Pilar Palomero on Girlhood and Social Change in San Sebastian World Premiere ‘La Maternal’

Anna Marie de la Fuente In a clear vote of confidence for Colombian director Juan Sebastián Mesa, Bordeaux-based Dublin Films has boarded his third film “Lovers Go Home!” The company also co-produced Mesa’s lauded sophomore pic, “The Rust.” “Lovers Go Home!” centers on a Colombian single mom who leads a double life as a webcammer. One day she meets a U.S. veteran online who becomes obsessed with her. He flies to Colombia to meet her in person. Their meeting makes them reflect on who they truly are. In development, the project participated in this year’s Europe-Latin America Co-Production Forum, one of San Sebastian Film Festival’s key industry events, which ran over Sept. 19-21. 

Diane Kruger sneaks in a kiss from fiance Norman Reedus at the premiere of her movie, Marlowe, during the 2022 San Sebastian International Film Festival at Kursaal on Saturday (September 24) in San Sebastian, Spain.

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.     

Liza Foreman Spanish production and distribution company Bteam Pictures has picked up all rights for Spain to San Sebastián competition title “Los Reyes del Mundo” (“Kings of the World”). Film Factory Entertainment brokered the deal with Bteam partners Ania Jones, Alex Lafuente and Lara Pérez Camiña. Film Factory’s Vicente Canales confirmed to Variety that the company is handling worldwide sales for the film, excluding France, Benelux, Colombia and Mexico.  “Bteam is well known for distributing quality films in Spain and has already released several of our Spanish pictures,” said Canales. “We believe they are the best match for ‘Kings of the World,’ which is one of the most important Colombian films of the year.”

Guy Lodge Film Critic It takes a village to raise a child, goes the old saying, and at least in the figurative sense, Spanish director Pilar Palomero’s tremendous sophomore feature “La Maternal” shows that to be true. Before that can happen, however, pregnant 14-year-old Carla needs to get out of the village and into the city — specifically, to a Barcelona shelter for teenage mothers where the troubled adolescent finds the community and empathy her life has been missing all along. Female solidarity drives Palomero’s follow-up to the celebrated, similarly sisterhood-themed “Schoolgirls,” but without any glib girl-power sloganeering: A tough, unsweetened work of social realism built around an astonishing screen debut by Carla Quílez, “La Maternal” sentimentalizes not one detail of juvenile motherhood, truly earning its flashes of hope and grace.

Emiliano De Pablos Portuguse public broadcaster RTP has taken an undisclosed co-production stake in animated series “My Brother Is a T-Rez,” a Spanish-Portuguese project created and directed by Spaniard Javi Peces (“Bento”). Executive produced by Celine Fernandes at Portuguese animation house Lusco Fusco Animation in co-production with Madrid-based Mr. Klaus Studio, “My Brother” is an upper pre-school series project aimed to promote adventure, educational and sustainability values. The project was previously pre-bought by Spain’s public broadcaster RTVE for its children-oriented channel Clan TV.

Former Spain and Manchester City midfielder David Silva has been fined more than €1,000 for hurting a woman during a brawl in Spain.

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.

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.

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.

Carlos Saura has suffered a minor fall and will no longer attend San Sebastian for the premiere of his latest film, The Walls Can Talk (Las paredes hablan), the festival has said.

“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!

Caitlin Quinlan “Vive le cinéma!” goes the call from Tabakalera, International Centre of Contemporary Culture, at this year’s San Sebastián International Film Festival (SSIFF).  The Centre’s exhibition hall plays host to four cinematographic installations made by leading global filmmakers, a project which sees them transform their usual cinema-based practice into a more expansive and experimental gallery space.  The exhibition at Tabakalera marks a continuation of the series which began at the Eye Filmmuseum in Amsterdam last year in collaboration with the International Film Festival Rotterdam. Two works from the 2021 exhibition by Lemohang Jeremiah Mosese and Jia Zhang-ke will be on display again in San Sebastián, alongside two new productions from Georgian filmmaker Dea Kulumbegashvili (“Beginning”) and Spanish director Isaki Lacuesta (“One Year, One Night”). 

Pablo Sandoval Selected for main competition, “Pornomelancolía” premiered at San Sebastián over the festival’s first weekend. A Latin American buzz title at the festival last year when it played in pix-in-post section WIP Latam, “Pornomelancolía” opens a window onto the behind-the-scenes life of a porn influencer, Lalo. But, Argentine director Manuel Abramovich – who won the 2019 Silver Bear at Berlin with his short film “Blue Boy” – told Variety, “Pornomelancolía is not a film about pornography, it is a film about how we face the gaze of others.” “Pornomelancolía” was formed as part of 2018’s Ikusmira Berriak, a residency program in San Sebastian which is one of Spain’s foremost development labs. The film is lead produced by Gema Films in Argentina, with Brazil’s Desvia Filmes, Bordeaux-based Dublin Films and Mexico’s Marthfilms. Luxbox handles international sales; Filmin will handle distribution in Spain.

Olivia Wilde is looking stunning on the red carpet!

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