SanSebastian

Charmøren / The Charmer

Milad Alami (Denmark)

Opening Night Film

Charmøren / The Charmer is an intense psychological drama about Esmail, a young Iranian man who is desperately trying to meet women who can secure his stay in Denmark. As time runs out, he falls in love and his past catches up with him. The film deals with themes of race, class, and the struggle for a better life.

A Fish Out of Water

Lai Kuo-An (Taiwan)

Yian, who has just started kindergarten, often asks his parents to help him find his past life parents. However, the doctors and his parents believe him to be suffering from psychosis. Meanwhile, his parents are negotiating their separation. His mom, Yaji, decides to move out with him while his dad, Haoteng, decides to look after Yian's sick grandfather...

Alberto García-Alix. La línea de sombra (Alberto García-Alix. The Shadow Line)

Nicolás Combarro (Spain)

Alberto García-Alix. La línea de sombra is the portrait of one of the most important photographers on the Spanish artistic scene, reference of an entire generation. A direct testimony of the lights and shadows through which Alberto García-Alix has had to make his way in order to find his path. Narrated from the intimacy of his studio, the film takes the shape of a voyage between the present and the past. A dialogue between his life and work.

Apostasy

Daniel Kokotajlo (UK)

As devout Jehovah's Witnesses, sisters Alex and Luisa and their mother, Ivanna, are united in The Truth. Alex looks up to her confident older sister, while striving to follow in Ivanna's footsteps as a 'good Witness'. But when Luisa starts to question the advice of the Elders, she makes a life-altering transgression that threatens to expel her from the congregation. Unless Ivanna and Alex can persuade her to return, they must shun her completely. This challenge becomes more painful when their family is faced with another heartbreaking test of faith. Written and directed by Daniel Kokotajlo, a former Jehovah's Witness, Apostasy provides rare insight into the complex nature of faith, family, duty and love.

Blue My Mind

Lisa Brühlmann (Switzerland)

Just before the summer vacation, 15-year-old Mia and her parents move to the suburbs of Zürich. She has long felt estranged from her parents, and when she asks whether she might be adopted her mother becomes offended - but doesn't reply. While Mia plunges into a wild teenager existence in an attempt to cope with it all, her body begins to change oddly. First hardly noticeably, but then with a force that threatens to drive her out of her mind. In her despair she attempts to numb herself with sex and drugs, hoping to halt the tidal wave that is overwhelming her. But nature is more powerful.

Cargo

Gilles Coulier (Belgium - Netherlands - France)

In the cold waters of the North Sea, Leon Broucke falls overboard his fishing boat right before the eyes of his eldest son, Jean. The old man slips into a deep coma, leaving his son behind with a huge debt and the responsibility of the family business. The absence of his father sets off an aftershock of conflicts between him and his two brothers. Francis is torn between his family and leaving with his secret lover. William returns home to escape his life of crime, and redeem himself. Desperate to build a future for his 8-year-old son, Jean recriminates his brother for his criminal past. Cargo is a story about how desperation can bring a family to the edge of destruction.

© WANG Tianxing

He ri jun zai lai / From Where We've Fallen

Wang Feifei (China)

It's past midnight. Zhao goes down to smoke, leaving his drunken wife to murmur her erotic dream upstairs.Neighbour Lee jumps off the building in front of Zhao, and his suicide reveals a secret sex video taken by phone. Sanqing falls in love with her tutor. She wants to strengthen her relationship with Professor Sun on a seaside trip, but finally realises her efforts are in vain. Hai Long is an old acquaintance of Sun. He tries to bring Sanqing and his client Wang together, giving Sanqing the opportunity to take revenge. In the dark tunnel on the island, Wang tells Sanqing a nightmare that reveals the whole story...

Korparna / Ravens

Jens Assur (Sweden)

A hard-working farmer, desperate due to the harsh reality of his daily struggle, is determined to have his son take over the farm and continue his legacy. The mother tries her best to keep the family together, but with increasing horror the son witnesses his father's psychotic behaviour escalate. He seeks refuge elsewhere but he can't escape the inevitable.

Le prix du succès / The Price of Success

Teddy Lussi-Modeste (France)

Brahim is a successful stand-up comedian from a working-class family. His swift rise to fame has a price: Brahim is constantly under pressure, torn between his elder brother Mourad, who is also his manager, and Linda, his girlfriend and artistic director. Everyone has high expectations of him, from his family to the guys he grew up with. To fulfill his dream, write his second show, and find his own path, Brahim must break free of his brother’s grip, even if it means paying an even higher price. 

Le Semeur / The Sower

Marine Francen (France)

Violette is old enough to marry in 1852 when her mountain village is brutally deprived of all its men following the repression of the Republicans ordered by Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte. The women spend months in total isolation. Desperate to one day see their men again, they take an oath: if a man comes, he will be for everyone. Life must continue in the belly of each and every one of them.

Matar a Jesús (Killing Jesus )

Laura Mora (Colombia - Argentina)

Paula, a 22 year-old student, witnesses the murder of her beloved father, a popular political sciences professor at a public university in Medellin. From the distance, she catches a glimpse of the murderer as he beats a hasty retreat on a motorcycle. Devastated by the pain of their loss, Paula and her family will have to deal with official lethargy. The authorities will make no effort to clarify the events and the case is soon archived and abandoned. When Christmas comes round, a couple of months after the murder, Paula accidentally bumps into Jesús, the young man who killed her father. So what happens when revenge becomes a real possibility? Paula decides to approach the man, initially motivated by an almost primitive instinct to get answers and eventually to find the courage to cross the moral and ethical line of killing a man, thereby avenging her father’s death.

Pailalim / Underground

Daniel Palacio (Filipinas)

Bangis is a poor gravedigger living inside a cemetery mausoleum with his family. Everyday he fears being evicted by the government for illegally settling inside the cemetery. When his daughter falls ill, getting her checked in a hospital becomes a dilemma. The illness lingers for weeks and Bangis' desperation grows stronger. He knows he must do something or his daughter won't survive her ordeal. He decides to steal a newly buried corpse and sell it to a funeral parlor. He only hopes that everything goes well and that it's not too late for his beloved daughter.

Pok-ryuk-eui Ssi-at / The Seeds of Violence

Lim Tae-gue (South Korea)

Jooyong, a soldier serving his duty in the Korean army, attempts to expose the abuses of a senior soldier but fails. On the day Jooyong's platoon goes on a night out as a group, the senior soldier tries to find the culprit who attempted to report him. Yet another violent situation results in breaking a tooth of a second private soldier, and Jooyong takes him to his brother-in-law's dental clinic...

Princesita (Princess)

Marialy Rivas (Chile - Spain - Argentina)

Films in Progress 28

In a far-off country at the end of the world Tamara, aged 12, lives under the wing of charismatic cult leader Miguel, a man she adores. That summer the girl will be given a mission: to have a holy child with him immediately she has her first period. Tamara realises that the life she wants for herself is not the same as the fate imposed on her. Her disobedience will lead to her violent development from child to woman, forcing her to gain her freedom in a way she had never imagined. 

Tigre

Silvina Schnicer Schlieman, Ulises Porra Guardiola (Argentina)

After a long period of absence, Rina returns to her island deep in the Tigre river Delta. There she spent a large part of her life and raised her son. Now she wants to recover her home and return there with Facundo, who also left the island. Both, mother and son, will learn that nothing is like it was. Machines on the river are about to destroy everything. A girl is lost in the forest. The water is rising.

Village Rockstars

Rima Das (India)

Ten year-old Dhunu lives in a remote village in Assam, India, amidst raging deprivation. She is a free spirit, while her widowed mother struggles daily to put food on the table and raise her children. But this doesn't prevent her from having dreams, like owning a guitar for the tiny band she wants to put together with some local boys, the 'Village Rockstars'. Dhunu considers herself to be as capable as guys her age. When the boys eventually relinquish their dream, Dhunu refuses to give up on her ambition to own a guitar.

La educación del Rey (Rey's Education)

Santiago Esteves (Argentina - Spain)

Films in Progress 30

Bolting from his first ever heist, Reynaldo Galíndez, alias 'Rey', lands in the patio of the house inhabited by Carlos Vargas, a retired security guard. Vargas offers a deal: the young boy will repair the damage to his home in return for not being handed over to the police. The lessons given to the teenager by the former guard develop into a relationship not unlike the old legends of educating a king (for the “Rey” of his name, meaning “king”). But the agreement will start to fall apart when the loose ends of the robbery Reynaldo had been involved in start closing in around them. Films in Progress Industry Award and CAACI / Ibermedia TV Films in Progress Award in 2016.

La familia

Gustavo Rondón Córdova (Venezuela - Chile - Norway)

Films in Progress 30

Twelve year-old Pedro roams the streets with his friends in the violent urban atmosphere of a working-class district of Caracas. When Pedro seriously injures another boy in a fight, his single father, Andrés, decides that they must make a run for it and hide. Although Andrés will realise that as a father he is incapable of controlling his son, the situation will bring them closer than they have ever been.

La novia del desierto ( The Desert Bride)

Cecilia Atán, Valeria Pivato (Argentina - Chile)

Films in Progress 31

Teresa (54) has worked for decades as a live-in maid in Buenos Aires. When the family sells the house, she is forced to take a job in a distant town. Though not particularly comfortable with the idea, she embarks on a journey through the desert. During her first stop in the land of the miracle-producing 'Difunta Correa' saint, she loses her bag with all her belongings. This incident leads her to cross paths with a travelling salesman, the only person who can help her. What seemed like the end of her world will prove to be her salvation.

Medea

Alexandra Latishev (Costa Rica - Argentina - Chile)

Films in Progress 30

María José's life swings back and forth between the monotony of classes at the university, her eternally distant parents, rugby training and dares with her gay friend. Emotionally disconnected from her environment, when she meets Javier she tries to start a relationship with him. But none of her efforts to live a 'normal' life succeed. She harbours a secret that nobody notices: she's a few months into her pregnancy.

Temporada de caza (Hunting Season )

Natalia Garagiola (Argentina - Germany - France - USA - Qatar)

Films in Progress 31

Nahuel is a teenager with an innate violent conduct. After his mother dies, he travels to Patagonia in Southern Argentina, where he encounters his biological father, who he hasn't seen for more than a decade. Ernesto is a respected hunting guide who lives in the mountains with his second wife and daughters. The reunion is not an easy one, pride and resentment prevail in both father and son. They stubbornly resist any possible contact with one another. However, as the weeks go by and winter settles in, Nahuel starts giving in. Initial hostility gives place to curiosity, both towards his father's universe of hunting and the life of a group of teenagers that he meets in the area. On his side, Ernesto's roughness gives in to the undeniable love he has for his son...