Bteam Pictures Acquires Spanish Rights to San Sebastián Competition Title ‘Kings of the World’ (EXCLUSIVE)

Colombian filmmaker Laura Mora has clinched the Golden Shell in the main competition of the 70th San Sebastian Film Festival with her latest feature The Kings of the World (Los reyes del mundo).

Guy Lodge Film Critic Colombian director Laura Mora’s coming-of-age drama “Kings of the World” has taken the Golden Shell for Best Film at the San Sebastian Film Festival, marking the third consecutive year that a female filmmaker has taken the top prize at the Spanish fest. Longer report to follow; full list of winners below. OFFICIAL SELECTION PRIZES Golden Shell for Best Film: “Kings of the World,” Laura Mora Special Jury Prize: “Runner,” Marian Mathias Silver Shell for Best Director: “A Hundred Flowers,” Genki Kawamura

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent The dream child of 10 Basque businessmen who hoped to prolong San Sebastián’s summer season into late September, the San Sebastian Film Festival was born on Sept. 21, 1953.  Presented by bullfighter Mario Cabré, who romanced Ava Gardner, and comprising just 19 films, won by “La guerra de Dios,” directed by Rafael Gil., rescued from a potential Republican firing squad by Luis Buñuel not so many years before. Fireworks, bullfights and quayside parties regaled the film week. From that first edition remain the beauty and gastronomy of San Sebastian, a Belle Epoque resort boasting the spectacular white-sand Concha Bay, steep-backed hills, an old quarter of higgeldy-piggeldy streets and a trio of three-star Michelin restaurants. 70 years later, San Sebastián still stuns.     

San Sebastian Grows (Again) “There are markets that have improved during COVID-19, and others that haven’t and San Sebastian is a festival that’s improved thanks to its industry activities,” says Film Factory’s Vicente Canales. That build comes from afar, with a Films in Progress strand in 2002, an Europe-Latin America Co-Production Forum from 2012, the Ikusmira Berriak development residency from 2017 and now a Creative Investors Conference. 

EXCLUSIVE: Manila-based TBA Studios has acquired Philippines theatrical rights to award-winning drama Plan 75, which is Japan’s submission for the best international feature category of the Academy Awards.

Emiliano De Pablos “The Silence of the Ants,” by documentary filmmaker Francisco Montoro, snagged top prizes at the 18th Lau Haizetara Documentary Co-Production Forum, part of the San Sebastián Festival. The documentary took the Ibaia–Elkargi Award for best project at the pitching session, plus the Distribution and Festival Consultancy Treeline Award and the Fipadoc Biarritz Award. Produced by Apnea Films, “The Silence of the Ants” follows a Spanish couple who traveled to the Ukraine in 2015 to find the seven-year-old girl they hosted for temporary foster care. Federation Spain’s “Carapirú: El Superviviente,” by Aner Etxebarria and Pablo Vidal, took The Ibaia – Bilibin Circular Prize for its environmental values with a title suggesting a combination of “Cast Away” and “Apocalypto” translated to real life in Brazil’s Amazon jungle.

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent Mexico’s Bruno Santamaría, Argentina’s Martín Benchimol and Turkey’s Selman Nacar proved three of the big winners among San Sebastian Industry Awards, announced Wednesday. João Paulo Miranda, already a young star on Brazil’s film scene after “Memory House,” meanwhile won the Ikusmira Berriak Award. A Chicago Golden Hugo winner for doc feature “Things We Dare Not Do,” Santamaría swept two awards at the fest’s Europe-Latin America Co-Production Forum, a Mecca for Latin America auteurs and their producers seeking vital co-production partners as state funding prospects have plunged across the region.

David Cronenberg described his next film, The Shrouds, as a personal and partly autobiographical project, during a press conference at the San Sebastian film festival Wednesday.

The presence of Movistar Plus+, Spain’s biggest pay-TV/SVOD operator, is hard to ignore at this year’s San Sebastian film festival, with two original TV series and one feature film helmed by the streamer scattered throughout the program. The Telefonica-owned platform also had a hand in every Spanish feature in the festival’s Official Selection. Domingo Corral, director of original fiction at Movistar Plus+, caught up with Deadline at San Sebastian to discuss the company’s drive into original production, the current boom in local Spanish productions, and how he competes with global streamers like Netflix and HBO.

Caitlin Quinlan Pilar Palomero’s second feature film “La Maternal” had its world premiere in main competition at Spain’s San Sebastián Film Festival on Tuesday. The Spanish filmmaker, who won Goyas for best picture, best new director and best original screenplay with her debut film “Las Niñas,” produced like “La Maternal” by Valérie Delpierre at Inicia Films, returns to the Basque Country festival with another invigorating work that explores the challenges and joys of girlhood.  “I never made a decision to explicitly focus on girlhood,” Palomero says. “I think it’s a coincidence that both are about young women, but I guess there’s something inside me that I’m not aware of that’s leading me to this subject.” 

Europe’s Big Hope: Platforms Really Embracing Cinema In the U.S., the platforms already buy big when it comes to movies. Think Sundance. Europe is another land: Platforms have largely held back much more, thwarted in France, for instance, by regulated windows.

Anna Marie de la Fuente In a rare move, Barcelona-based Film Factory Entertainment has snapped up world sales rights to documentary “Mibu, The Moon in a Dish” (“Mibu, La Luna en un Plato”), which opened the Culinary Zinema sidebar of the San Sebastian Festival Sept. 19. The feature debut of Spanish filmmaker Roger Zanuy, the documentary transports audiences to members-only Tokyo restaurant Mibu, which has greatly influenced some of the most prominent chefs in the world, including Spain’s Ferran Adrià (El Bulli), Jose Andrés, also renowned for his humanitarian work, as well as Italy’s Massimo Bottura of Osteria Francescana, among several others.

“Blue Files” (“Karpeta Urdinak”, Ander Iriarte, Spain-France)  Iriarte directs a doc investigating his father’s potential torture while in police custody. The investigations take the doc deeper into findings from Basque’s “Research project on torture and ill-treatment in the Basque Country between 1960-2014.” Produced by Gastibeltza, Filmak, and Iriarte’s own Mirokutana.

Miguel Herran had a big premiere this past weekend at the 2022 San Sebastian Film Festival!

The topic of streaming loomed large over the first session of San Sebastian’s new Creative Investors’ Conference featuring a keynote by Wild Bunch co-founder Vincent Maraval.

Anna Marie de la Fuente San Sebastian’s pix-in-post showcases, which have launched notable movies – Sebastian Lelio’s “Gloria” – and notable directors – Jayro Bustamante, introducing his debut “Ixcanul” – unspools in 2022, with the screenings of six WIP Latam titles taking place over Sept. 19 – 21. WIP Europe, with four titles, runs on Sept. 19 and 20.  In the mix is an awaited title from Chile, “Penal Cordillera,” directed by Felipe Carmona, produced by Dominga Sotomayor and Omar Zuñiga and sold by Luxbox, and “A Strange Path,” from Brazil’s Guto Parente, whose “The Cannibal Club,” acquired by Uncork’d Entertainment, made a stir by portraying a Brazil in which the rich literally eat the poor. 

Olivia Wilde is looking stunning on the red carpet!

Penelope Cruz received a special honor at the 2022 San Sebastian Film Festival this weekend!

Liza Foreman After wowing a home crowd at the opening night of the San Sebastián Film Festival on Friday, looking dazzling at 48, Spain’s best-known actress, Penélope Cruz, spoke to a packed auditorium at the city’s Tabakalera culture center on Saturday when she was honored with Spain’s National Cinematography Prize. “It is truly an honor for me to receive this National Cinematography Prize,” said Cruz speaking in Spanish.  “Cinema is and has been my passion since I was a child. Since I dreamed in the living room of my parents’ house of worlds to explore beyond our neighbourhood. The streets of my neighborhood sometimes became sets for incredible stories,” she went on. “My childhood was fantasizing about acting, living life so intensely to be able to encompass many lives through dozens of characters.”

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent Austrian director Ulrich Seidl has cancelled his visit to San Sebastian for the Sept. 18 world premiere of “Sparta,” amid allegations of impropriety and child exploitation made against the director. The world premiere will still go ahead at San Sebastian with the film playing in main competition contending for San Sebastian’s Gold Shell. Seidl’s decision comes after the Toronto Film Festival pulled “Sparta” and on Sept. 14, FilmFest Hamburg announced that it would no longer be giving Seidl its Douglas Sirk Award, though it would be screening “Sparta.”