The complete French line-up at the 72th San Sebastián Film Festival

12 SEPTEMBER 2024

The third major fall festival after Venice and Toronto, the highly awaited next edition of the San Sebastian International Film Festival will take place in the Spanish city from September 20 to 28. Three French films, by Audrey Diwan, Costa Gavras, and François Ozon, will be presented in Competition.

French cinema will open this 72nd edition, with the opening film – and in Competition – Emmanuelle, revisited by Audrey Diwan, in competition for the first time at the SSIFF, who will be present in the company of her lead actress Noémie Merlant.
Six years after Adults in the Room (presented at San Sebastián, but in a sidebar section), Costa Gavras will attend the festival to present Last Breath, set in the world of hospitals.
Rounding off this trio of French filmmakers in Competition, François Ozon will present his autumnal thriller When Fall Is Coming, starring Josiane Balasko, Hélène Vincent, and Ludivine Sagnier, who will also attend.

Three other French co-productions complete the French presence in Competition: Kiyoshi Kurosawa's Serpent's Path, a remake of a film the Japanese master had already made in 1998, The Wailing by Pedro Martín-Calero, and the documentary Afternoons of Solitude by Albert Serra, about the torero Andrés Roca Rey.

Out of Competition, Thierry Frémaux will come to present Lumière ! The Adventure Continues, the second part of his documentary dedicated to early cinema.

When Fall Is Coming

The Perlak section, which brings together films from the year's major international festivals, will feature films discovered at Cannes: Payal Kapadia's Grand Prix winner All We Imagine as Light, and the Jury Prize and Best Performance by an Actress (jointly awarded to the cast) recipient Emilia Pérez by Jacques Audiard, along with Emmanuel Courcol's The Marching Band, discovered at Cannes Première.

The Zabaltegi-Tabakalera section, more oriented towards “research” cinema, will see the presentation of films by such great auteurs as Leos Carax (It's Not Me), Arnaud Desplechin (Filmlovers!), also presented at Cannes, and the Berlinale for Mati Diop's Dahomey, where it won the Golden Bear, the top award.

And in the Nuev@s Director@s section, the world premiere of Akaki Popkhadze's In the Name of Blood, and Koya Kamura's Winter in Sokcho, recently seen at TIFF.

Winter in Sokcho

French cinema is also present, as usual, in international co-productions, with some twenty films presented across all sections.

Finally, French producer Carole Scotta (Haut et Court) is part of the competition jury.

A delegation of French artists and professionals will attend (to be confirmed): Audrey Diwan, Noémie Merlant, François Ozon, Hélène Vincent, Josiane Balasko, Ludivine Sagnier, Costa Gavras, Agathe Bonitzer, Charlotte Rampling, Hiam Abbass, Kad Merad, Akaki Popkhadze, Nicolas Duvauchelle, Finnegan Oldfield, Florent Hill-Chouaki, Ia Shugliashvili, Koya Kamura, Bella Kim, Roschdy Zem, Mati Diop, Arnaud Desplechin, Leos Carax, Emmanuel Courcol, Pierre Lottin, Jacques Audiard, Damien Bonnard.

Isabelle Huppert will also be present for the South Korean film by Hong Sang Soo, A Traveler's Need.

Unifrance will also host a cocktail reception on Sunday, September 22 at the Hotel Maria Cristina for all the French talent present in San Sebastián, as well as Spanish distributors.