Mike Leigh’s Tender Loving Care triumphed at the San Sebastian film festival tonight (September 26), winning the Golden Shell for best film, best screenplay for Leigh and best leading performance for Kate O’Flynn.
Leigh didn’t attend the closing ceremony of the 74th edition of San Sebastian film festival, leaving two of the film’s lead actors - Paul Jesson and Alice Bailey Johnson – to the collect the awards for the film. However, the veteran British filmmaker sent a thank-you video message.
Tender Loving Care, which had its world premiere at Telluride and then screened in Toronto, marked the return of Leigh to the Spanish festival competition after Hard Truths in 2024. Family, friendship and everyday life are at the core of the film, revolving around four characters: friends Amy (played by Kate O’Flynn) and Rosie (Alice Bailey Johnson) and Amy’s ageing parents, played by Marion Bailey and Paul Jesson.
The competition jury, led by US filmmaker Ira Sachs, also gave Leigh the best screenplay award and O’Flynn the Silver Shell for the best leading performance, an award she shared ex-aequo with Asta Kamma August for Growth Of The Soil by Norwegian director Hans Petter Moland.
Among the main competition awards, Tender Loving Care also won the Transforma Make & Mark Award for films that promote a positive transformation in society.
Nordic cinema also had a strong night at San Sebastian with Growth Of The Soil, an adaptation of Norwegian writer Knut Hamsun’s 1917 Nobel Prize-winning novel, winning a second award for best cinematography for Oskar Dahlsbakken. Swedish filmmaker Amanda Kernell won the Silver Shell for best director for Brace Your Heart, the story of a young Sami woman who has to take the lead as a reindeer herder after her father’s death.
The Special Jury Prize went to first-time director Ah Biao for his neo-noir Border set in a remote mining town in China on the frontier with Mongolia.
The best supporting award went to Javier Cámara for his performance in the black comedy 5 More Minutes, the only award for a Spanish production in the competition line-up. Cámara previously won in San Sebastian in 2015 as best actor for Truman, an award he shared with the other lead of the film, Ricardo Darín.
The audience award, which is chosen among the titles in the Pearls section and presents €50,000 to the Spanish distribution company, went to La Bola Negra, by Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi. The film, inspired by the life and work of poet and playwright Federico García Lorca, focuses on the history of queer repression in Spain. It premiered in Cannes where Calvo and Ambrossi won the best director award alongside Pawel Pawlikowski for Fatherland.
La Bola Negra, Spain’s Oscar entry, also won the People’s Choice Award at Toronto and is heading to be a box office hit in Spain where it was released this Friday, screening at 410 theatres and making €1.3m on its first day. It’s a very strong result for a Spanish film, just below the €1.75m that Nolan’s The Odyssey took on the first day of its release in the country.
The Venice special jury prize-winning documentary NAZA, by Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor, won the Audience Award for a European Film. It was the second most voted film in San Sebastian, closely following La Bola Negra. Israeli directors Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, who won an Oscar for their previous film No Other Land, interview Israeli intelligence officers and soldiers in NAZA who testify to the genocidal violence against Palestinians in Gaza.
Spanish distributor Enrique Costa, from Elastica, read a statement from the filmmakers. “We hope this spreads the word of what is happening in Gaza”. Many members of the audience displayed cards reading “We are NAZA too”.
End of an era
Talking to Screen yesterday, SSIFF’s director Jose Luis Rebordinos discussed his last edition at the head of the festival. He bows out of San Sebastian this year after 16 editions and will hand over to Maialen Beloki on January 1st.
He commented on the industry activities of the festival this year, one of the focuses during his tenure: “I think it’s going better than ever, we have grown so much that I think the challenge for the upcoming director will be to see what to do next. But Maialen Beloki, as deputy director alongside Lucía Olaciregui, has been instrumental in this growth so she knows it through and will figure it out.”
Both Rebordinos and Olaciregui, who is also stepping down from the festival’s managing team, received a standing ovation at the end of the closing gala before the screening of the Belgian-French WWII resistance drama Le Faux Soir by Michaël R. Roskam.
San Sebastian 2026 winners
Golden Shell for best film
Tender Loving Care (UK)
Dir: Mike Leigh
Special jury prize
Border (Hong Kong-US-S.Kor)
Dir: Ah Biao
Silver Shell for best director
Amanda Kernell for Brace Your Heart (Swe-Nor-Den-Ice-Bulg)
Silver Shell For best leading performance (ex aequo)
Kate O’Flynn for Tender Loving Care (UK)
Asta Kamma August for Growth Of The Soil (Nor-Den-Ger)
Silver Shell For best supporting performance
Javier Cámara for 5 More Minutes (Sp)
Jury prize for best screenplay
Mike Leigh for Tender Loving Care (UK)
Jury prize for best cinematography
Oskar Dahlsbakken for Growth Of The Soil (Nor-Den-Ger)
Transforma Make & Mark Award
Tender Loving Care (UK)
Dir. Mike Leigh
Kutxabank-New Directors Award
Body of Glass (Ger-Fr)
Dir: Naëmi Ada
Special mention:
The World Before (S. Ko-Japan-Fr)
Dir: Yoon Dan-bi.
Horizontes Make & Mark Award
The Illusion of an Everlasting Summer (Arg-US)
Dir: Alessandra Sanguinetti
Special mention:
Flies (Mex-Sp)
Dir: Fernando Eimbcke
Zabaltegi-Tabakalera Award
Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma (US-Can)
Dir: Jane Schoenbrun
Special mentions
Sometimes Sadness, Sometimes Rebellion (Arg-Sp)
Dir: María Aparicio
Audience award
La Bola Negra (Sp-Fr)
Dir: Javier Calvo, Javier Ambrossi
Audience award for a European film
NAZA (UK)
Dir: Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor
SGAE Award for the Best Soundtrack
Amine Bouhafa for Milo (Fr), by Nicole Garcia
Culinary Cinema Award
Burgundy (US)
Dir: Michael Dweck, Gregory Kershaw
Nest The Mediapro Studio award
Erased From The Map (Indo)
Dir: Maarij Reka (from Film & Television Institute Art Indonesia Yogyakarta, Indonesia)
Special Mention:
Nobody Barks
Dir: Júlia Coldwell Serra (from ESCAC, Spain)
Irizar Basque film award
Txakun Txakür (Fr-Sp)
Dir: Elsa Oliarj-Inès
Dama Youth award
The Illusion of an Everlasting Summer (Arg-US)
Dir: Alessandra Sanguinetti
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