María Alché and Benjamín Naishtat, Robin Campillo, Joachim Lafosse, Noah Pritzker, Cristi Puiu and Martín Rejtman will be presenting their latest films in the Official Selection of the 71st San Sebastián Festival, which will be held from the 22nd and the 30th of September. Raven Jackson will also be competing with her first film, which in its project stage took part in the Ikusmira Berriak residency programme.
María Alché (Buenos Aires, Argentina.1983) and Benjamín Naishtat (Buenos Aires, Argentina. 1986) jointly direct Puan, in which Marcelo Subiotto and Leonardo Sbaraglia play two professors at odds over a university chair. Alché won the Horizontes Award with her first feature film, Familia sumergida / A Family Submerged (2018), and this year she is also an Ikusmira Berriak programme resident. For his part, Naishtat won the Silver Shell for best director with Rojo (2018), which also won the awards for best actor and best photography, and before this he took part in the Horizontes Latinos section (Historia del miedo / History of Fear, 2014). Puan was selected in Proyecta 2021 and with the films they have made separately Alché and Naishtat have visited other festivals such as the ones in Berlin and Locarno.
About ‘Puan’
Directors: María Alché (Argentina), Benjamín Naishtat (Argentina)
Country(ies) of production: Argentina – Italy – Germany – France -Brazil
Cast: Marcelo Subiotto, Leonardo Sbaraglia, Julieta Zylberberg, Alejandra Flechner, Mara Bestelli, Andrea Frigerio
Synopsis
Marcelo has devoted his life to teaching philosophy at the Public University of Buenos Aires. When his mentor Professor Caselli dies unexpectedly, Marcelo expects to become the new head of Department. However, his plans turn upside down with the unexpected arrival of Rafael Sujarchuk. Charismatic and seductive, Rafael returns from his pedestal in European universities to claim the vacant position for himself. Marcelo’s clumsy efforts to prove he is the right candidate will trigger a philosophical duel, while his life -and the country- enter a spiral of chaos.
The French filmmaker Robin Campillo (Mohammédia, Morocco, 1962) will be competing at San Sebastián for the first time with the film L’île rouge / Red Island, which deals with the French colonisation of Madagascar. His fourth film as a director comes after winning the Grand Prix of the Jury at Cannes with 120 battements par minute (120 BPM) / 120 Beats Per Minute (Perlak, 2017). In 2009 his debut as a director, Les Revenants / They came back (2004), was included in the Backwash: The Cutting Edge of French Cinema retrospective, and in 2012 he took part in the Official Selection as the co-scriptwriter of Foxfire, by Laurent Cantet.
About ‘L’île rouge / Red Island’
Director: Robin Campillo (Morocco)
Country(ies) of production: France – Belgium
Cast: Nadia Tereszkiewicz, Quim Gutiérrez
Synopsis
L’île rouge / The Red Island is set in Madagascar in the early 1970s, on one of the last air bases of the French army, where military families live the last throes of colonialism. Influenced by his reading of the intrepid comic book heroine Fantômette, ten-year-old Thomas sweeps with a curious glance what surrounds him, while the world gradually opens up to a different reality.
Raven Jackson (Tennessee, USA. 1990) will be competing at San Sebastián with her debut film, but she has a close relationship with the Festival. On the one hand, she took part in the Nest section, the international competition for short films by film students, with Nettles (2018) and, on the other, in the Ikusmira Berriak programme she developed the film that she is presenting at the 71st Festival, All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt, a lyrical exploration of the life of a woman in Mississippi that was screened this year in the U.S. Dramatic Competition at Sundance.
About ‘All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt’
Director: Raven Jackson (USA)
Country(ies) of production: USA
Cast: Charleen McClure, Reginald Helms, Jr., Moses Ingram, Zainab Jah, Sheila Atim, Chris Chalk
Synopsis
A lyrical, decades-spanning exploration across a woman’s life in Mississippi, the feature debut from award-winning poet, photographer and filmmaker Raven Jackson is a haunting and richly layered portrait, a beautiful ode to the generations of people and places that shape us.
Joachim Lafosse (Uccle, Belgium. 1975) will be back at the official competition with his tenth full-length film Un silence / A Silence, a drama starring Emmanuelle Devos and Daniel Auteuil. In 2015 he won the Silver Shell for Best Director for Les chevaliers blancs / The White Knights, and two of his films have been screened in the Perlak section: L’économie du couple / After Love (2016) and Les intranquilles / The Restless (2021).
About Un silence / A Silence
Director: Joachim Lafosse (Belgium)
Country(ies) of production: Belgium – France – Luxembourg
Cast: Daniel Auteuil, Emmanuelle Devos, Matthieu Galoux, Salomé Dewaels, Jeanne Cherhal
Synopsis
Astrid is the wife of an acclaimed lawyer. Silenced for 25 years, her family balance suddenly collapses when her children initiate their search for justice.
After his debut with the film Quitters (2015), Noah Pritzker (San Francisco, USA. 1986) will be visiting San Sebastián for the first time to present his second feature film, Ex-Husbands, which portrays the sentimental ups and downs of several men in the same family. Griffin Dunne, James Norton, Miles Heizer, Rosanna Arquette and Eisa Davis form part of the cast of the film.
About ‘Ex-Husbands’
Director: Noah Pritzker (USA)
Country(ies) of production: USA
Cast:Griffin Dunne, James Norton, Miles Heizer, Rosanna Arquette, Eisa Davis
Synopsis
Peter’s parents divorced after 65 years, his wife left him after 35, and his sons, Nick and Mickey, are off leading their own lives. When Peter flies to Tulum, crashing Nick’s bachelor party hosted by Mickey, he realizes he’s not the only one in crisis.
The films by Cristi Puiu (Bucharest, Romania. 1967) have been screened at the Cannes and Karlovy Vary festivals, and The Death of Mr. Lazarescu, (2005), which in 2014 was included in the Eastern Promises. Portrait of Eastern Europe in 50 films retrospective, is considered to be a key film in the new wave of Rumanian cinema. In 2016 he took part in the Perlak section with Sieranevada, and this year he will be in the official competition with MMXX, that captures the wanderings of a bunch of errant souls stuck at the crossroads of history.
About MMXX
Director: Cristi Puiu (Romania)
Country(ies) of production: Romania – Republic of Moldavia – France
Cast: Bianca Cuculici, Laurențiu Bondarenco, Otilia Panaite, Florin Țibre, Igor Babiac, Roxana Ogrendil, Adelaida Perjoiu, Dorian Boguță, Dragoș Bucur, Marin Cumatrenco
Synopsis
Oana Pfifer, a young therapist, gradually slips into the net of the questionnaire she submits to her patient. Mihai, Oana’s brother, worrying about his birthday, is stuck in a story far bigger than what he can handle. Septimiu, Oana’s husband, concerned about his health, vaguely listens to a strange story his colleague was caught in a while ago. Narcis Patranescu, an organized crime detective, deals with an unsettling dark story while interrogating a young woman at a funeral.
Martín Rejtman (Buenos Aires, Argentina. 1961) will take part in the Official Selection for the first time with La práctica / The Practice, a comedy starring actor Esteban Bigliardi as a yoga teacher in a marital crisis. Several of his previous films have been shown in San Sebastian: Silvia Prieto (1999) was in the Made in Spanish section, Los guantes mágicos / The Magic Gloves (2004) and Dos disparos / Two Shots Fired (2014) in Horizontes Latinos, and the short film Shakti (2019) in Zabaltegi-Tabakalera, the year Rejtman chaired the Nest jury. Finally, in 2020 his project El repartidor está en camino / Riders won the Eurimages Development Co-production Award at the Europe-Latin America Co-production Forum.
About La práctica / The Practice
Director: Martín Rejtman (Argentina)
Country(ies) of production: Argentina – Chile – Portugal
Cast: Esteban Bigliardi, Mirta Busnelli, Manuela Oyarzún, Camila Hirane, Gabriel Cañas
Synopsis
Gustavo and Vanessa separate and have to revise their projects together. Both are yoga teachers. Gustavo is Argentinian, Vanessa is Chilean. The trip to India is cancelled.Vanessa takes the apartment and leaves the studio they shared, leaving Gustavo homeless. As a result of the accumulated stress, Gustavo injures his knee and replaces yoga: first with quadriceps exercises and then with the gym. But gradually he gets his life back on track and starts practising again.
TABAKALERA. Centro Internacional de Cultura Contemporánea
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