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San Sebastian Film Festival. Made in Spain section
27August
Events

San Sebastian Film Festival. Made in Spain section

Made in Spain, a selection of the year’s Spanish films offered a platform for their international dissemination by the San Sebastian Festival, has selected sixteen productions, including various films presented at the Malaga Festival, a number of debut films and works by directors with an extensive career, such as Pedro Almodóvar and David Trueba.  

With the title Si me borrara el viento lo que yo canto, David Trueba reconstructs the process of recording Canciones de la resistencia española, released in the mid-60s by Chicho Sánchez Ferlosio and considered to be Spain’s first album of protest songs. San Sebastian will host the world premiere of this film conceived as a portrait of the character of the liberal artist who was Sánchez Ferlosio. Other releases are Zubiak (Bridges), a documentary about the need to rebuild bridges in the Basque Country directed by the journalist Jon Sistiaga and the filmmaker Alfonso Cortés-Cavanillas, and Historias de nuestro cine (Stories of Our Cinema), the directorial debut from Antonio Resines and Ana Pérez-Lorente, who have compiled the testimonies of myriad Spanish film directors, actors and producers.

The Festival will also offer the chance to take another look at Dolor y gloria (Pain and Glory), in which Pedro Almodóvar follows the profile of a moviemaker in the twilight of his career. The film competed in the Official Selection at the Cannes Festival, where its lead character, Antonio Banderas, won the best actor award. For his part, Jonás Trueba, who competed for the Golden Shell with La reconquista (The Reconquest, 2016), will present La virgen de agosto (The August Virgin, special jury mention at the Karlovy Vary Festival), narrating the adventures of a girl in her 30s who makes an act of faith out of her decision to stay in Madrid during the month of August. In addition, Javier Ruiz Caldera will once again show Superlópez, premiered at the Sitges Festival, starring Dani Rovira and written by Borja Cobeaga and Diego San José, who took their inspiration from the famous comic superhero created by Jan.

In his third fiction-length film, Los días que vendrán (The Days to Come) Carlos Marques-Marcet narrates the joys and fears of a couple expecting a child. The recipient of the best new director Goya for 10.000 KM (10,000 km, 2014) premiered his latest film at the Rotterdam Festival, which went on to become the big winner at Malaga, where it carried off the Golden and Silver Biznagas for the actress María Rodríguez Soto and for the maker of the film himself. On the other hand, Víctor Moreno will participate in the section with his latest feature film, La ciudad oculta (The Hidden City), a journey with a science-fiction atmosphere into an underground network of galleries, tunnels and sewers previously screened at festivals such as Amsterdam, Seville and San Francisco. Also programmed is El viatge de la Marta (Staff Only), the second work from Neus Ballús following La plaga (The Plague, 2013), which screened in the Panorama section of the Berlin Festival and also competed in Malaga with a cast headed by Sergi López, Elena Andrada and Ian Samsó as a family on holiday in an African resort.

With long experience in the field of animation, Salvador Simó will present Buñuel en el laberinto de las tortugas (Buñuel in the Labyrinth of the Turtles) an adaptation of the comic of the same name by Fermín Solís about the filming of Las Hurdes, tierra sin pan (Las Hurdes, Land Without Bread,1933), while Adán Aliaga and Álex Lora have taken one of their earlier works, the short film The Fourth Kingdom (2018), to develop a reflection on everyday life in a marginal community in a New York neighbourhood in El cuarto reino. El reino de los plásticos (The Fourth Kingdom), winner of awards at festivals including Guadalajara (Mexico), DocumentaMadrid and Amsterdam. The feature film also participated in Malaga, as did Me llamo violeta (My Name is Violeta), a work by David Fernández de Castro and Marc Parramon about the difficulties faced by young transgender people and their families, and Ojos negros, the debut film for which Marta Lallana and Ivet Castelo earned the Silver Biznaga in the Zonazine section.

Also screened in the different sections of the Andalusian festival were the following debuts: 7 raons per fugir (7 Reasons to Run Away), in which Esteve Soler, Gerard Quinto and David Torras tell seven stories combining horror and comedy; La banda (Love Beats), in which Roberto Bueso follows a young musician who comes home to his native Valencia from London, and La filla d'algú, an omnibus film directed by eleven students from the ESCAC, the Cinema and Audiovisual School of Catalonia (ESCAC), about a lawyer who has to deal with a trial by the press.   

In its 67th edition, the Festival will programme the three films chosen by the Film Academy as finalists to represent Spain at the Hollywood Academy Awards: Pain and Glory and Buñuel in the Labyrinth of the Turtles will screen in Made in Spain, and Mientra dure la guerra (While at War), by Alejandro Amenábar, will compete in the Official Selection.