18 titles with Spanish production (15 features, two shorts and one TV series) will be seen in the Official Selection, New Directors, Zabaltegi-Tabakalera, Perlak and the Velodrome at San Sebastian Festival’s 70th edition, running from September 16-24, 2022.
Films include Fernando Franco’s third feature, The Rite of Spring (La consagración de la primavera), that follows the meeting between an 18-year-old girl (Valèria Sorolla) and a young boy with cerebral palsy (Telmo Irureta).
Suro is the feature directorial debut from Mikel Gurrea, starring Vicky Luengo and Pol López as a couple who move to the countryside.
La maternal is the second movie from Pilar Palomero after winning the Goya for best film, best new director and best original screenplay for her debut feature, Las niñas (Schoolgirls, Made in Spain, 2020). Palomero focuses on a 14-year-old teenager (Carla Quílez) in her process of learning how to become a mother.
Jaime Rosales also returns to San Sebastian’s official competition with Wild Flowers (Girasoles silvestres), Anna Castillo plays a mother in search of a better life.
OFFICIAL SELECTION – In competition
GIRASOLES SILVESTRES / WILD FLOWERS
JAIME ROSALES (SPAIN)
Country(ies) of production: Spain – France
Cast: Anna Castillo, Oriol Pla, Quim Àvila, Lluís Marquès, Manolo Solo, Carolina Yuste
Julia, a 22-year-old mother of two, falls in love with Oscar, a troubled boy with whom she embarks on a love affair. The more time they spend together, the more Julia asks herself if Óscar is the person she really needs by her side, prompting her to set out on a personal journey to find happiness for herself and for her family.
LA CONSAGRACIÓN DE LA PRIMAVERA / THE RITE OF SPRING
FERNANDO FRANCO (SPAIN)
Country(ies) of production: Spain
Cast: Valèria Sorolla, Telmo Irureta, Emma Suárez
Laura has just arrived in Madrid to study at University. One night, she accidentally meets David, who has cerebral palsy. The relationship with the boy and his mother will give Laura the push she needs to overcome her complexes and insecurities and confidently enter a new phase. A story about that vital moment when anything is possible and how the most unexpected encounters can change our lives.
LA MATERNAL
PILAR PALOMERO (SPAIN)
Country(ies) of production: Spain
Cast: Carla Quilez, Ángela Cervantes, Jordan Angel Dumes
At the age of 14, Carla is a wild and rebellious adolescent. Living in a modest restaurant on the outskirts of town with her young single mother, she skips school and passes the time with her friend Efraín. When the social worker realises that Carla is five months pregnant, she takes her to ‘La Maternal’, a centre for teenage mothers where she lives with other young girls like herself. Together with their babies, they will learn to cope in this new adult world for which they have had no time to prepare.
SURO
MIKEL GURREA (SPAIN)
Country(ies) of production: Spain
Cast: Vicky Luengo, Pol López, Ilyass El Ouahdani
Ikusmira Berriak 2013
Elena and Ivan decide to make a new life for themselves amongst cork trees, but their different points of view on how to live on the land surface, challenging their future as a couple.
OFFICIAL SELECTION – Not in competition
APAGÓN / OFFWORLD
RODRIGO SOROGOYEN (SPAIN), RAÚL ARÉVALO (SPAIN), ISA CAMPO (SPAIN), ALBERTO RODRÍGUEZ (SPAIN), ISAKI LACUESTA (SPAIN)
Country(ies) of production: Spain
Cast: Luis Callejo, Ainhoa Santamaría, Melina Matthews, Patricia López Arnaiz, Zoé Arnao, Miquel Fernández, Jesús Carroza, María Vázquez, Naira Lleó
Not in competition
A solar storm hits the Earth, causing a widespread blackout. In this new reality, five stories unfold, focusing on characters who struggle to adapt to a world without electricity, telecommunications or means of transport, where they are forced to face up to their most primal needs, instincts and fears.
MODELO 77 / PRISON 77
ALBERTO RODRÍGUEZ (SPAIN)
Country(ies) of production: Spain
Cast: Miguel Herrán, Javier Gutiérrez, Jesús Carroza, Fernando Tejero, Catalina Sopelana, Xavi Sáez
OPENING NIGHT FILM
Not in competition
Modelo Prison. Barcelona, 1977. Manuel, a young accountant, imprisoned and awaiting trial for embezzlement, faces a sentence of 6 to 8 years, a disproportionate punishment for the crime committed. Together with his cellmate Pino, he joins forces with COPEL, a collective fighting for the rights of ordinary prisoners and amnesty. A war for freedom breaks out that will bring the Spanish prison system to its knees. If things are changing outside, they’ll have to do the same inside. A tale of friendship, solidarity and freedom, inspired in true events.
OFFICIAL SELECTION – Special Screenings
EL SOSTRE GROC
ISABEL COIXET (SPAIN)
Country(ies) of production: Spain
Special Screenings
In 2018, a group of nine women filed a complaint against two of their teachers at Lleida’s Theatre School for sexual abuse carried out between 2001 and 2008, when they were teenagers. It was too late. Due to fear, embarrassment, because they took so long to understand and digest what had happened, the complaint arrived when the statute of limitations had expired and the case had been closed. What they didn’t know is that, despite the statute of limitations having expired, their statements were opening a new door where, perhaps, all was not lost.
NEW DIRECTORS
A LOS LIBROS Y A LAS MUJERES CANTO / TO BOOKS AND WOMEN I SING
MARIA ELORZA (SPAIN)
Country(ies) of production: Spain
A woman was almost called ‘Avioneta’ (Small Airplane) at birth. Another had a library in the back seat of her car. Yet another fractures her finger with the rebel shelves of her bookcase. Lectors read to cigar makers while they work. Women remember poems while they iron. And to them all I sing. Standing against fire, water, moths, dust, ignorance and fanaticism, an anonymous female army looks after books. An intimate resistance, lacking epic events, revolution or weapons.
ZABALTEGI-TABAKALERA
CERDITA / PIGGY
CARLOTA PEREDA (SPAIN)
Country(ies) of production: Spain – France
Cast: Laura Galán, Richard Holmes, Carmen Machi, Claudia Salas, Irene Ferreiro, Camille Aguilar, José Pastor, Pilar Castro, Julián Valcárcel, Fernando Delgado-Hierro, Chema del Barco
During the stifling Extremaduran summer, a mysterious stranger comes to Sara’s town and kidnaps the girls who ruthlessly tease her every day. And she saw the whole thing. Only Sara can save the girls, but should she do it?
CUERDAS / CHORDS (Short film)
ESTIBALIZ URRESOLA SOLAGUREN (SPAIN)
Country(ies) of production: Spain
Cast: Begoña Suarez, Miguel Garcés, Xanti Aguirrezabalaga, Jone Laspiur
Rita belongs to a women’s choir on the point of breaking up because they have lost the municipal grant that allowed them to pay the rental on their rehearsal room. Now the group has to decide whether or not to accept sponsorship from one of the companies responsible for causing most pollution in the valley.
EL AGUA / THE WATER
ELENA LÓPEZ RIERA (SPAIN)
Country(ies) of production: Switzerland – France – Spain
Cast: Luna Pamies, Bárbara Lennie, Nieve de Medina, Alberto Olmo, Irene Pellicer, Nayara García, Lidia María Cánovas, Pascual Valero
Ikusmira Berriak 2018
It’s summer in a small village in south-eastern Spain. A storm threatens to cause the river running through it to overflow yet again. According to a popular old belief, some women are predestined to disappear with each new flood because they have the “water inside”. Ana lives with her mother and her grandmother in a house eyed with suspicion by the other locals. In this electric atmosphere preceding the rain, Ana meets José while she struggles to banish her ghosts.
HIRUGARREN KOADERNOA / THIRD NOTEBOOK (Short film)
LUR OLAIZOLA (SPAIN)
Country(ies) of production: Spain
Cast: Ana Torrent
Not in competition
An actress and a filmmaker rehearse a movie script. The screenplay includes excerpts from the diary written by María Dolores González Katarain, Yoyes, during her exile in Mexico between 1980 and 1985, after having left ETA. As the script progresses, hints and references to other women appear amongst Yoyes’s words: Ulrike Meinhof, Simone de Beauvoir, Rocío Díazescobar, Alexandra Kollontai, Tina Modotti. Meanwhile, outside it grows darker.
PERLAK
LOS RENGLONES TORCIDOS DE DIOS / GOD’S CROOKED LINES
ORIOL PAULO (SPAIN)
Country(ies) of production: Spain
Cast: Bárbara Lennie, Federico Aguado, Loreto Mauleón, Eduard Fernández, Pablo Derqui, Javier Beltrán, Adelfa Calvo
CLOSING FILM OUT OF COMPETITION
Alice, a private investigator, checks into a psychiatric hospital feigning paranoia with the goal of collecting evidence for the case she is working on: the death of an inmate in unclear circumstances. But the reality she faces in her confinement will exceed her expectations and cast doubt on her own sanity. An unknown and exciting world will open before her eyes. The course of events will see her morph from investigator into suspect in a masterful whodunnit, where nothing is what it seems.
AS BESTAS / THE BEASTS
RODRIGO SOROGOYEN (SPAIN)
Country(ies) of production: Spain – France
Cast: Denis Ménochet, Marina Foïs, Luis Zahera, Diego Anido, Marie Colomb
French couple Antoine and Olga moved to a little village in the Galician countryside some time ago. There they live a quiet life, although their relations with the locals is not as idyllic as they would like them to be. A conflict with their neighbours, the Anta brothers, will see tension rise in the village to the point of no return.
UN AÑO, UNA NOCHE / ONE YEAR, ONE NIGHT
ISAKI LACUESTA (SPAIN)
Country(ies) of production: Spain – France
Cast: Nahuel Pérez Biscayart, Noémie Merlant, Quim Gutiérrez, Alba Guilera, Natalia de Molina, C. Tangana
Ramón and Céline are a young couple who happen to be at the Bataclan in Paris on the night of 13 November 2015. While the terrorist attack is unfolding, they each find their way into the musicians’ dressing room, where they take shelter. On leaving they are no longer the same. And they don’t know if they ever will be again…
VELODROME
BLACK IS BELTZA II: AINHOA
FERMIN MUGURUZA (SPAIN)
Country(ies) of production: Spain
Ainhoa was born by a miracle in La Paz (Bolivia), after the death of her mother Amanda in a simulated car accident. She grew up in Cuba and in 1988, at the age of 21, she traveled to the Basque Country to discover the land of her father Manex. In the midst of repression and political conflict, she meets Josune, a committed journalist, and her gang of friends. After one of them dies of a heroin overdose, Ainhoa and Josune set out on an initiatory journey that will take them across Lebanon, Afghanistan and the city of Marseille. These are the last years of the Cold War and they will delve into the dark world of drug trafficking networks and their close links to political plots.
RAINBOW
PACO LEÓN (SPAIN)
Country(ies) of production: Spain
Cast: Dora Postigo, Carmen Maura, Carmen Machi, Luis Bermejo, Ayax Pedrosa, Wekaforé Jibril
Dora is a teenager with an extraordinary talent for music and boundless energy difficult to keep in check. After a huge fight with her father on her birthday, Dora leaves home with her dog Totó and sets out on a journey to find the mother she has never met because she disappeared when she was a baby. On the way she makes new friends who join her on a road trip to Capital City; but she also has to deal with dangerous enemies who will try at all costs to prevent her from discovering the mystery of her past. But Dora’s vitality and magic will help her to reach not only the end of her journey, but the start of another one.
SINTIÉNDOLO MUCHO / FEELING IT
FERNANDO LEÓN DE ARANOA (SPAIN)
Country(ies) of production: Spain – Mexico
A portrait of Joaquín Sabina without his bowler hat, made only inches from his skin, with nocturnality and treachery, by his friend, the moviemaker Fernando León de Aranoa. A story like his voice, hoarse, direct and unadorned, narrating with no extenuating circumstances the intimacy of the artist, his behind the scenes, his B side. Which starts when he comes down off the stage, which accompanies him in his everyday life, and in his unexpected moments: in the laughs and in the drama. Sintiéndolo mucho is the result of thirteen years of filming together, and it travels to all of Joaquín Sabina’s stages, public and private, in and out of the spotlight. A walk through the keys of his life and his work: of what moves him, of what inspires him, of what hurts him, always developed on the basis of lively, shared situations between the musician and the moviemaker.