Keys to This Year’s San Sebastian’s Festival

Spains 71st San Sebastian Film Festival is tracking to welcome an even larger industry presence than 2022, currently up 10% in attendance on 2022s already bullish figures, its status as the biggest movie event in the Spanish-speaking world remaining undiminished.

Here are 10 key takes on potential highlights and trends which look likely to shape this years edition, running Sept. 22-30:

New Talent

Boasting a prestigious New Directors section as its biggest sidebar and an Ikusmira Berriak development lab for emerging cineasts, San Sebastian has always been strong on new talent. In 2023, however, it is even stronger still. 10 of its 16 main competition entries are first (three) or second features (seven). Having so many new directors is part coincidence, says San Sebastian director Jos Luis Rebordinos. But the presence of so many emerging directors may reflect new industry dynamics and recent years of fuller employment. My impression is that some young directors now move fast, make shorts and co-write screenplays before making first features and this experience means these films are more rounded and mature, he adds, citing competition contender Isabella Eklf, who co-wrote Ali Abbasis Oscar-nominated Border.

Women Make Their Mark

Seven of the first or second-time fiction feature directors in San Sebastian competition this year are women, and more than half of their films strongly women-centric, whether capturing the memories of a Black women in rural Mississippi (Raven Jacksons All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt,) toxic masculinity in the Outback (Kitty Greens Royal Hotel) or womens reproductive rights in past rural Galicia (Jaione Cambordas The Rye Horn). They also rate as three of the buzziest competition titles.

All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt Courtesy of San Sebastian Film Festival Industry Big Guns Hit the Fest

Last year, CAA Media Finance teamed with San Sebastian to organize the festivals first Creative Investors Conference, to debate latest market trends. They should know: Speakers took in CAAs own Roeg Sutherland, now Goodfellas Vincent Maraval and Cinetic Medias John Sloss. All three will return this year. Running Sept. 26-28, further CIC attendees include Netflixs Teresa Moneo, Amblin Partners Jeb Brody and Anonymous Contents David Davoli, plus key figures from Latin America such as KSs Matas Mosteirn and Infinity Hills Axel Kuschevatzky. Panel subjects range widely. The real rub, however, playing out in many, is a state of the union take, with a pull-back on streamers content investment, on the challenges and opportunities in the U.S and global film industry, from a market and producers perspective.

Will There Be Any Stars?

Yes, but not Javier Bardem. A San Sebastian Donostia Award winner this year, Bardem will pick up his prize in person at 2024s fest, the postponement due to limits imposed by the SAG-AFTRA strike, San Sebastian announced Sept. 8. Jessica Chastain will, however, present Michel Francos Memory. Gabriel Byrne and Aidan Gillen (both Dance First) are expected, as Mads Mikkelsen (The Promised Land) and Griffin Dunne and James Norton (Ex-Husbands). Also coming are multiple A-list auteurs, led by main jury president Claire Denis.

Buzz Titles

Theres great word of mouth on the Greenland-set Kalak, from Denmarks Isabella Eklf, turning on pederasty, and Puan, a university faculty satire, by Benjamin Naishat, who stormed San Sebastian with Rojo, and Mara Alch (A Family Submerged). In New Directors, titles building fan clubs take in Xiao Yao Yous section opener Carefree Days, a portrait of modern urban China; Javier Macipes The Blue Star, inspired by 1990s Spanish rock icon Mauricio Aznar; and singular family comedy Mother, Couch, another debut, from Swedens Niclas Larrson, with one of the biggest star lineups of any movie at San Sebastian.

Puan Credit: Luxbox San Sebastians Biggest New Cinematic Highlight? Los Javis Series La Mesas

Time hopping from the 80s to around 1997 to 2013, shot in 16mm and digital, structured with the unpredictability of memory, La Mesas delivers a big canvas yet intimate and lacerating vision of religious fanaticism and childhood trauma which marks a huge step-up across the board for Los Javis, say those who have seen it. With Berto Romero, likely to surprise with The Other Side, a comedic horror thriller with social issue undertow, TV series look set to make at least some of the significant running at this years San Sebastian.

Tooning Up

Hayao Miyazakis The Boy and the Heron opens San Sebastian; Isabel Hergueras Sultanas Dream, an India-set three-part take on gender politics down the decades, plays competition; dazzling at 2022s Annecy when in post, a third animated feature,They Shot the Piano Player, from Oscar-nominated Fernando Trueba and Javier Mariscal (Chico Rita), features as a special screening. The toon trifecta is again part coincidence, stresses Rebordinos, noting that San Sebastian has screened animated features before, such as Juan Jos Campanellas fest opener Underdogs. Animations build is seen on San Sebastians doorstep in the Basque Country, whose fledgling animation industry is an opportunity for the region, says Rebordinos.

They Shot the Piano Player Courtesy of San Sebastian Film Festival Genre Build

Meanwhile, also based in the Basque Country, Galder Gaztelu-Urrutia has shot sci fi horror allegory The Platform 2, whose 2019 original ranks as Netlixs second most-watched non-English movie ever. Ever increasingly a favourite among younger directors and one form of independent production which can punch healthy market returns, genre and genre blending is also on the rise, as this years San Sebastians Co-Production Forum attests. Its genre titles often retains Spain and Latin Americas traditional arthouse social edge. One Forum project, The Days Off, for instance, blends genres such as horror, comedy and coming-of-age as it explores an economic crisis from the eyes of a kid, says producer Paula Zyngierman.

Latin American Central

Not all is change: , one of modern San Sebastians foundation stonesholds strong: its Latin American axis. Vaunted Argentine auteurs Martin Rejtman (The Practice), Benjamin Naishtat and Mara Hache (Puan) and Luca Puenzo (Los Impactados) world premiere their latest completed films at San Sebastian. At the Europe-Latin America Co-Production Forum, Federico Veiroj, Theo Court, Alicia Scherson and Daniel Hendler effectively world premiere latest projects. Horizontes Latinos packs 12 Latin America titles. No other major film festival can match this presence.

The Best of Spain, Down the Generations

Victor Erice, whose 1973 San Sebastian Golden Shell winner, The Spirit of the Beehive, helped lay another founding stone of the modern San Sebastian its strong line in social/political issue arthouse will attend San Sebastian to screen Close Your Eyes, acclaimed by those who caught it in Cannes, and accept a Donostia Prize. This years fest will, indeed, welcome many of the Spains greatest filmmakers whether from a post-Franco generation who opened Spain up to various forms of U.S. cinema, whether its golden age of comedy (Fernando Trueba, at San Sebastian with They Shot the Piano Player), U.S.-style indie production (Isabel Coixet, in competition with Un Amor) and genre (J.A. Bayona, at San Sebastian with Society of the Snow. Carla Simn, whose Summer 1993 brought down the flag on a new generation of filmmakers, making dramas with a large sense of place, but raising universal issues, will receive Spains National Cinema Prize. One of San Sebastians biggest strengths has been always been its platform for Spanish cinema. 2023 will be no exception.