Juan José Campanella raises the curtain on the 61st edition of the San Sebastián Festival

The official jury for this edition will be chaired by director Todd Haynes. Hugh Jackman and Carmen Maura receive the Donostia Awards.

This Friday at 9 pm the San Sebastián Kursaal will raise the curtain on the 61st edition of the San Sebastián Festival. With Cayetana Guillén Cuervo and Unax Ugalde as masters of ceremonies, the ceremony will feature important faces from the international film scene who will celebrate the beginning of an intense week of activities, screenings and events that have cinema as the protagonist.

football, the new animated film by Argentine Juan José Campanella, director of The secret of his eyes, the contest opens this year. Annette Bening will present the film The Face of Love, a title that will inaugurate the Pearls section. Michelle Yeoh will be the guest of honor of the Culinary Zinema section as the protagonist of Final Recipe, the film that will open the section.

Oliver Stone brings his new documentary series to San Sebastián The Untold History of the United States and Alexander will present: The Ultimate Cut, Alexander's definitive montage.

Terry Gilliam returns to the Festival with his latest film, The Zero Theorem, which will be screened in the Pearls section.

Hirokazu Kore-eda also returns to San Sebastián to present his most recent work in the Pearls section, Soshite chichi ni Naru / Like Father Like Son, which he will present in the company of one of his protagonists, the actor and singer Masaharu Fukuyama.

The opening gala, which will be broadcast live on TVE and ETB, will be for the first time directed by Patxi Barco (San Sebastián, 1959), a director with an extensive career in the world of entertainment and who has worked in film, theater and television.

The official jury of this edition will be chaired by director Todd Haynes, and will include Mariela Besuievsky (producer), Valeria Bruni Tedeschi (actress and director), David Byrne (musician), Paulina García (actress), Cesc Gay (director) and Diego Luna (actor). Screenwriter Marina Stavenhagen will preside over the jury for the Kutxa New Directors Award, producer Bruno Bettati will head up the jury for the Horizontes Award, and director Amat Escalante will be president of the jury for the International Meeting of Film Students.

Living is easy with your eyes closed, by David Trueba; Cannibal, by Manuel Martín Cuenca, the Spanish-Canadian co-production Enemy, by Denis Villeneuve and based on a novel by José Saramago, and The wound, Fernando Franco's debut feature, are the Spanish films that will compete for the Golden Shell.

Latin Horizons

Once again, the San Sebastián Festival reaffirms its commitment to the best Latin American cinema produced throughout the year. The “Horizontes Latinos” programming of the 61st edition of the San Sebastián Festival includes eleven productions from Argentina, Mexico, Chile, Brazil and Uruguay. A selection of notable films that have competed or have been presented in important international festivals, but that have not been previously seen in any Spanish festival or released commercially in our country.

Eleven titles compete in “Horizontes Latinos” at the 61st edition of the San Sebastián Festival, with The golden cage inaugurating the section.

This year's Donostia Awards will go to the actress Carmen Maura, as a tribute to her entire career, and to one of the leading men with the most international cachet, Hugh Jackman.

The XII International Meeting of Film Students

The San Sebastián Festival and Tabakalera-International Center for Contemporary Culture present one more year the International Meeting of Film Students, a call that aims to publicize the work of students from film schools around the world. One hundred and thirty-eight short films from sixty-three schools in twenty-six countries have participated in the preselection of this twelfth Meeting: Germany, Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, USA, Spain, France, Greece, Hungary, Iran, Israel, Lithuania, Mexico, Poland, Portugal, United Kingdom, Czech Republic, Romania, Serbia, Singapore, Switzerland and Uruguay.

The Meeting will take place on September 25, 26 and 27.