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

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.

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.  

****

Emilia Pérez

Jacques Audiard (France)

Country(ies) of production: France

Cast: Zoe Saldaña, Karla Sofía Gascón, Selena Gomez, Adriana Paz, Édgar Ramírez, Mark Ivanir

Opening Film (In competition)

Overqualified and undervalued, Rita is a lawyer at a large firm that is more interested in getting criminals off the hook than bringing them to justice. One day, she is given an unexpected way out when cartel leader Manitas hires her to help him withdraw from his business and realize a plan he has been secretly preparing for years: to become the woman he has always dreamt of being.

Marco

Jon Garaño (Spain), Aitor Arregi (Spain)

Country(ies) of production: Spain

Cast: Eduard Fernández, Nathalie Poza

Closing film out of competition

Based on true events, Marco explores the story of a concentration camp deportee who never existed. Enric Marco, an immensely charismatic man who, for years, was able to maintain, before public opinion and his own family, a deeply complex lie: that he had been a prisoner in a Nazi concentration camp. A man who rose to the presidency of the Spanish Association of Holocaust Victims, who became a prominent and admired figure for his supposed bravery and suffering. Until one day, a historian discovered that his survival story was, in fact, a complete lie. 

In Competition

Ainda Estou Aqui / I’m Still Here

Walter Salles (Brazil)

Cast: Selton Mello, Fernanda Montenegro,

Rio de Janeiro, early 1970s. Brazil faces the tightening grip of a military dictatorship. We are introduced to the Paivas: a father, Rubens, a mother, Eunice, and their five children. They live by the beach, in a rented house with doors constantly open to friends. The affection and humor they share among themselves are their own subtle forms of resistance to the oppression that hangs over the country. One day, they suffer a violent and arbitrary act that will forever change their lives. In the aftermath, Eunice is forced to reinvent herself and carve out a new future for herself and her children. The moving story of this family, based on Marcelo Rubens Paiva’s memoir, helped to reconstruct an important part of Brazil’s hidden history.

All We Imagine as Light

Payal Kapadia (India)

Cast: Kani Kusruti, Divya Prabha, Chhaya Kadam, Hridhu Haroon, Azees Nedumangad

In Mumbai, Nurse Prabha’s routine is troubled when she receives an unexpected gift from her estranged husband. Her younger roommate, Anu, tries in vain to find a spot in the city to be intimate with her boyfriend. A trip to a beach town allows them to find a space for their desires to manifest.

Anora

Sean Baker (USA)

Cast: Mikey Madison, Mark Eydelshteyn, Yura Borisov, Karren Karagulian, Vache Tovmasyan

Anora, a young sex worker from Brooklyn, gets her chance at a Cinderella story when she meets and impulsively marries the son of an oligarch. Once the news reaches Russia, her fairytale is threatened as his parents set out for New York to get the marriage annulled.

Bird

Andrea Arnold (United Kingdom)

Cast: Barry Keoghan, James Nelson-Joyce, Franz Rogowski, Jasmine Jobson, Joanne Matthews

Twelve-year-old Bailey lives with her single dad Bug and brother Hunter in a squat in North Kent. Bug doesn’t have much time for his kids and Bailey, who is approaching puberty, seeks attention and adventure elsewhere.

Daney anjir maabed / The Seed of the Sacred Fig

Mohammad Rasoulof (Iran)

Cast: Misagh Zare, Soheila Golestani, Mahsa Rostam, Setareh Maleki, Niousha Akhshi

Investigating judge Iman grapples with paranoia amid political unrest in Tehran. When his gun vanishes, he suspects his wife and daughters, imposing draconian measures that strain family ties as societal rules crumble.

En fanfare / The Marching Band

Emmanuel Courcol (France)

Cast: Benjamin Lavernhe, Pierre Lottin

Thibaut is an internationally renowned conductor who travels the world. When he learns he was adopted, he discovers the existence of a younger brother, Jimmy, who works in a school cafeteria and plays the trombone in a small marching band. Everything seems to set them apart, except their love of music.

Megalopolis

Francis Ford Coppola (USA)

Cast: Adam Driver, Giancarlo Esposito, Nathalie Emmanuel

New Rome must change, causing conflict between Cesar Catilina, a genius artist who seeks to leap into a utopian, idealistic future, and his opposition, Mayor Franklyn Cicero, who remains committed to a regressive status quo, perpetuating greed, special interests, and partisan warfare.

Memoir of a Snail

Adam Elliot (Australia)

In 1970s Australia, Grace’s life is troubled by misfortune and loss. When her family unit falls to pieces and she is separated from her twin brother, Gilbert, she turns to hoarding ornamental snails to ease her loneliness. Grace finds hope when she strikes up a friendship with an elderly eccentric woman called Pinky, who gives her the courage to come out of her shell and step away from the things that overcrowd her home and her mind.

Oh Canada

Paul Schrader (USA)

Cast: Richard Gere, Jacob Elordi, Uma Thurman, Michael Imperioli, Kristine Froseth

Oh Canada is the story of Leonard Fife, an exile who fled to Canada during the Vietnam War. In the winter of his life, Fife gives a final interview to one of his former students to tell the whole truth about his life. A confession filmed in front of his wife. Based on the text by Russell Banks, the film explores the life of an erratic and cowardly man who sought refuge in Canada without political intentions. Schrader weaves a tale of memory and repentance, reflecting errors of the past and the desire for redemption.

Parthenope

Paolo Sorrentino (Italy)

Cast: Celeste Dalla Porta, Gary Oldman, Stefania Sandrelli

The long journey of Parthenope’s life, from her birth in 1950 till today. A feminine epic, devoid of heroism but brimming with an inexorable passion for freedom, Naples, and the faces of love, all those true, pointless, and unspeakable loves. The perfect Capri summer, the lightheartedness of youth, which ends in ambush. And then all the others: the Neapolitans, men and women, observed and loved, disillusioned and vital, their waves of melancholy, their tragic ironies.

The Substance

Coralie Fargeat (France)

Cast: Demi Moore, Margaret Qualley, Dennis Quaid, Gore Abrams, Tom Morton

Yeohaengjaui pilyo / A Traveler’s Needs

Hong Sangsoo (South Korea)

Cast: Isabelle Huppert, Lee Hyeyoung, Kwon Haehyo

Iris, a mysterious traveller, wanders around in the outskirts of Seoul. There she convinces a series of people to receive French classes using a method as unorthodox as it is seductive, despite her lack of experience. Between walks in the park and bottles of makgeolli rice wine, Iris soon feels like one of the family. With a straw hat, floral dress and green cardigan, her carefree character adopts an aura of trust, fun and learning that leads to hilarious moments sparked by her cheek and the odd misunderstanding.

Not in Competition

Maria Callas: Letters and Memories

Tom Volf (France), Yannis Dimolitsas (Greece)

Cast: Monica Bellucci

Not in competition

An intimate journey through the life of the legendary soprano Maria Callas, portrayed by Monica Bellucci. Through never-before-seen memoirs, letters, and exclusive footage, Callas opens up about her modest childhood in New York to the zenith of her global career. Surrounded by spectral memories of her past, we discover the woman behind the icon, bridging the gap between her public and private personas. A timeless homage to an enduring legend.

The Wild Robot

Chris Sanders (USA)

Not in competition

An epic adventure from DreamWorks Animation follows the journey of a robot who is shipwrecked on an uninhabited island and must learn to adapt to the harsh surroundings, gradually building relationships with the animals on the island and becoming the adoptive mother of an orphaned gosling.