New films by Edward Berger, Costa-Gavras, Maite Alberdi and a drama with Pamela Anderson will compete in San Sebastian | Culture

The San Sebastian Film Festival will not be short of stars (Cate Blanchett will receive the Donostia Award). But glamour will also leave room for cinema. The official competition section of the 72nd edition of the Zinemaldi will pit some of the most interesting filmmakers on the world scene against each other. In the capital of Guipuzcoa, the new films by the Chilean Maite Alberdi, the German Edward Berger, the Americans Gia Coppola and Joshua Oppenheimer, the Greek Costa-Gavras, the Japanese Kiyoshi Kurosawa, the British Mike Leigh, the Argentine Diego Lerman, the French François Ozon and the newcomers Laura Carreira and Xin Huo will compete for the Golden Shell. They will join the already announced film by the French Audrey Diwan, and the Spanish Iciar Bollain, Pedro Martín-Calero, Pilar Palomero and Albert Serra.

This diverse selection, announced on Tuesday and made up of films directed by seven women and nine women, features some of the most anticipated titles of the year, including Conclavede Edward Berger (No news at the front), with Ralph Fiennes in one thriller around the election of a new Pope; the leap into fiction by Maite Alberdi, director of The Mole Agent y The infinite memorycon The place of the otherto the writer María Carolina Geel, who shot her lover to death in 1955; and also that of the documentary filmmaker Joshua Oppenheimer, who is launching into the dystopian musical The Endwith Tilda Swinton and Michael Shannon. Another release that will surely raise expectations will be the new release by Francis Ford Coppola’s granddaughter and Sofia Coppola’s niece, Gia Coppola, who has dared to put Pamela Anderson in a dramatic role with The Last Showgirlabout a dancer who sees her world fall apart at the age of 50. The competition in the city of San Sebastian will be held between the 20th and 28th of September.

Some of the directors of this edition are old acquaintances of the festival, and especially of its main section. Costa-Gavras received the Donostia Award in 2019 when he screened Behaving like adults and went through the queen section in 2012 with The capital. His new film, The last breatha collection of life reflections by a palliative care doctor and a writer, sums up the Festival. For Ozon, this will be the sixth time he has participated in the competition at the San Sebastian festival, where he won the Golden Shell and the Jury Prize for best script with At home (2012) and won the Special Jury Prize with My shelter (2009). This time, in When autumn fallspresents the story of a retired woman whose life changes when she meets a man, the son of a friend, recently released from prison. Diego Lerman (Buenos Aires, 1976), on the other hand, returns to the competition for the third time with The man who loved flying saucersabout the most remembered alien contact program on Argentine television.

Although it may seem incredible given his long career, Mike Leigh (Salford, 1943), a veteran of the Pearls section, will also make his debut in the official section with the Anglo-Spanish production, Hard Truthswhich portrays the routine of a London family in a story about family, grief and mental health. The Portuguese director Laura Carreira makes her debut in a feature film in the most important section of San Sebastian with On Fallingabout the precarious life of a Portuguese worker in a huge warehouse in Scotland. The Chinese screenwriter (known for her epic films) also does it. Kung Fu Sion o The Monkey King), Xin Huo with his debut film, Bound in heavenabout the adventure-filled escape of a terminally ill man and a young woman trapped by violence. Asian cinema finally brings Kiyoshi Kurosawa (Kobe, 1955) back to the forefront and will compete with The journey of the snakeshot in French, about a father who plans revenge for the death of his daughter and which is actually a remake of the film he directed in 1998.

These titles are added to Emmanuellethe film by Audrey Diwan that will open the competition, and the films with Spanish production that will compete for the Golden Shell: I am Nevenkaby Iciar Bollain; Cryingby Pedro Martín-Calero; The flashesby Pilar Palomero, and Afternoons of solitudeby Albert Serra.