Skip to main content

San Sebastian Film Festival · 2015

San Sebastian Film Festival 2015

Horizontes Latinos

More titles still to be announced...

Programme

14 films · 7 reviews

Jump to a film

600 Miles (600 Millas)

Review preview for 600 Miles

A brilliant piece of character driven desert noir.

Andrew Robertson · 4.5 out of 5
A federal agent is kidnapped while he is trying to track a weapons cartel.

(Country: Mexico, US; Year: 2015; Director: Gabriel Ripstein; Writer: Gabriel Ripstein, Issa López; Stars: Tim Roth, Kristyan Ferrer, Aurora Herrington-Auerbach, Monica del Carmen, Craig Hensley, Noé Hernández, Harris Kendall, Greg Lutz, Tad Sallee, Julian Sedgwick, Harrison Thomas, Antonella Cassia, Justice Lee, Rick L. Lobato, Ken Lownds)

Full review

The Chosen Ones (Las Elegidas)

A teenager being taught to groom girls into prostitution by his father falls in love with one of his marks.

(Country: Mexico; Year: 2015; Director: David Pablos; Writer: David Pablos, based on the book by Diego Luna)

Chronic

The story of a home care nurse working with terminally ill people.

(Country: US; Year: 2015; Director: Michel Franco; Writer: Michel Franco; Stars: Tim Roth, Bitsie Tulloch, David Dastmalchian, Claire van der Boom, Sarah Sutherland, Tate Ellington, Joe Santos)

The Club (El Club)

Review preview for The Club

Larraín's judgement when it comes is fiercely Old Testament - harsh, unexpected and fast.

Amber Wilkinson · 4.5 out of 5
A group of priests of various ages lives together with Mónica, a nun, in a house on the Chilean coast. When they are not praying and atoning for their sins, they train their greyhound for the next race.

(Country: Chile; Year: 2015; Director: Pablo Larraín; Writer: Guillermo Calderón, Daniel Villalobos; Stars: Roberto Farías, Antonia Zegers, Alfredo Castro, Alejandro Goic, Alejandro Sieveking, Jaime Vadell, Marcelo Alonso, Jose Soza) , Trailer

Full review

Opening night film

Embrace Of The Serpent (El Abrazo De La Serpiente)

Review preview for Embrace Of The Serpent

Structurally illustrates how the indigenous people don't see time as being a chronological straight line but as multiple realities existing simultaneously.

Rebecca Naughten · 3.5 out of 5
The story of the relationship between an Amazonian shaman and two scientists who, decades apart, search the Amazon for a sacred healing plant.

(Country: Colombia, Venezuela, Argentina; Year: 2015; Director: Ciro Guerra; Writer: Ciro Guerra, Jacques Toulemonde Vidal; Stars: Nilbio Torres, Jan Bijvoet, Antonio Bolivar, Brionne Davis, Yauenkü Miguee, Nicolás Cancino, Luigi Sciamanna)

Full review

From Afar (Desde allá)

Armando, aged 50, looks for young men in the streets of Caracas and pays them to come back to his house with him. He also regularly spies on an older man with whom he seems to have ties from the past. One day he meets Elder, aged 17, leader of a small band of thugs...

(Country: Venezuela; Year: 2015; Director: Lorenzo Vigas; Writer: Guillermo Arriaga, Lorenzo Vigas, Lorenzo Vigas, Lorenzo Vigas; Stars: Alfredo Castro, Luis Silva, Jericó Montilla, Catherina Cardozo, Jorge Luis Bosque, Greymer Acosta, Auffer Camacho, Ivan Peña, Joretsis Ibarra, Yeimar Peralta, Scarlett Jaimes, Ernesto Campos, Marcos Moreno, Armando Volcanes, Jesús Las Rosas)

Ixcanul (Ixcanul Volcano)

Review preview for Ixcanul

A sensitively handled female coming-of-age tale.

Rebecca Naughten · 3 out of 5
Story of a teenage girl living in the foothills of a volcano, who faces an arranged marriage but is won over by the charms of a plantation worker.

(Country: France, Guatemala; Year: 2015; Director: Jayro Bustamante; Writer: Jayro Bustamante; Stars: María Mercedes Croy, María Telón, Manuel Manuel Antún, Justo Lorenzo, Marvin Coroy)

Full review

I Promise You Anarchy (Te Prometo Anarquia)

A drama.

(Country: Mexico, Germany; Year: 2015; Director: Julio Hernández Cordón; Writer: Julio Hernández Cordón)

Land And Shade (La Tierra Y La Sombra)

Review preview for Land And Shade

From silence and small details, César Augusto Acevedo weaves a devastating tale.

Jennie Kermode · 3.5 out of 5
A man returns home after a 17 year absence because his only son is gravely sick.

(Country: Colombia, France, Netherlands, Chile, Brazil; Year: 2015; Director: César Augusto Acevedo; Writer: César Augusto Acevedo; Stars: José Felipe Cárdenas, Haimer Leal, Edison Raigosa, Hilda Ruiz, Marleyda Soto)

Full review

Magallanes

When a taxi driver picks up a fare who turns out to be a woman from his past, he sees an opportunity for redemption.

(Country: Peru; Year: 2014; Director: Salvador del Solar)

Paulina (La Patota)

Review preview for Paulina

Fonzi's performance is perfectly judged.

Jennie Kermode · 4 out of 5
A young woman survives a rape and her response confounds everyone around her.

(Country: Argentina, Brazil, France; Year: 2015; Director: Santiago Mitre; Writer: Eduardo Borrás, Mariano Llinás, Santiago Mitre, Daniel Tinayre; Stars: Dolores Fonzi, Oscar Martínez, Esteban Lamothe)

Full review

The Pearl Button (Le Bouton de Nacre)

Review preview for The Pearl Button

Looking at all these themes on paper, there is no way they should be able to co-exist within the same film, let alone do so in harmony, but Guzmán lets each wave of thought flow over the other, tributaries of history gathering to a ocean of argument.

Amber Wilkinson · 5 out of 5
Water, the longest border in Chile, also holds the secret of two mysterious buttons which were found on its ocean floor.

(Country: Chile, France, Spain; Year: 2015; Director: Patricio Guzmán; Writer: Patricio Guzmán)

Full review

The Project of the Century (La obra del siglo)

Amidst a mosquito plague, Leonardo, struggling with the breakdown of his relationship, moves back to live with a grandfather who fights with everyone and everything, and a father living with the melancholy of the unfinished.

(Country: Argentina, Cuba, Switzerland, Germany; Year: 2015; Director: Carlos Quintela; Writer: Abel Arcos, Carlos Quintela; Stars: Mario Balmaseda, Mario Guerra, Leonardo Gascón, Jorge Molina, Manuel Porto, Damarys Gutiérrez)

To My Beloved (Para Minha Amada Morta)

Fernando is a good man who takes care of his only child, Daniel, a shy and sensitive boy. Following the death of his wife Ana, every night Fernando recalls their love as he sorts out his beloved dead spouse’s belongings. One day he finds a VHS tape that will change everything.

(Country: Brazil; Year: 2015; Director: Aly Muritiba; Writer: Aly Muritiba, Aly Muritiba; Stars: Fernando Alves Pinto, Mayana Neiva, Lourinelson Vladmir, Giuly Biancato, Michelle Pucci, Vinicius Sabbag)