San Sebastian unveils first 2023 competition titles

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'Red Island'

Source: San Sebastian

‘Red Island’

Robin Campillo’s Red Island and Cristi Puiu’s MMXX are among the first titles to be selected in competition for this year’s San Sebastian Film Festival (September 22-30).

Campillo makes his first appearance competing at the festival with French-Belgium co-production Red Island about the French colonisation of Madagascar. The French director’s previous film BPM (Beats Per Minute) screened in the festival’s Pearl strand in 2017 after winning the jury prize at Cannes earlier that year.

Also competing in competition for the first time is Argentinian director Martín Rejtman with his comedy The Practice starring Esteban Bigliardi as a yoga teacher in a marital crisis. A San Sebastian regular, Rejtman was last at the festival in 2020 when his project Riders won the Eurimages Development Co-production Award at the Europe-Latin America Co-production Forum.

MMXX is a comedy-drama that revolves around a therapist, her younger brother, husband and an organised crime investigation. The Romanian production was among the winners at Marseille’s FIDLab in 2022. Puiu’s breakout film The Death of Mr. Lăzărescu won Cannes’ top Un Certain Regard prize in 2005.

Returning to the competition strand is Belgium filmmaker Joachim Lafosse with his tenth feature film A Silence about the wife of an acclaimed lawyer whose children decide they want justice. Lafosse won the Silver Shell for best director in 2015 for The White Knights.

The line-up also includes Puan, co-directed by Argentina’s María Alché and Benjamín Naishtat, which sees Marcelo Subiotto and Leonardo Sbaraglia play two university professors arguing over a top position. Alché won the festival’s Horizontes Award with her first feature film A Family Submerged in 2018. Sundance premiere All Dirt Roads Taste Of Salt, from first-time US director Raven Jackson, has also been selected.