA)
Ex-Husbands - Noah Pritzker (USA)
MMXX - Cristi Puiu (Romania/Moldova/France)
The Practice - Martín Rejtman (Argentina/Chile/Portugal)
A Journey in Spring - Tzu-Hui Peng, Ping-Wen Wang (Taiwan)

Out of Competition

The Boy and the Heron - Hayao Miyazaki (Japan) (opening film)
La Mesías - Javier Ambrossi, Javier Calvo (Spain) (series)
Dance First - James Marsh (UK/Belgium/Hungary) (closing film)

Special Screenings

They Shot the Piano Player - Fernando Trueba, Javier Mariscal (Spain/France)
A Real Job - Thomas Lilti (France)
Close Your Eyes - Víctor Erice (Spain/Argentina)

RTVE Galas

Chinas - Arantxa Echevarría (Spain)
La Ternura - Vicente Villanueva (Spain)

Velodrome

Esta ambición desmedida - Santos Bacana, Cris Trenas, Rogelio González (Spain)
El otro lado - Berto Romero, Alberto de Toro, Javier Ruiz Caldera (Spain) (series)