French actress Marion Cotillard will receive a Donostia Award at San Sebastian Festival’s 69th edition. She will collect the honorary award on Friday, September 17, during the Festival opening ceremony.
Cotillard is the winner of the Oscar, the Golden Globe and the BAFTA for her role as Édith Piaf in La Vie en Rose by Olivier Dahan, 2007.
A strong supporter of environmental protection, the actress is also the producer of Bigger Than Us, a documentary by Flore Vasseur lending a voice to the youths committed to change. The film will show in San Sebastian as a Donostia Award Special Screening on September 18 at the Victoria Eugenia Theatre. The film premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in the Cinema for the climate special section alongside other titles intended to raise awareness in the audience on climate change and its effect on the environment.
The Award will be presented during the Festival opening gala (September 17) and will include the screening of Rosa Rosae. La Guerra Civil / Rosa Rosae. A Spanish Civil War Elegy, a short film by Carlos Saura, together with Zhang Yimou’s Yi miao zhong / One Second feature film.
BIGGER THAN US
Flore Vasseur (France)
For six years, Melati, 18, has been fighting the plastic pollution that is ravaging her country, Indonesia. Like her, a generation is rising up to fix the world. Everywhere, teenagers and young adults are fighting for human rights, the climate, freedom of expression, social justice, access to education or food. Dignity. Alone against all odds, sometimes risking their lives and safety, they protect, denounce and care for others. The earth. And they change everything. Melati goes to meet them across the globe. She wants to understand how to hold on and continue her action. From the favelas of Rio to the remote villages of Malawi, from makeshift boats off the island of Lesbos to Native American ceremonies in the mountains of Colorado, Rene, Mary, Xiu, Memory, Mohamad and Winnie reveal a magnificent world, one of courage and joy, of commitment to something bigger than oneself. At a time when everything seems to be or has been falling apart, these young people show us how to live.