As one of Europe’s leading A-list festivals, San Sebastián combines a high-profile competition program with a strong focus on emerging talent, international co-production and exchange between European and Latin American cinema. German cinema also has a prominent presence at this year’s edition. Today, Friday, August 21, the films in the Zabaltegi-Tabakalera section were announced. 

The Official Selection, the festival’s main competition, will open with Fatih Akin’s film GHOST SONG. The drama centres on Farasha and Faris, who meet at a graduation party, but Farasha dies later that same night. She discovers a way to return to Faris from the afterlife and visits him in his dreams for 40 nights. Their love continues to grow until the very last night. The film is a poetic drama about an extraordinary love story, loss and longing that blurs the boundaries between reality and fantasy.
Also competing for the Golden Shell is KRUX, Tony Vahl’s feature-film debut. The German-Polish production is set in a village in north-eastern Germany during the final days of the Second World War and explores fear, rumours and the disintegration of a community as the end of the war approaches.

In the festival’s long-established emerging-talent section New Directors, 14 first and second features compete for the Kutxabank-New Directors Award. Three German-majority productions are represented. Massih Parsaei’s LOVERS SLEEP ALONE follows Iman, an Iranian exile living in Berlin whose solitary life is shaped by work and fleeting encounters until a visit from his cousin Maneli disrupts his routine. FEBRUARY, SEVEN DAYS is a drama by director Tatjana Moutchnik about the reunion of two Ukrainian brothers as war breaks out. The film looks at everyday life under exceptional circumstances and at a sense of responsibility towards one’s country and family. Naëmi Ada premieres her feature-film debut BODY OF GLASS. The drama tells the story of dancer Tian, who flees her life in Marseille after a violent incident. The film explores emotional dependency, grief and self-determination.

German participation also extends to other sections of the festival, including Salka Tiziana’s GLUEY FEATHERS in Zabaltegi-Tabakalera. The short film follows Frida, a Spanish woman, through a harvest season at a horticultural nursery in Hamburg. The German-Spanish production THE GUESTS by Cristina Diz and Stefan Butzmühlen will screen in the Made in Spain section. The film examines power structures and the connections between past and present, the living and the dead, and women and witches.

This year’s festival also places a special focus on one of the most internationally influential figures in German cinema: Werner Herzog will receive the Donostia Award, the festival’s highest honorary distinction, in recognition of his lifetime achievement. The award will be presented during the opening ceremony, accompanied by a screening of his new film BUCKING FASTARD.

All German productions and co-productions in San Sebastián at a glance:

Official Selection
GHOST SONG (GEISTER) by Fatih Akin (Bombero International, Warner Bros. Film Productions Germany, Rialto Film)
KRUX by Tony Vahl (DE/PL, CALA Filmproduktion, Cala Film Central, KINEO FILM)
MARKENS GRODE (GROWTH OF THE SOIL) by Hans Petter Moland (NO/DN/DE)

New Directors
LOVERS SLEEP ALONE by Massih Parsaei (FilmFive, Filmuniversität Babelsberg KONRAD WOLF)
FEBRUARY, SEVEN DAYS (SIEBEN TAGE FEBRUAR) by Tatjana Moutchnik (DE/AT/ES, Wood Water Films)
BODY OF GLASS by Naëmi Ada (DE/FR, Soilfilms, German Film and Television Academy Berlin)

Perlak
SOUDAIN (ALL OF A SUDDEN) by Ryûsuke Hamaguchi (FR/JP/DE/BE, Heimatfilm)
MINOTAUR by Andrey Zvyagintsev (FR/DE/LV, Razor Film Produktion)
FATHERLAND (VATERLAND) by Pawel Pawlikowski (PL/DE/IT/FR, Nine Hours)

Horizontes Latinos
NARCISO by Marcelo Martinessi (PY/DE/UY/BR/PT/ES/FR, Pandora Filmproduktion)

Zabaltegi-Tabakalera
GLUEY FEATHERS by Salka Tiziana (Faust Film)

Made In Spain
THE GUESTS (DIE GÄSTE) by Cristina Diz, Stefan Butzmühlen (DE/ES, The Match Factory)
IVÁN & HADOUM by Ian de la Rosa (ES/DE/BE, Port au Prince Film & Kultur)

Retrospective Josè Giovanni
AVEC LA PEAU DES AUTRES (TO SKIN A SPY) by Jacques Deray (FR/IT/DE)