The San Sebastian Film Festival has announced this morning twelve competition titles that will vie for the Golden Shell for Best Film in its 70th edition, which includes four productions by Latin American directors: Pornomelancolía by Manuel Abramovich; The Kings of the World / Los reyes del mundo by Laura Mora; The Substitute / El suplente by Diego Lerman; and The Wonder by Sebastián Lelio.
Argentine filmmaker Abramovich, a number of whose earlier works have previously screened in Zabaltegi-Tabakalera, will compete with his fourth feature film, Pornomelancolía, the portrait of a sex influencer, selected last year for WIP Latam.
Colombian director Mora, who won, amongst other distinctions, a special mention from the Kutxabank-New Directors Award and the Youth Award with Killing Jesús / Matar a Jesús / (2017), will return to the Spanish festival with her second feature film, The Kings of the World, a subversive and fantastic tale starring five boys who live on the streets of Medellín.
Having participated twice in Horizontes Latinos and won the Best Screenplay Jury Prize for A Sort of Family / Una especie de familia (2017), Argentine filmmaker Lerman competes once again with The Substitute, following a teacher in the suburbs of Buenos Aires. Juan Minujín, Bárbara Lennie, Alfredo Castro, María Merlino, Lucas Arrua and Rita Cortese head the cast of this film which participated while still at its project stage in the 2019 Europe-Latin America Co-Production Forum.
And Chilean filmmaker Lelio, who participated in Perlak with Gloria (2013) following its selection at Films in Progress and in Horizontes Latinos with A Fantastic Woman / Una mujer fantástica (2017), debuts at the official selection of San Sebastian with the English-language production The Wonder, set in the mid-19th century in an Irish town where a little girl is said to have survived for months without eating. Featuring in the cast of the film, based on Emma Donoghue's homonymous novel, are Florence Pugh, Ciarán Hinds, Tom Burke, Toby Jones, Elaine Cassidy and Niamh Algar.
The 70th edition of the San Sebastian Film Festival will take place September 16-24 in Spain.
