The latest from Lanthimos, Linklater and Sorrentino, in Perlak at the 73rd edition of the San Sebastián Festival

Entre los dieciséis largometrajes que conformarán la sección Perlak de la 73ª edición del Festival de San Sebastián figuran autores de la talla de Lanthimos, Linklater o Sorrentino, así como films reconocidos en el Festival de Cannes o programados en la Mostra de Venecia. Todos ellos, buscarán alzar el Premio del Público Ciudad de Donostia / San Sebastián.

Inaugurará la sección tras su estreno en la competición oficial de Cannes New wave, el homenaje de Richard Linklater (Houston, 1960) a la célebre corriente cinematográfica francesa y a la producción en 1959 de la película À bout de souffle / Al final de la escapada, de Jean-Luc Godard. Clausurará la sección Vie privée / A Private Life (Vida privada), trabajo de Rebecca Zlotoski (París, 1980) en el que Jodie Foster interpreta a una psiquiatra que investiga la muerte de uno de sus pacientes. Paul Dano Jude Law, Alicia Vikander, Jeffrey Wright y Tom Sturridge protagonizan Le mage du Kremlin / The Wizard of the Kremlin (El mago del Kremlin), of Olivier Assayas (París, 1955), que narra cómo un joven artista y productor de televisión se convierte en asesor de Vladimir Putin. El filme competirá en Venecia, donde Assayas recibió el Premio FIPRESCI con su debut, Désordre (1986). Igualmente concursará en Venecia Jay Kelly, una película de Noah Baumbach (New York, 1969) in which George Clooney plays a great movie star who is going through a personal crisis. This is the latest feature film by the American director and screenwriter, whose films have competed in Venice, Sundance, Cannes and Berlin.

The Tunisian Kaouther Ben Hania (Sidi Bouzid, 1977), who participated in Cinema in Motion in 2012 and later in Zabaltegi with The challat of Tunis / The Challat of Tunis (2014), will return to San Sebastián with The Voice of Hind Rajab, scheduled in the official competition in Venice. It is a fiction based on the real case of a six-year-old Gazan girl who in 2024 was murdered along with part of her family during an attack by the Israeli army. Guillermo Galoe (Madrid, 1986) won the SACD Prix at Cannes Critics' Week with City without sleep / Sleepless City, a debut feature film shot with non-professional performers in Madrid's Cañada Real that will also be seen at Perlak. Mamlaket al-Qasab / The President’s Cake (The president's cake) is about a girl who must use her ingenuity to prepare a mandatory cake to celebrate President Saddam Hussein's birthday or face a terrible punishment. The film, written and directed by Iraqi Hasan Hadi (Bagdag, 1990), won the Camera d'Or for best first film at the Cannes Festival. Another of the films that will compete for the Golden Lion of Venice is the black comedy Bugonia, the new collaboration of Yorgos Lanthimos (Athens, 1973) with actress and producer Emma Stone, starring alongside Jesse Plemons and Aidan Delbis.

Kleber Mendonça Filho (Recife, 1968) won the best director award and the FIPRESCI award in the official Cannes competition with The secret agent / The Secret Agent (The secret agent), a film that will be seen in San Sebastián and for which the protagonist, Wagner Moura, was distinguished as best actor thanks to a role in which a mysterious man longs to meet his son in Brazil in 1977. Benjamin Voisin, Rebecca Marder, Pierre Lottin, Denis Lavant and Swann Arlaud are part of the cast of The Stranger / The Stranger, the adaptation of the homonymous novel by Albert Camus with which François Ozon (Paris, 1967) will compete in Venice. It will also be projected The love that remains / The Love That Remains (The love that remains), which captures a year in the life of a family through intimate vignettes and strange events signed by the Icelandic filmmaker and artist Hlynur Pálmason. Furthermore, the Iranian Jafar Panahi (Mianeh, 1960) will also be present with the winner of the Palme d'Or in Cannes: A simple accident / It Was Just an Accident (a simple accident), whose starting point is a small incident with unforeseeable consequences.

The selection of films is completed with Orwell: 2+2=5 de Raoul Peck (Port-au-Prince, 1953), a non-fiction premiered at Cannes Première focused on the prophetic vision of George Orwell. Paolo Sorrentino (Naples, 1970) returns to Perlak with the film that will open the Venice Film Festival, Grace, a new collaboration between actor Toni Servillo and the director, who defines his film as a love story set in Italy. Joachim Trier (Copenhagen, 1974) the winner of the Cannes Grand Jury Prize will bring to Donostia: Affection value / Sentimental Value (Valor sentimental), in which Renate Reinsve and Stellan Skarsgård star in an exploration of family that also features Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas and Elle Fanning in the cast. Finally, Amélie and the metaphysics of tubes / Little Amélie or the Character of Rain (Little Amélie), the debut of Maïlys Vallade (Châtenay-Malabry, 1985) y Liane-Cho Han (Paris, 1983), will offer viewers a free adaptation of the novel Metaphysics of tubes (Metaphysics of tubes, 2000), in which the Belgian writer Amélie Nothomb recreated her childhood in Japan.