Sebastian Showbiz and Celebrity Breaking News

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. 

Anderson Cooper is opening up about his most important job — being a dad to sons, Wyatt, 2, and 7-month-old Sebastian. The 55-year-old CNN anchor was a guest on on Wednesdayand shared some sweet details about the brother's relationship.«It's going great,» Cooper said, noting that he was «very concerned» about how his toddler would adjust to being a big brother. «I had this whole thing where I got attacked because I sort of intimated to you that Wyatt and I were kind of mocking Sebastian when he cried,» he told Colbert. «Wyatt's great,» he continued.

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

Liza Foreman Liam Neeson and Diane Kruger turned out at the San Sebastian Film Festival on Saturday to support the world premiere of Neil Jordan’s “Marlowe,” which closes the festival tonight. Jordan and William Monahan’s adaptation of John Banville’s novel “The Black-Eyed Blonde” centers Raymond Chandler’s famous detective Philip Marlowe, and – like Chandler’s books – is set in 1930s Los Angeles. Jordan said it was confusing to call it a film noir. “First of all, it’s shot in color,” he said. Even though it is set in the past, it’s a futuristic film that provided his reference point for the look of this one.

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. 

Lise Pedersen During a packed day of events at the Zinemaldia Startup Challenge in San Sebastián on Thursday, 10 finalists, narrowed down from 55 submissions this year, went head-to-head in live pitching sessions at this competition designed to foster forward-looking initiatives in the tech and film-TV space. Variety caught up with Daniel Karpantschof from Copenhagen Industries for the project Violette, which is looking to provide a 100% safe alternative for cast and crew to use firearms on sets. What’s your background? I’m an artist and entrepreneur and the co-founder and CEO of Copenhagen Industries. I used to do project/script development at Zentropa, and then moved over to production, and left for the U.S., where I, among other things, served on President Obama’s Council of Experts for Entrepreneurship, and The Economist Group Ideas Lab. I moved back to Copenhagen to found Copenhagen Industries with an old friend, who’s done special effects and pyrotechnics for 20 years. 

Come in quickly, Insiders. It’s getting colder out there. Jesse Whittock here with a rundown of this week’s top news and analysis, coming to you from across Europe.

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.” 

Industry stalwarts John Sloss of Cinetic Media and Killer Films’ Christine Vachon offered a dynamic and inventive survey of contemporary film production and financing during the closing keynote of San Sebastian’s Creators Investors’ Conference Tuesday.

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”). 

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 Vying for the top Gold Shell at the 70th San Sebastian Film Festival, Basque native Mikel Gurrea’s debut feature “Suro” stems from Gurrea’s experience working in the cork forests north of Catalonia. He had just finished his studies and was at a loss when his then girlfriend’s parents suggested he work in the forests where they stripped cork from the trees. “I discovered a fascinating world that stayed with me; the work is tough but you’re in the middle of nature,” he said. “It was also a good workout!” he added. “Suro” revolves around a young couple, Helena and Ivan, who decide to leave Barcelona and start anew on the land that Helena has inherited. Ivan takes it upon himself to join the workers and learn how to strip the bark from the cork trees that now belong to them. But their contrasting viewpoints will jeopardize their future as a couple, the film broadening its sweep to examine modern-day capitalism and the rights to private property.

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. 

Anna Marie de la Fuente Ecuador’s Ana Cristina Barragán, an alum of San Sebastian’s post-graduate film school Elias Querejeta Zine Eskola (EQZE), has come full circle with her second feature “La Piel Pulpo” (“Octopus Skin”) as it competes at the San Sebastian Festival’s Horizontes Latinos, a year after it participated in the festival’s Work in Progress strand (WIP Latam). A coming-of-age family drama “La Piel Pulpo” turns on twins Iris and Ariel who live with their mother and younger sister on a remote island. Having grown up in this rarified environment with only the mollusks, birds and reptiles for company, the teens are inseparable and have formed a near transcendental connection with nature. Curious about the world beyond their island, Iris hitches a boat ride with a rare visitor to explore the mainland and search for their estranged father. The act of physically separating from her twin brother puts a strain on their relationship.

Juliette Binoche spoke about what she described as the challenging process of working with Jean-Luc Godard during a press conference at the San Sebastian film festival.

Holly Jones On the heels of a world premiere at the Toronto Film Festival and ahead of its bow in New Directors competition at San Sebastian, BFF, who heads international sales, has given Variety exclusive access to the trailer for Nicaraguan director Laura Baumeister’s debut feature, “Daughter of Rage.” The film follows 11-year-old María and her mother, Lilibeth, who navigate poverty by collecting and repurposing refuse from the local landfill. A look at stifling generational debt passed on in communities that work hard to stay afloat, the film also tackles precocious familial bonds, abandonment, and the salvation of an imagination that allows the protagonist to cope with uncertainty. 

Olivia Wilde is looking stunning on the red carpet!

Liza Foreman Playing in the prestigious New Directors’ section at San Sebastián, “Woman at Sea” (“Grand Marin”), a beautifully shot adaptation of the best-selling book of the same name, marks the feature directing debut of Russian actor Dinara Drukarova, who also stars in the film.  Sold by Loco Films, “Woman at Sea” is produced by Marianne Slot and Carine LeBlanc at Paris-based Slot Machine (“Melancholia”). Lensed in Iceland, the film captures the struggle for integration, and the search for self, all set in the film’s stunning but cold seascapes.  Drukarova’s character Lili follows in the footsteps of the book’s author, Catherine Poulain, who spent 10 years working on fishing boats in Alaska, as documented in the book. 

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.”

Ulrich Seidl has canceled his trip to San Sebastian for the premiere of his latest film Sparta following a report in German magazine Der Spiegel that raised concerns about the treatment of younger cast members during the production.

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.”

Penelope Cruz is taken by surprise as she sees so many fans at the premiere of her new movie, On The Fringe, during the 2022 San Sebastian Film Festival held at Victoria Eugenia Theatre on Friday (September 16) in San Sebastian, Spain.

Olivia Wilde had a warm greeting while arriving in Spain for the 2022 San Sebastian Film Festival!

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent Packing its first full-on onsite edition since the pandemic, Spain’s San Sebastian Festival has never been busier or bigger. 10 Takes on what is shaping up as a vibrant edition:    Playing Off Powerful Market Forces Nine of Netflix’s 20 Top 10 non-English-language films and TV series are sourced from Spain or Latin America. Platforms are battling to tie down talent.  This year, eight movies from Spain and Latin America play in competition alone at San Sebastian, the most important film event in the Spanish-speaking world. The fest’s main sidebar is its New Directors strand. San Sebastian’s focus on the Spanish-speaking world and new talent now aligns with powerful market forces. That fact plays out over the 2022 edition.

Liza Foreman Expanding the diversity of Spain’s film-TV sector, Moroccan-Spanish director, Swel Noury Cazorla’s “Azahar Baby,” is 10 of ten projects pitching at San Sebastian first Creative Investors’ Conference, which is co-organized with CAA Media Finance.  Written, and to be directed, by Noury (“Heaven’s Door,” “The Man Who Sold the World”), the feature project is the first out of the gate for Noury and executive producer Sonia Ziadi Trives, who is also Moroccan–Spanish, at their Madrid-based joint production venture,Two Flavours Productions. “Azahar Baby” weighs in as a coming-of-age dramedy. It tells the story of Yusef, an aspiring filmmaker who is making a documentary to make sense of his identity as a second-generation Moroccan immigrant. 

JD Linville In the thriller series “Euer Ehren,” a German-Austrian adaptation of the Israeli series “Your Honor” (“Kvodo”), Sebastian Koch (“The Lives of Others,” “Homeland”) plays Michael Jacobi, a judge caught up in his own web of deception as he struggles to protect his son. The project was brought to Koch by Al Munteanu, producer and founder of SquareOne Entertainment, and the pair worked together to bring the project to screen. Munteanu and Koch have proved a convincing combo, winning the interest of producer Christoph Pellander at ARD Degeto. “‘Euer Ehren’ is thrilling entertainment at its best,” said Pellander. “The script producer Al Munteanu and leading actor Sebastian Koch have electrified us from the first moment; hence we absolutely wanted to produce the thriller series collectively. In our version, co-produced with ORF and produced by SquareOne Productions and Mona Film, we shifted the story to Austria to bring it closer to our viewers’ environment and thereby managed to produce something truly unique.”