François Dupeyron, Fernando Eimbcke, Roger Michell, Mariana Rondón, Bertrand Tavernier and Jonathan Teplitzky to compete in the Official Selection at the 61st San Sebastian Festival

Yet another year, important filmmakers from all over the world will compete for the Golden Shell at the new edition of the San Sebastian Festival, to take place from 20-28 September. The other titles making up the Official Selection will be announced in the coming weeks.

Club Sándwich (Club Sandwich)
Fernando Eimbcke (Mexico)

Mexico’s Fernando Eimbcke premieres his third film in San Sebastian. Paloma and her 15 years old son Hector have a very strong and special relationship. When on holiday at the seaside, Hector meets Jazmin, a teenage girl with whom he discovers the first glimpses of love and sexuality. Trying to keep Hector close to her, Paloma has a hard time accepting that he will eventually grow up and no longer be the same son and best friend he was to her for so many years.

Mon âme par toi guérie (My Soul Healed by You)
François Dupeyron (France)

Fourteen years after winning the Golden Shell with C’est quoi la vie?, François Dupeyron returns with his new film. When Frédi loses his mother, he realizes she has passed her healing gift on to him. Frédi rejects it totally, tangled up in his own unhappiness, until a fatal accident changes everything. He is forced to acknowledge that he had healing hands.

Pelo Malo (Bad Hair)
Mariana Rondón (Venezuela)

The third film from the filmmaker and plastic artist Mariana Rondón stars Junior, a 9 year-old with “bad hair”. His efforts to smooth it down for the school picture incur the wrath of his mother Marta, a widow at the age of 30. His grandfather on his father’s side suggests that the boy stay with him on a permanent basis. He doesn’t care if he’s effeminate; he only wants to secure someone to look after him in his old age. Marta refuses and sets out to “re-educate” her son. Junior wants to live with his mother and for her to love him.

Quai d’Orsay
Bertrand Tavernier (France)

Bertrand Tavernier, one of the great masters of contemporary French cinema, adapts in his new film the comic of the same name by Lanzac & Blain, a political satire revolving around Alexandre Tallard de Vorms, Minister of Foreign Affairs for France, a man who calls on the powerful and invokes the mighty to bring peace, to calm the trigger-happy, and to cement his aura of Nobel Peace Prize winner-in-waiting. With a brilliant cast including Thierry Lhermitte, Raphaël Personnaz, Niels Arestrup, Anaïs Demoustier, Julie Gayet, Joséphine de La Baume and Jane Birkin.

The Railway Man
Jonathan Teplitzky (UK-Australia)

Starring Colin Firth, Nicole Kidman, Jeremy Irvine and Stellan Skarsgård, the film is based on the true story of Eric Lomax, a British officer fascinated with railways since childhood. During World War II he was captured by the Japanese and sent to a work camp on the Burma-Thailand railway line where he and his fellow prisoners were forced to survive the torture inflicted on them by their captors in extreme conditions. Years later, Lomax is retired and lives in the north of England with his wife Patricia, focussed on his passion for trains, when he discovers that the Japanese soldier responsible for a large part of his suffering is still alive...

Le Week-end (Le Week-end)
Roger Michell (UK)

In his new film, Roger Michell (Notting Hill, Enduring Love) tells the story of Nick and Meg, a couple of British teachers who revisit Paris many years after their honeymoon in an attempt to rejuvenate their marriage. Meg feels she deserves a better life, yet feels insecure and bereft without her husband Nick. Starring Jim Broadbent, Lindsay Duncan and Jeff Goldblum.