San Sebastián Film Festival: Shell-seekers, street gangs and blockbusters-to-be

IT'S THE Cannes of Spain, a shop window on what's to come in the world of entertainment, and its awards are named after the venue city's favourite beach – San Sebastián Film Festival has wrapped up for another year and the latest batch of Conchas, or shells, have found new homes.

Liam Neeson, Florence Pugh and Juliette Binoche were nominated for the 'golden' versions, and you'll soon be able to pop to the cinema to find out why. 

Social critique, the underprivileged in their battles for happiness and self-discovery, and the dynamics of family life – blood relations as well as family of choice – are common themes among those productions which made the cut in 2022, offering thought-provoking insights into difficult personal, but shared, journeys.

And the Emerald Isle was very much in the limelight.

English-language films in the 2022 spotlight...

This year has seen a much higher number of films not originally in Spanish being nominated for the Holy Grail of the festival – the Concha de Oro, or 'Golden Shell', for Best Film. 

Three of these were English-language productions, one of the latter – from Ireland – being premièred at the Basque event.

This had all the ingredients for a European blockbuster: A crime thriller starring Liam Neeson as private detective Philip Marlowe – created back in the day by 1940s' pulp-fiction author Raymond Chandler (The Big Sleep, The Long Goodbye) – in an adaptation of John Banville's 2014 novel The Black-Eyed Blonde, alongside the legendary Jessica Lange, the highly-versatile Diane Kruger, the silver-screen regular Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Scottish theatre household name Alan Cumming, chip-off-the-old-block Danny Huston (son of John and brother of Anjelica), up-and-coming Portuguese star Daniela Melchior, and Irish Star Trek familiar Colm Meaney.

And it still might be a blockbuster – even though it didn't win the 'Golden Shell' – since it's due for release in mainstream cinema in December.

Another Concha de Oro nominee which didn't win, but which is due to hit our cinema screens and then Netflix in November, is The Wonder, based upon the novel of the same name by Emma Donoghue – whose now-prolific literary career kicked off in 1994 with the little-known, light-hearted coming-of-age novel Stir Fry.

Created by Chilean director Sebastián Lelio and starring some huge international names, this historical psychological thriller, set in 1862, was shot entirely in the original author's native Ireland.

British actress Florence Pugh plays the lead rôle of Lib Wright, alongside Ciarán Hinds, Dermot Crowley, David Wilmot, Kíla Lord Cassidy, Niamh Algar, Elaine Cassidy, Tom Burke, Toby Jones, and Brian F O'Byrne.

But the US production The Runner, which is already showing at cinemas worldwide, did pick up a key award.

...and an English-language director's lifetime work credited

Other much-coveted prizes at the San Sebastián Film Festival are the Concha de Plata, or 'Silver Shell', for Best Director, Best Lead Performer or Best Supporting Artist, and the Donostia Prize for lifetime achievement, which takes its title from the name of the city in the Basque language, euskera.

This year, one of the two Donostia Prizes went to Canadian director David Cronenberg, known as one of the 'Three Cs' of modern horror film along with Wes Craven and John Carpenter.

The 79-year-old father-of-three is behind cult epics such as The Dead Zone, The Fly, Naked Lunch, Crash, and this year's Crimes of the Future with Viggo Mortensen, Léa Seydoux and Kristen Stewart.

Juliette Binoche gets one, too

Most years, two or sometimes three Donostia Awards are given out for an artist's or director's lifelong work – this time, the multi-faceted, multi-lingual Juliette Binoche (Chocolat, The English Patient) was the second, well-deserved winner.

She and David Cronenberg are the latest in seven decades' worth of global names to take home trophies bearing the name of one of the Basque Country's best-loved holiday hotspots, along with Judi Dench, Danny DeVito, Monica Bellucci, Viggo Mortensen, Penélope Cruz, Johnny Depp, Hugh Jackman, Denzel Washington, Glenn Close, Julia Roberts, Meryl Streep, Antonio Banderas, Richard Gere, Vanessa Redgrave and Julie Andrews.

Documentaries and shorts also earn awards, but the main full-length films gaining the biggest prizes were a truly international bunch this year – here's the lowdown on the highest-ranked productions of 2022.

Los Reyes del Mundo ('Kings of the World')

Starring: Carlos Andrés Castañeda, Davison Flórez, Brahian Acevedo

Director: Laura Mora (script by Laura Mora and María Camila Arias)

What's it about?

Friendship, dignity and fighting the system in times of resistance. Rá, Culebro, Sere, Winny and Nano, five young adults living in a street in Medellín, Colombia, five kings without a kingdom, without family, without laws, set off on a voyage of discovery, seeking their promised land.

A journey to nowhere, but where everything happens, in reality or via hallucinations, to a feral and intractable bunch of social misfits.

Gangs of New York meets Trainspotting meets Dangerous Minds (the Michelle Pfeiffer one with Coolio's Gangsta's Paradise), whipped up in a blender and poured out into a deprived neighbourhood in inner-city Colombia.

Nominated for: Best Film, SIGNIS Award, Feroz Zinemaldia Critic Award

Won: All three

Suro

Starring: Vicky Luengo, Pol López, Ilyass El-Ouahdani

Director: Mikel Gurrea (script by Mikel Gurrea and Francisco Kösterlitz)

What's it about?

Helena and Ivan, expecting their first child, make the life-changing decision to leave their big city behind and settle in a rural, woodland enclave. 

Being 'outsiders' in a strange environment, and the growing tension between locals and immigrants, forces them to a radical rethink of their future – and their opposing views begin to highlight the first cracks in their long relationship.

Nominated for: FIPRESCI Award, Basque Film Award, Best Film 

Won: FIPRESCI Award and Basque Film Award – two out of three

Runner

Starring: Hannah Schiller, Darren Houle, Gene Jones, Jonathan Eisley

Director: Marian Mathias

What's it about?

Following her father's sudden death, Haas meets Will – two young loners, strangers to each other, whose story unfolds as they travel across the open vastness of the USA. German actress Schiller plays Haas in Mathias' first-ever full-length feature, already aired in the Discovery section at Toronto Film Festival.

Dark and introspective in a very Scandinavian way, with a dash of a 'serious' version of Thelma and Louise and of Kérouac's On the Road, in which Haas runs to try to escape herself – and ends up finding herself instead.

It's rare that a non-Spanish, or non-Spanish-language film is ever nominated for a Concha de Oro, meaning this US production entirely in English has sparked something of a paradigm shift for the San Sebastián Film Festival.

Nominated for: Best Film, Judges' Special Award, SIGNIS Award

Won: Judges' Special Award

A Hundred Flowers ('Hyakka')

Starring: Masaki Suda, Mieko Harada, Masami Nagasawa

Director: Genki Kawamura 

What's it about?

Described as a 'light-filled haiku in film form', Genki Kawamura's first full-length feature is based upon his novel of the same name, a tender exploration of a mother's relationship with her adult child. Yuriko – played by Mieko Harada, who has reportedly won every acting award ever invented in her native Japan during her 50-plus-year career – is suffering from dementia, but her son Izumi's own photographic memory is so vivid that he clearly recalls, and feels, everything he has ever experienced, as though it were still happening to him.

Yuriko is desperate to remember, but Izumi, played by Masaki Suda, is desperate to forget – especially a terrifying memory that constantly haunts him, when he thought his mother had disappeared.

Another rare candidate for the Concha de Oro, despite being in a language other than Spanish.

Nominated for: Best Film, Best Director 

Won: Best Director

Ruido ('Noise')

Starring: Julieta Egurrola, Teresa Ruiz

Director: Natalia Beristain

What's it about?

Julia is frantically searching for her daughter, Ger, in a country that has waged war on its women. Mothers, sisters, daughters, female friends, are all simply fighting to survive the violent conflict directly targeting them, and Julia and the women she meets have their own, varied and harrowing experiences to relate of their struggles during the armed combat against their gender. A wartime snapshot with a dash of The Handmaid's Tale in a misogynist dystopia.

Nominated for: Spanish Cooperation Award

Won: The same

La Maternal

Starring: Carla Quílez, Ángela Cervantes, Jordan Dumes, Pepe Lorente

Director: Pilar Palomero

What's it about?

Carla is 14, pregnant, and from a deprived background. Checking into the La Maternal refuge shortly after discovering she is expecting, the teen has to learn how to get along with and build bonds with girls her own age, and to learn to be a good mum.

This huge challenge at a tender age involves trying to understand the world around her – and herself – whilst grappling with the destructive relationship she has with her own mother.

Nominated for: Best Film, Best Lead Performer

Won: Best Lead Performer (for Carla Quílez)

A Woman ('Kong Xiu')

Starring: Shen Shi Yu, Zhu Dong Qing, Wang Xue Dong, Yu Qing Bin

Director: Wang Chao

What's it about? 

Set during the Chinese 'Cultural Revolution' of the 1960s and 1970s, the woman of the title, Kong Xiu, works long hours in slave-like conditions in a factory, but in her spare time, she writes for pleasure.

Focusing on an ordinary female sweat-shop worker who finally breaks from from two unhappy marriages and a drudge's life to realise her long ambition of becoming a published author, A Woman is based upon the autobiographical novel Dream, by Zhang Xiu Zhen.

Another that netted a ground-breaking Concha de Oro nomination, despite not being in the Spanish language.

Nominated for: Best Film, Best Script

Won: Best Script (for Wang Chao)

El Suplente ('The Substitute')

Starring: Juan Minujín, Alfredo Castro, Bárbara Lennie, Rita Cortese, María Merlino, Lucas Arrua, Renata Lerman, Brian Montiel

Director: Diego Lerman

What's it about? 

A classic 'teacher who wants to make a difference' tale, this time set in the slums of Buenos Aires and focusing on Lucio, a jaded humanities professor at a prestigious university in the Argentine capital. Deciding his knowledge and skills would be put to better use in improving life for the impoverished inner-city kids, he has to call on every trick in the book for his scheme to work.

Teaching literature to children in a violent and downbeat neighbourhood, Lucio encounters dubious morals and social prejudice as he tries to save his favourite pupil, Dylan, from a drug-dealing racket who are targeting him in a settling-of-scores revenge attack.

Nominated for: Best Film, Best Supporting Artist

Won: Best Supporting Artist (for Renata Lerman)

Le Lycéen ('Winter Boy')

Starring: Juliette Binoche, Paul Kircher, Vincent Lacoste

Director: Christophe Honoré

What's it about? 

Paul Kircher plays Lucas, a gay teenager who struggles with his father's sudden and unexpected death – which might or might not have been suicide.

Director Christophe Honoré plays Lucas' father, Juliette Binoche (Chocolat, The English Patient) plays his mother Isabelle, Adrien Casse is Lucas' boyfriend Oscar, and Vincent Lacoste plays his elder brother, Quentin. 

A French production, and another non-Spanish-language film to be nominated for the coveted Concha de Oro award, Le Lycéen/Winter Boy premièred at Toronto Film Festival this year. 

Nominated for: Best Film, Best Lead Performer

Won: Best Lead Performer (for Paul Kircher)