Spain’s San Sebastian Film Festival has unveiled a 10-title lineup of its New Directors competition, the festival’s biggest sidebar, which takes in “Turn Me On,” the new feature from Michael Tyburski, helmer of Sundance hit “The Sound of Silence.”
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Starring Bel Powley and Nick Robinson and sold by Film Constellation, “Turn Me On,” a sci-fi romantic comedy, joins buzz titles in the section, such as “In the Name of Blood,” a Nice-set Georgian mafia movie from Georgia’s Akaki Popkhadze, prized at Clermont Ferrand for his latest short, and “Gulizar,” the first feature from Turkish moviemaker Belkis Bayrak, about a young victim of sexual assault in the run-up to her wedding.
Also selected for New Directors are “Winter in Sokcho,” from French-Japanese director Koya Kamura, starring Roschdy Zem and Bella Kim, and “Regretfully at Dawn,” a drama set in a province near Bangkok directed by Thai helmer Sivaroj Kongsakul.
The section is currently rounded up by “Stars and the Moon,” the second movie from China’s Yongkang Tang (“Walking in Darkness”).
Four Spanish features were announced last week as making San Sebastian’s New Directors cut, led by “La guitarra flamenca de Yerai Cortés,” the awaited feature debut from rapper-singer-songwriter C.Tangana.
Heavy on Spanish titles – San Sebastian Festival director José Luis Rebordinos said last week that 2024’s that he normally chose two-to-three local titles for New Directors but this year he had to chose four – New Directors notably draws as much on films from Eastern Europe and Thailand as more traditional filmmaking centers. Talent can come from anywhere, the industry saying goes. But ever increasingly more talent does.
All New Directors entries compete for the Kutxabank-New Directors Award, coming with €50,000 ($54,500) divided equally between the director and distributor of the film in Spain.
A breakdown of titles, with more to come:
“The Arrival of the Son,” (Cecilia Atan, Valeria Pivato, Argentina)
Sofía, suffering a mournful time in her own life, is forced to take in her adult son who has just returned from spending several years in prison. For each, the reunion offers a chance to close the seemingly insurmountable gap that has developed between them since the man committed his crime. From the directors of “La Novia del Desierto.”
“La guitarra flamenca de Yerai Cortes,” (C. Tangana, Spain)
A doc-feature portrait of young flamenco guitarist Cortés, at the cutting edge of current flamenco innovation.
“Gulizar,” (Belkis Bayrak, Turkey, Kosovo)
Presented in 2023’s Karlovy Vary Eastern Promises strand, the first feature from Istanbul women director-producer Bayrak, charting a Turkish woman’s complex reaction to sexual assault which tarnishes her relationship with her Kosovan fiancée.
“In the Name of Blood,” (Akaki Popkhadze, Georgia)
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Popkhadze’s awaited first feature, starring Nicolas Duvauchelle, Florent Hill-Chouaki and Denis Lavant. When a pillar of the Georgian diaspora in Nice is murdered, his conflictive eldest son returns, plotting to redeem his family honor….
“Regretfully at Dawn,” (Sivaroj Kongsakul, Thailand)
The second film from former Cannes Cinefondation alum Kongsakul after 2011’s “Eternity,” a drama with supernatural overtones. Living a quiet life outside Bangkok, Thai vet Yong has a dog which can see see the world after death. One morning, the first light of day lasts longer than usual and Yong senses the coming of death.
“Stars and the Moon,” (Yongkang Tang, China)
The director’s sophomore outing after Walking in Darkness which bowed in Rottedam’s Bright Future competition, a drama set in an isolated mountain village where student Xingxing desperately imagines the sky is hiding aliens.
“Turn Me On,” (Michael Tyburski, U.S.)
Bel Powley (“The Morning Show”) and Nick Robinson (“Love, Simon”) play a couple in a community, whose inhabitants avoided the danger of emotion, taking a daily pill. The couple decide to avoid their dose, and discover love, joy, sex and chaos.
“Los últimos románticos,” ( David Pérez Sañudo, Spain)
Produced by Basque label Irusoin and Seville-based La Claqueta , the genre-blending tale – typical of Pérez Sañudo – of a withdrawn hypochondriac who finds a new sense of identity and source of public respect during a labor dispute which breaks out at her local paper mill in a blue-collar town near the Basque city of Bilbao. Latido Films sells.
“Where Silence Passes,” (Sandra Romero, Spain)
With “The Wailing,” one of the awaited Spanish feature debuts of the year, a feature-length departure from Romero’s short of the same title which won a best director plaudit in Malaga, said to be a unyielding portrait of co-dependency, straddling a hard-hitting family drama and doc-feature flourishes as a man returns to his deep Andalusian rural town, to ty to help his twin brother, ailing from a congenital illness. That’s not so simple.
“Winter in Sokcho,” ( Koya Kamura, France)
The life of a young Korean girl is thrown into disarray when a French artist arrives in the country. Adapting Elisa Shua Dusapin’s well-received first novel, which set in a town near to the North Korean border, a book probing identity and cultural belonging.
Carlos Maiolatesi contributed to this report.
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