72 San Sebastian FIlm Festival´s Perlak/Pearls

Arnold, Audiard, Baker, Coppola, Courcol, Elliot, Fargeat, Kapadia, Rasoulof, Salles, Sangsoo, Schrader and Sorrentino to compete in San Sebastian Festival’s Perlak section

‘Marco’, by Jon Garaño and Aitor Arregi, will close the section, also to show ‘The Wild Robot’ and ‘Maria Callas: Letters and Memories’ out of competition

https://youtu.be/NV9mhQyiSnc?si=bCACNQaTFlg5RHhl

The Palme d’Or and a wide representation of the award-winners from the last Festival de Cannes, the Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize at the Berlinale and the Annecy Cristal Award for Best Feature Film will compete for the City of Donostia / San Sebastian Audience Award alongside other films selected from the Venice Mostra, Toronto and other festivals. Andrea Arnold, Jacques Audiard, Sean Baker, Francis Ford Coppola, Emmanuel Courcol, Adam Elliot, Coralie Fargeat, Payal Kapadia, Mohammad Rasoulof, Walter Salles, Hong Sangsoo, Paul Schrader and Paolo Sorrentino will show their new features in a section to include three films out of competition: Marco, with which Jon Garaño and Aitor Arregi will close Perlak at the Velodrome; the animated feature film The Wild Robot, from Chris Sanders, and the non-fiction Maria Callas: Letters and Memories, from Tom Volf and Yannis Dimolitsas.

Emilia Pérez, which earned Jacques Audiard (Paris, 1952) the Jury Prize at the last Festival de Cannes, will open the Perlak competition. The female protagonists featuring Zoe Saldaña, Karla Sofía Gascón, Selena Gomez and Adriana Paz also jointly landed the Best Actress Award for this film in which a Mexican cartel leader decides to change sex in a cast also starring Edgar Ramírez. Audiard already landed the Grand Jury Prize in Cannes thanks to Un Prophète / A Prophet (2009) and the Palme d’or with Dheepan (2015), while he carried off Best Director at the Venice Mostra with Les frères Sisters / The Sisters Brothers (Perlak, 2018). In 2009 his film De battre mon coeur s'est arrêté / The Beat That My Heart Skipped (2004) participated in the themed retrospective Backwash: Cutting Edge of French cinema.

Having shown Cow (2021) as a Cannes Premiere, Andrea Arnold (Dartford, 1961) will present Bird in Perlak, a movie included in the Official Selection at Cannes, where she has won the Jury Prize on three occasions thanks to Red Road (2006), Fish Tank (2009) and American Honey (2016). The latest work from the British filmmaker tells the tale of a 12-year-old teen who lives with her father and brother in a squat in North Kent.

Anora, winning film of the last Palme d’or at Cannes, is also included in the Perlak selection, Its author, Sean Baker (Summit, 1971), follows the odyssey of a young sex worker in Brooklyn who marries a Russian oligarch. This will be the North American director’s third participation in the section after The Florida Project (Perlak, 2017), premiered in the Quinzaine des Cinéastes at Cannes and Red Rocket (Perlak, 2021), a competitor in the official selection at the Festival de Cannes.

Francis Ford Coppola (Detroit, 1939) also competed at the last edition of the French event with Megalopolis, an epic Roman fable set in an imaginary America starring, among others, Adam Driver, Giancarlo Esposito, Nathalie Emmanuel, Aubrey Plaza and Shia LaBeouf. Winner of six Academy Awards, including one for lifetime achievement, in 2002 Coppola received the Special 50th Anniversary Award from the San Sebastian Festival, precisely the place where he won the Golden Shell at the start of his career with The Rain People (1969). He also competed with Rumble Fish (1984) in the Official Selection, the section which formerly screened out of competition The Godfather Part II (1975), The Conversation (1974) and Apocalypse Now (1979).

Cannes Premiere hosted the screening of En fanfare / The Marching Band, a comedy about a famous orchestra conductor who discovers the existence of a brother who shares his passion for music. This is the third feature from the French moviemaker Emmanuel Courcol (Paris, 1958), author de Cessez-le-feu / Ceasefire (2016) and Un triomphe / The Big Hit (2020), winner of Best Comedy at the European Film Awards.

Specialising in animation movies, Australian director Adam Elliot (Melbourne, 1972) will bring to Perlak his winning film of the Cristal for Best Feature Film at the Annecy Festival, Memoir of a Snail, the tale of a lonely misfit with a passion for collecting ornamental snails and a deep love for romance novels. This is his second feature-length work following Mary and Max (2009), which also won the top prize at Annecy, and was programmed in the Animatopia. New Paths of Animation Cinema retrospective, and films including the Oscar-winning short, Harvie Krumpet (2003).

Coralie Fargeat (Paris, 1976), who made her debut with Revenge (2017) and won the Best Director Award at Sitges Festival, will show The Substance, winner of the Best Screenplay Award in Cannes. Starring Demi Moore, Margaret Qualley and Dennis Quaid, the second movie from the French moviemaker focuses on a revolutionary cell-replicating product that creates a younger, more beautiful, more perfect version of yourself.

The Indian director Payal Kapadia (Bombay, 1986), winner of the Œil d’or for best debut documentary with A Night of Knowing Nothing (2021), selected at the Cannes Quinzaine des Cinéastes, will present her second film in San Sebastian, All We Imagine as Light, winner of the Grand Jury Prize in Cannes. The film follows the steps of a nurse who buries herself in her work to escape from painful memories until an unexpected gift reopens the wounds of the past. 

The Iranian moviemaker Mohammad Rasoulof (Shiraz, 1972) will appear in Perlak with the winning film of the Special Jury Prize and FIPRESCI Prize in Cannes, Daney Anjir Maabed / The Seed of the Sacred Fig, in which a judge grapples with paranoia amid the political unrest in Teheran. The director, who participated in San Sebastian’s Official Selection with Keshtzar haye sepid / The White Meadows (2009), holds, among other accolades, the Best Film Award from Un Certain Regard in Cannes for Lerd / A Man of Integrity (2017) and the Golden Bear for Sheytan Vojood Nadarad / There Is No Evil (2020).

Walter Salles (Rio de Janeiro, 1956) will return to Perlak with Ainda Estou Aqui / I’m Still Here, following the wife of a labour party politician forced into activism when he disappears during the Brazilian dictatorship. The director, who will compete at Venice with this film, started to make a name for himself with Terra estrangeira (Foreign Land, Zabaltegi-New Directors, 1995), followed by Central do Brasil (Central Station, 1998), which, after reaping accolades including the Golden Bear and Golden Globe for Best Foreign Film, won the Audience and Youth Awards in San Sebastian. He once again won this latter award with Diarios de motocicleta (The Motorcycle Diaries, 2004), programmed in Perlak, as was the anthology movie Paris, je t’aime (2006). His documentary Jia Zhang-ke, um homem de Fenyang / Jia Zhangke, A Guy from Fenyang (2015) also screened in Zabaltegi-Tabakalera.

Yeohaengjaui pilyo / A Traveler’s Needs, winner of the Silver Bear-Grand Jury Prize at the last Berlin Festival, is the latest film from Hong Sangsoo (Seoul, 1960), in which Isabelle Huppert plays a French woman who moves to Korea. The prolific moviemaker competed in San Sebastian’s Official Selection with Dangsinjasingwa dangsinui geot / Yourself and Yours (2016), earning the Silver Shell for Best Director, and with Top / Walk Up (2022). He has participated in Zabaltegi-Tabakalera with Geu-hu / The Day After (2017), which competed in Cannes, and with Domangchin yeoja / The Woman Who Ran (2020), recipient of a Special Mention of the Zabaltegi-Tabakalera Award after winning the Silver Bear for Best Director in Berlin.

The director and screenwriter Paul Schrader (Grand Rapids, 1946) will participate in Perlak with the film he took to Cannes, Oh Canada. Starring Richard Gere, Uma Thurman and Jacob Elordi, the movie follows a documentary filmmaker who decides to tell the whole truth about his life. Schrader, who had written the screenplays for films including Yakuza (Sidney Pollack, 1975) and Taxi Driver (Martin Scorsese, 1976), presented his debut behind the camera, Blue Collar (1978), in San Sebastian’s Neighbourhoods and Towns section in 1982. Years later he competed for the Golden Shell with Auto Focus (2002) and in 2019 the Klasikoak section recovered his film Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters (1985).

Paolo Sorrentino (Naples, 1970), who participated in the Conversations at the San Sebastian Festival with È stata la mano di dio / The Hand of God (2021), winner of the Grand Jury Prize in Venice, will participate in Perlak with Parthenope, a feminine epic premiered at Cannes. Among the most outstanding works by the Italian director are Il Divo (2008), winner of the Jury Prize in Cannes; La grande bellezza (The Grand Beauty, 2013), winner of the Academy Award for Foreign Language Film; and Youth (2016), which harvested three European Film Awards.

These thirteen films from the Perlak section will compete for the City of Donostia / San Sebastian Audience Award, sponsored by the San Sebastian City Council. The prize is decided by viewers of the film’s first screening. The City of Donostia / San Sebastian Audience Award is made up of two accolades: a Best Film Award, coming with 50,000 euros, and a Best European Film Award, with 20,000 euros, going to the distributors of the films in Spain.

Three ‘pearls’ out of competition

After its screening in the Orizzonti section of the Venice Mostra, the latest feature film by Jon Garaño (San Sebastian, 1974) and Aitor Arregi (Oñati, 1977) will close Perlak out of competition at the Velodrome. Actor Eduard Fernández brings life to the true character of Enric Marco, the man who faked his biography to make himself appear to be a survivor of the Flossenbürg concentration camp. Moriarti has participated in the San Sebastian Official Selection with Loreak / Flowers (2014), Handia / Giant (Special Jury Prize and Irizar Prize, 2017) and La trinchera infinita / The Endless Trench (Silver Shell for Best Director and Best Screenplay Award, 2019), also directed by Jose Mari Goenaga.

The Wild Robot is an epic adventure from DreamWorks Animation about a robot lost on a desert island where she adopts an orphaned gosling. This animation movie to have its premiere at Toronto and directed by Chris Sanders (Colorado, 1962) has a cast of voices which, in the original version, include those of Lupita Nyong'o, Pedro Pascal, Catherine O'Hara, Bill Nighy, Kit Connor, Stephanie Hsu, Mark Hamill, Matt Berry and Ving Rhames.

Lastly, Perlak will host the out-of-competition screening of the non-fiction Maria Callas: Letters and Memories, an intimate journey through the legendary soprano Maria Callas, portrayed by actress Monica Bellucci. Following its premiere at the Festa del Cinema di Roma and screening at Thessaloniki Festival, the film directed by Tom Volf and Yannis Dimolitsas (Chania, 1986) uses never-before-seen memories, letters and exclusive images to recall the icon of bel canto.  

Armani Beauty, Official Beauty Sponsor of the Festival, sponsors the Perlak section.