56th San Sebastian Film Festival News

From September 18 to 27 this prestigious fest will take place in the Basque city of San Sebastian and I have been waiting for the Official Selection to be announced, but since they haven’t yet I decided to start posting some of the fest sections.

Horizontes Latinos is the fest section with features totally or partially produced in Latin America, directed by filmmakers of Latin origin, or set in or against Latin American communities throughout the world. Here are the fourteen features competing for the Horizontes award.

El Olvido (Oblivion), Heddy Honigmann, Netherlands and Germany (documentary)
Acné (Acne), Federico Veiroj, Uruguay, Argentina, Mexico and Spain
Corazón del Tiempo (Heart of Time), Alberto Cortés, Mexico
Dioses (Gods), Josué Méndez, Peru, Argentina, France and Germany (this one seems interesting)
Gasolina, Julio Hernández Cordón, Guatemala
Intimidades de Shakespeare y Victor Hugo (Shakespeare and Victor Hugo’s Intimacies), Yulene Olaizola, Mexico
Leonera, Pablo Trapero, Argentina, Brazil and South Korea (A must be seen for me)
Parque Vía, Enrique Rivero, Mexico
Perro Come Perro (Dog Eat Dog), Carlos Moreno, Colombia
La Rabia (Rage), Albertina Carri, Argentina
La Sangre Brota (Blood Appears), Pablo Fendrik, Argentina, France and Germany
Sleep Dealer, Alex Rivera, USA and Mexico
Tony Manero, Pablo Larraín, Chile (I’m really curious about this film)
La Vida Loca, Christian Poveda, Spain, France and Mexico (documentary)

Out of Competition
Two films screened out-of-competition will pay tribute to Cuban director Tomás Gutiérrez Alea.

Titón, De La Habana a Guantanamera, Mirtha Ibarra, Spain (documentary)
Memorias del Subdesarrollo (Memories of Underdevelopment), Tomás Gutiérrez Alea, Cuba, 1968

To check information about the films go here.

Another interesting section that has announced the full lineup is Zabaltegi-New Directors that this year will screen sixteen films in competition for the Altadis-New Directors Award. Here they are.

Amateurs, Gabriel Velázquez, Spain (seems interesting)
Amorosa Soledad (Lovely Loneliness), Martín Carranza and Victoria Galardi, Argentina
Ba Bai Bang (Letters from Death Row), Kevin Feng ke, China and USA
Bloedbroeders (Blood Brothers), Arno Dierickx, Netherlands
Chicos Normales (Ordinary Boys), Daniel Hernández, Spain
Cosas Insignificantes (Insignificant Things), Andrea Martínez Crowther, Mexico and Spain
Derrière Moi, Rafaël Ouellet, Canada
Entre Os Dedos (Noise), Tiago Guedes and Federico Serra, Portugal and Brazil
The Firm Land, Chapour Haghighat, Iran, France and India
Li Mi De Cai Xiang (The Equation of Love and Death), Cao Baoping, China
Passion, Ryusuke Hamaguchi, Japan
Thomas, Miika Soini, Finland
El Truco del Manco, Santiago Zannou, Spain
Le Non Dit (Unspoken), Fien Troch, Belgium and Netherlands
Frozen River, Courtney Hunt, USA
El Patio de Mi Cárcel (My Prison Yard), Belén Macías, Spain (Another female prison story with some lez interest characters)

To check information about the movies go here.

If you want to check the films in the Zabaltegi-Pearls section go here. To check the four films in competion in the Cinema in Motion 4 go here.

Most interesting is the retrospective Japan In Black that will screen 43 films from 1927 up to 1999. Here is an excerpt from the retrospective.

“Japan in Black will include silent era movies by Daisuke Ito, classics by Akira Kurosawa and Shohei Imamura, and new trends from Japanese film noir which are having a profound influence on modern filmmaking around the world. Films by names such as Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Masato Harada, Takashi Miike and Takeshi Kitano come together in what will probably be one of the genre’s most ambitious showcases.”

To check the list of all the films go here.

As soon as they announce the Official Selection Competition lineup I’ll post the list.