San Sebastian Kicks Into Gear As Spain Enjoys Trade Growth – Deadline

With the Berlin Movie Pageant’s Golden Bear awarded to Spanish director Carla Simón and 4 of the nation’s titles that includes in competitors at Cannes, there’s a quiet air of confidence amongst Spanish trade professionals, together with José Luis Rebordinos, director of the San Sebastian Movie Pageant.

“This has been one of the best 12 months for Spanish cinema,” Rebordinos tells Deadline shortly after revealing the line-up for San Sebastian’s newest version, operating from September 16-24.

This 12 months the distinguished Spanish competition, celebrating its seventieth version, kicks into gear with some 200 movies throughout its six aggressive and 7 non-competitive sections. The choice can be bookended by Friday evening’s opening movie Jail 77 (Modelo 77), from Spanish filmmaker Alberto Rodríguez, and Neil Jordan’s newest movie Marlowe, starring Diane Kruger and Liam Neeson, which is able to shut the competition. The total lineup consists of the European Premiere of Chilean filmmaker Sebastián Lelio’s The Surprise, starring Florence Pugh, and South Korean filmmaker Hong Sang-soo’s newest providing, High/Stroll Up. The competition can be understood to be continuing with its inclusion of Sparta, Ulrich Seidl’s controversial drama which was pulled final week by the Toronto Worldwide Movie Pageant following allegations of impropriety.

This 12 months, San Sebastian returns to 100% capability in cinemas this 12 months, with a stacked program of events, occasions, and seminars with the participation of worldwide company and delegates. Whereas the competition nonetheless held bodily screenings throughout the pandemic, seating and screening numbers had been restricted, and there have been only a few company from abroad.

“The primary problem has been making an attempt to place collectively all of the financing,” Rebordinos tells Deadline of this 12 months’s preparations. “Within the final two years, a few of our sponsors didn’t signal with us as a result of they had been hooked up to particular bodily occasions. So if there’s no occasion, there’s no sponsor. However this 12 months we’ve got managed to get again most of our sponsors, and we even raised slightly bit more cash than we had in earlier years.”

As a public-facing competition, Rebordinos and his workforce have the added problem of luring audiences again to theaters, with a big portion of the competition’s revenue comprised of field workplace stubs. The competition has lengthy been the leaping off level for a lot of movies that go on to play in theatres in Spain, with the November – December window sometimes being a superb time for admissions into Spanish theatres. This 12 months, says Rebordinos, “the scenario could be very weird,” pointing to uncertainty for the long run well being of the cinema enterprise.

Elsewhere, San Sebastian is about at hand out 4 honorary Donostia Awards as a part of the anniversary celebrations. Two recipients are nonetheless to be introduced, however Juliette Binoche will cross by the competition’s Kursaal Auditorium on September 18, the place she’ll decide up the profession achievement prize earlier than introducing her Berlinale winner, Each Sides of The Blade. David Cronenberg will comply with on September 21, and he’ll current his controversial 2022 Palme d’Or contender, Crimes of the Future. Different buzzy fall titles like Olivia Wilde’s Don’t Fear Darling and Ruben Östlund’s Palme d’Or winner Triangle of Disappointment will display screen as a part of Perlak, San Sebastian’s sidebar part devoted to titles which have screened at different festivals.

“It’s okay for us to have some movies from different festivals in our lineup — it’s not an issue,” Rebordinos says of the favored sidebar. “There are a number of festivals and we compete between ourselves. However we’re fortunate as a result of we’re not one of many huge three. We are able to do issues otherwise. For us, it’s necessary to be a really sturdy competition with European and Latin American movies. We at all times look to the Latin American trade. And with Latin American movies we are able to compete with different festivals. With North American movies it’s not possible.”

San Sebastian has lengthy established itself as the important thing assembly level between Europe and Latin America, with sections in each its trade and competition applications devoted to the area. This 12 months the competition has three Latin American movies within the Official Choice. There may be additionally a robust native presence with 4 Spanish productions in competitors, two of that are Basque co-productions, the primary time this has occurred within the competition’s historical past.

“We have now 4 movies in the principle competitors, however we may have had six with no drawback,” Rebordinos says. “One of many surprises of the competition will for certain be Suro, the movie by Mikel Gurrea. It’s a first-time movie and a Basque movie in the principle choice. I’m certain folks will converse loads about this director after the competition.”

On the trade facet, San Sebastian will launch its new Inventive Buyers’ Convention, co-organized with CAA Media Finance. The convention will see producers from 10 Spanish productions or co-productions pitch their tasks to a roundtable of high trade executives, together with MUBI’s Bobby Allen, Piers Wenger of A24, Netflix’s Teresa Moneo, and Focus Options’s Kiska Higgs. Roeg Sutherland, Benjamin Kramer, and Sarah Schweitzman of CAA Media Finance will average. The convention will run from September 19 – 20.

Nevertheless, the competition’s anniversary celebrations will proceed into the brand new 12 months, with Zinemaldia 70, a large-scale restoration undertaking, scheduled to be unveiled within the coming months. The competition launched the undertaking in 2018 alongside researchers from the native movie faculty Elías Querejeta Zine Eskola, who’ve set about cataloging and digitalizing 1000’s of images, posters, press supplies, magazines, and books from all through the competition’s historical past.

“Nobody has correctly dealt with these items for 66 years,” Rebordinos says. “It’s very costly to work with archive materials, however we are able to do it as a result of we’ve got very huge sponsorship from the Spanish lottery.”

The historic supplies may even obtain a brand new bodily house on the Tabakalera, the imposing modern arts middle and official base of the competition since its refurbishment in 2015. Researchers will be capable of sift by the paperwork and discover the little-known components of the competition’s historical past, together with the darkish interval of censorship below Franco and the gradual transfer to democratization following his loss of life.

“We predict it is going to be the largest archive of movie in Spain,” Rebordinos says.