The San Sebastian Film Festival, the biggest film event in the Spanish-speaking world, has unveiled a packed lineup of Spanish titles that is strong on women auteurs, led by Iciar Bollaín, Pilar Palomero, Paula Ortiz and Alauda Ruiz de Azua, who are now stepping up in scale or industry backing as big SVOD players – Movistar Plus+, Prime Video – move into the production of Spanish movies aimed at theatrical release or back their original series.
Vying in main competition, Bollaín’s “I Am Nevenka” looks like the first film to see the light of day from six auteur event movies co-produced by Movistar Plus+ and directed by leading cinematographic talent such as Rodrigo Sorogoyen and Alberto Fernández.
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Also selected are two leading lights of a younger generation of women directors which have galvanised Spanish arthouse but are now looking for broader audiences.
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Goya and San Sebastian winner Pilar Palomero (“Schoolgirls,” “La Maternal”) competes in main competition with “Glimmers,” (“Destellos”), a relationship drama backed by not only Misent Producciones and Inicia Films, Palomero’s regular producer, as well as Mod Producciones, behind some of Spain’s biggest recent productions such as Alejandro Amenábar’s “While at War” and “The Captive.”
A Special Screening, “The Red Virgin” (aka “Hildegart”) is directed by Paula Ortiz, who helmed “Across the River and Into the Trees” with Josh Husherton and Liev Shreiber, who returns to Spanish filmmaking with a real events inspired drama which will debut in theaters across Spain on Sept. 27 as the first Prime Video original to get a wide theatrical release in the country.
Having broken out with her feature debut “Lullaby,” a Spanish Academy Award and Málaga winner described by Pedro Almodóvar as “undoubtedly the best debut in Spanish cinema for years,” Alauda Ruiz de Azúa directs the highest-profile series at San Sebastián, “Querer.”
Set in the current day and laced by genre drive as both courtroom drama and psychological thriller, “Querer” begins when Miren, after more than 30 years of marriage and two sons, abandons the family home and goes to a police station with her lawyer to denounce her husband for decades of sexual abuse.
San Sebastian does not operate a quota system for women cineastes’ presence in its lineup. “What we’re seeing is that there’s ever more cinema made by women, in Spain and in international cinema,” San Sebastian director José Luis Rebordinos told Variety. “The [Spanish government’s] points system backing women filmmakers is working, for example. That’s a fact.”
Spain’s main competition presence is rounded up by “Tardes de Soledad” “The Wailing” (“El Llanto”), toplining Ester Expósito, one of the stars of Netflix global hit “Elite,” and co-written by Rodrigo Sorogoyen’s regular co-scribe Isabel Peña (“The Beasts”).
Among Spanish titles, further highlights look set to include “Los últimos románticos” from David Pérez Sañudo (“Ane is Missing”).
Getting on for a decade ago, Rebordinos was worried that Spanish cinema, whammied by governmental austerity measures, would not be able to supply the brace of top-notch art pic titles which have characterised San Sebastian since the mid-‘70s.
No more. “Every year it’s increasingly complicated to choose Spanish titles for competition and New Directors. Spanish cinema is in ever greater health given the variety of titles on offer,” he said at a Madrid presentation on Friday of Spain’s lineup at this year’s San Sebastian Festival. San Sebastian normally chooses three Spanish films for competition and two in New Directors: This year there are four and three, he noted.
“What I see is ever greater variety,” Rebordinos told Variety. “Pilar Palomero’s title is a film of sentiments. ‘I Am Nevenka’ is a political film, combatting sexual abuse. ‘The Wailing’ is a genre film, straight-arrow horror. Its ending yields a reading that transcends genre, but it comes through a genre vision. That’s really important to me.”
“The competition also has a non-fiction title, Albert Serra’s ‘Afternoons of Solitude,’ and New Directors includes C. Tangana’s directorial debut, a great doc-feature on a flamenco musician,” Rebordinos added. “Genre auteur cinema has been around for some time, but there’s ever more of it, and non-fiction cinema is increasingly normal,” Rebordinos concluded.
The 72nd San Sebastian Film Festival runs Sept. 20-28.
Spanish Titles, 72nd San Sebastian Film Festival
Main Competition
“Afternoons of Solitude,” (Albert Serra)
Reportedly exploring the spiritual pain of bullfighting and its aesthetics, the creation of ephemeral beauty in a brutal clash between man and bull, seen from the POV of the matador, turning on the mental and spiritual states that a bullfighter experiences in the ring,” said San Sebastián director José Luis Rebordinos.
“I Am Nevenka,” (Iciar Bollaín)
Written by Bollaín and Isa Campo (“Between Two Waters”), co-scribes on Bollain’s 2021’s breakout “Maixabel,” a film inspired by a landmark sexual harassment case in Spain, taking place way back in 2001, weaving a narrative of power, gender discrimination, and the courage to stand alone. Sold by Film Factory.
“Glimmers,” (“Destellos,” Pilar Palomero)
A top-notch Spanish cast led by Patricia López Arnaíz and Antonio de la Torre drive the tale of a woman asked by her daughter to care for her father, the hospitalized ex-husband she has not seen for 15 years. Buried resentments well as she meets him again. After two multi-prized studies of female adolescence, Palomero’s biggest movie to date and a “reflection on the marks left on us and which we leave, which make us who we are,” Palomero has said. Another Film Factory title.
“The Wailing,” (“El llanto,” Pedro Martín Calero)
“No one can see it with the naked eye, but its presence has always been there. 20 years ago he stalked Camila and Marie. Now, 10,000 kilometers away, Andrea has begun to hear the wailing,” the synopsis runs. Lead produced by on-the-rise Madrid production house Caballo Films (“The Beasts,” “La ruta”), and the feature debut of Martín Calero, whose work to date includes Weeknd pop video “Secrets,” commercials – the vertigo-inducing Honda Civic –Up spot, for instance – or fiction vignettes, such as “Julius Cesar.” Also sold by Film Factory.
Out of Competition
“Querer,” (Alauda Ruiz de Azua)
In her TV debut Ruíz de Azua returns to an eye-opening intimate family drama set in her lush native Basque Country, a story which delivers once more some uncomfortable truths about women’s role in traditional family structures. One of the banner fall series from Movistar Plus+, combining the force of another emerging female voice and the industrial power of the Telefonica pay-TV/SVOD player.
Special Screenings
“La virgen roja,” (aka “Hildegart,” Paula Ortiz)
A big Spanish period production “Hildegart,” starring Najwa Nimri (“Money Heist,” “Locked Up”) and Alba Planas (“Skam España”), the fact-based tale of the extraordinary and tragic life of Spain’s Hildegart Rodríguez, born in 1914, a child prodigy raised by her mother to be a model for future women, who gave conferences on feminism and sexuality from the age of 11. Producers Avalon and Elastica Films, behind 2022 Berlin Golden Bear winner “Alcarràs,” produce for Prime Video Spain.
“I, Addict,” (Javier Giner, Elena Trapé)
An autobiographical story of how director Giner voluntarily entered a rehab center at 30 years old, suffering the darkest moments of his life, and came out a new person.
New Directors
“La guitarra flamenca de Yerai Cortes,”(C. Tangana)
A portrait of young flamenco guitarist Cortés, at the cutting edge of current flamenco innovation, marking the directorial debut of celebrated rapper-singer-songwriter C. Tangana
“Los últimos románticos,” (David Pérez Sañudo)
Produced by Basque label Irusoin and Seville-based La Claqueta, the genre-blending tale – typical of Pérez Sañudo – of a withdrawn hypochondriac who finds a new sense of identity and source of public respect during a labor dispute which breaks out at her local paper mill in a blue-collar town near the Basque city of Bilbao. Latido Films sells.
“Por donde pasa el silencio,” (Sandra Romero)
With “The Wailing,” one of the awaited Spanish feature debuts of the year, a feature-length reimagining of Romero’s short of the same title which won a best director plaudit in Malaga, the story of a man who returns to his rural town, having forged a life in Madrid, to help his twin brother.
“The Arrival of the Son” (Cecilia Atan, Valeria di Vato)
Sofía, suffering a mournful time in her own life, is forced to take in her adult son who has just returned from spending several years in prison. For each, the reunion offers a chance to close the seemingly insurmountable gap that has developed between them since the man committed his crime. From the Argentine directors of “La Novia del Desierto.”
Horizontes Latinos
“Most People Die on Sundays,” (Iair Said, Argentina)
A dark family comedy that follows David, a 30-something, chubby, shiftless student who returns from studying in Italy for a family funeral in Buenos Aires. There, he learns that his mother has decided to take his father, who has been in an extended coma, off life support. To pass the time, David aimlessly moves from one task to the next, trying to have sex with anyone who shows him the slightest bit of attention. A 2023 San Sebastian WIP Latam title.
“Maybe It’s True What They Say About Us,” (Sofía Paloma Gómez, Chile)
Another 2023 WIP Latam title, this film is based on true events and recounts the story of Ximena, a successful psychiatrist whose prodigal daughter Tamara returns to her after being cut off for years as a member of a cult. The reunion is far from a happy one, however, as Tamara’s newborn baby disappeared under strange circumstances while she was still with the sect, incurring a police investigation.
Zabaltegi-Tabakalera
“Every You Every Me,” (Michael Fetter Nathansky, Germany, Spain)
This romantic social drama explores the profound dichotomy between the magic of falling in love and the painful process of falling out of love. A 2022 WIP Europa winner.
“When It Comes (It Will Have Your Eyes),” (Izibene Oéderra)
An animated short about a society divided into to dramatically separate strata, the privileged few who enjoy a hedonistic lifestyle and the others, who must struggle simply to survive.
“Southern Brides” (Elena López Riera)
Cannes Critics Week Queer Palm winner, this short features mature women discussing marriage, their first time having sex and their relationships with sexuality. Conversations with women of another era force director Elena López Riera to question her own unmarried and childless status.
Velódromo
“Celeste,” (Diego San José)
Carmen Machi, once buttoned-holed as a comedian but now recognized as one of Spain’s most versatile of performers, plays a tax inspector who, after years of humdrum work, has the chance to catch a high-profile tax invader, going out in glory. A potentially popular play from Movistar Plus+.
