A strong French presence at the 70th San Sebastián Film Festival

01 SEPTEMBER 2022

This year, in addition to Juliette Binoche who will receive an honorary Donostia Award, Christophe Honoré, Yannick Kergoat, Thomas Salvador, Dinara Droukarova, Mia Hansen-Løve, François Ozon, and Louis Garrel will represent France at the 70th edition of the San Sebastian International Film Festival (from September 16 through 24), the third major international film event of the season after the Toronto and Venice festivals.

And it is Christophe Honoré (Winter Boy) and Yannick Kergoat (the documentary Tax Me If You Can) who will represent France in Competition. For Christophe Honoré, this selection comes more than 10 years after presenting, in the Spanish city, again in Competition, The Beautiful Person (2008), followed by Making Plans for Lena (2009). The minority-French titles Pornomelancolia by Roman Adamovitch, Runner by Marian Mathias, The Substitute, by Diego Lerman, Wild Flowers, by Jaime Rosales, Sparta by Ulrich Seidl et The Kings of the World, de Laura Mora et Great Yarmouth: Provisional Figures, by Marco Martins complete the French presence in competition.

In terms of "new faces" Dinara Droukarova will travel to the event to present her debut feature, Grand marin, in which she also plays the lead role, in the Nuev@s Director@s section.

Grand marin

The Perlak section, which brings together films of the year's major international festivals, will allow us to again encounter French faces and films seen at Cannes last May. François Ozon, Louis Garrel, and Mia Hansen-Løve will be present in this context.
Last by not least, Thomas Salvador will present The Mountain, which will open the Zabaltegi-Tabakalera section.

French cinema is also very present, as usual, in international coproductions, with more than twenty other titles selected for the festival, all sections included.

Following in the footsteps of Agnès Varda in 2017, Costa Gavras in 2019, and Marion Cotillard in 2021, Juliette Binoche will receive the festival's highest honor this year. On September 18 she will be presented with the Donostia Award as a tribute to her career at a gala screening of Claire Denis' Both Sides of the Blade, in which she stars.

A delegation of French artists and professionals will travel to the festival (subject to change): Juliette Binoche, Dinara Droukarova, Louis Garrel, François Ozon, Claire Denis, Christophe Honoré, Thierry Frémaux, Marianne Slot, Yannick Kergoat, Julie Salvador, Paul Kircher, Vincent Lacoste, Thomas Salvador, Céleste Brunnquell, and Quentin Dolmaire.

UniFrance will organize a cocktail party on September 18, at the Hotel Maria Cristina, for all the French talents present in San Sebastían, to which Spanish distributors will also be invited.