The new films by Fred Cavayé, Amanda Kernell, Jesse Eisenberg and Gabriel Martins, together with the feature debuts by Tony Vahl and Ah Biao, will compete in the Official Selection of the 74th San Sebastián International Film Festival (18-26 September). These titles join the ten already announced, which will also be contending for the Golden Shell and the rest of the festival’s awards (see the news).

From Europe, French filmmaker Fred Cavayé (Anything for Her, Mea culpa) will be locking horns with Les Misérables, a new adaptation of Victor Hugo’s literary classic, starring such familiar faces as Vincent Lindon, Tahar Rahim and Noémie Merlant, among others.

For her part, Swedish director Amanda Kernell (who has already competed in Venice’s Giornate degli Autori with Sámi Blood and at Sundance with Charter) will present her third feature, Brace Your Heart, which follows a young woman who inherits her late father’s reindeer herd and struggles to keep it going when the local chief falls in love with her. While hesitant, she feels compelled to accept him, but everything changes when his cousin arrives and she discovers true love; the local chief reacts harshly, leaving her with a disorder that jeopardises her ability to care for the herd. The film has also been selected to compete in Toronto's Platform section.

German filmmaker Tony Vahl will compete with Krux, her feature debut, inspired by true events, which tells the dark story of a small town in the northeast of her country at the end of World War II, when the Nazi regime ordered its inhabitants to leave nothing alive that the enemy would potentially be able to find. Most of the men are at the front, and what remains is a handful of women, children and the few men who were allowed to stay. The townspeople still believe everything will turn out okay, but the river starts delivering bodies that no one can name. No one knows when the enemy will arrive or what will happen when it does; rumours fill the silence where facts should be, and from that silence grows a fear greater than the enemy itself.

New York actor Jesse Eisenberg (renowned for his work in titles such as The Social Network, a role for which he earned an Oscar nomination, among other plaudits) directs Julianne Moore and Paul Giamatti in his third feature behind the camera (after When You Finish Saving the World and A Real Pain), The Debut, which follows a shy housewife who is unexpectedly turned into a star.

Also hailing from the Americas is On Behalf of My Son, the third movie directed by Brazil's Gabriel Martins (whose previous feature Mars One represented his country at the Oscars after competing at Sundance), in which a woman seeks forgiveness from the families of an accident caused by her son. The film has also been selected to compete in Toronto's Platform section.

Rounding off this half-dozen of newly announced titles is the feature debut by Chinese filmmaker Ah Biao, Border, set in a border town where a miner scarred by a life of abuse is driven to commit a crime.

The complete selection is as follows:

Competition

Border - Ah Biao (Hong Kong/USA/South Korea)
El mal padre - Roberto Bueso (Spain)
Les Misérables - Fred Cavayé (France)
The Debut - Jesse Eisenberg (USA)
Milo - Nicole Garcia (France)
Saints - Mikel Gurrea (Spain/Italy)
In My Father’s Room - Maha Harada (Japan)
Brace Your Heart - Amanda Kernell (Sweden/Norway/Denmark/Iceland/Bulgaria)
My Sad Dead - Pablo Larraín (Argentina/Chile)
Tender Loving Care - Mike Leigh (United Kingdom/United States/Singapore)
On Behalf of My Son - Gabriel Martins (Brazil)
Growth of the Soil - Hans Petter Moland (Norway/Denmark/Germany)
Glaxo - Benjamín Naishtat (Brazil/Argentina)
5 More Minutes - Javier Ruiz Caldera (Spain)
What Remains – Yeşim Ustaoğlu (Turkey/France/Luxembourg/Bulgaria)
Krux - Tony Vahl (Germany/Poland)