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San Sebastian Film Festival · 2025

San Sebastian Film Festival 2025

Official Selection

Programme

20 films · 8 reviews

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27 Nights (27 Noches)

Review preview for 27 Nights

At its heart, this Netflix comedy drama hinges on what we put a price on in life.

Amber Wilkinson · 3 out of 5
The story of Martha Hoffman, an eccentric and wealthy patron who is committed to a psychiatric clinic by her daughters. The expert witness Casares investigates whether this is a scheme to control their mother’s fortune or if Martha truly suffers from a form of dementia that endangers her well-being and that of her family.

(Country: Argentina; Year: 205; Director: Daniel Hendler; Writer: Daniel Hendler; Stars: Marilú Marini, Daniel Hendler, Humberto Tortonese, Julieta Zylberberg, Paula Grinszpan, Carla Peterson)

Full review

Opening film

The Anatomy Of A Moment (Anatomía de un instante)

Mini-series about the failed 1981 Spanish coup d'état.

(Country: Spain; Year: 2025; Director: Alberto Rodríguez; Stars: Álvaro Morte, Eduard Fernández, Manolo Solo, David Lorente)

Out of competition

Ballad Of A Small Player

Review preview for Ballad Of A Small Player

There is talk of “hungry ghosts” and shadows but little of substance to show as the gambling cliches stack up like bad debts and the plot twists are signposted as brightly as the casinos.

Amber Wilkinson · 2 out of 5
When his past and his debts start to catch up with him, a high-stakes gambler laying low in Macau encounters a kindred spirit who might just hold the key to his salvation.

(Country: Germany, UK; Year: 2025; Director: Edward Berger; Writer: Rowan Joffe, based on the book by Lawrence Osborne; Stars: Colin Farrell, Fala Chen, Tilda Swinton, Alex Jennings, Adrienne Tau, Jason Tobin)

Full review

Belén

Review preview for Belén

A largely straightforward drama that is a bit too structurally loose for its own good, Argentina’s Oscar nominee is buoyed considerably by Fonzi’s own central performance.

Amber Wilkinson · 3.5 out of 5
An innocent woman jailed for self-inducing an abortion fights for her freedom.

(Country: Argentina; Year: 2025; Director: Dolores Fonzi; Writer: Dolores Fonzi, Laura Paredes, Agustina San Martín, Nicolás Britos, based on the book Somos Belén by Ana Correa; Stars: Dolores Fonzi, Camila Plaate, Laura Paredes, Julieta Cardinali, Luis Machín, César Troncoso, Sergio Prina, Ruth Plaate, Lili Juárez)

Full review See: Dolores Fonzi in conversation on Belén

Couture

American filmmaker Maxine arrives in Paris for Fashion Week on a life-and-death journey, facing challenges and self-discovery.

(Country: France, US; Year: 2025; Director: Alice Winocour; Writer: Alice Winocour; Stars: Angelina Jolie, Louis Garrel, Ella Rumpf, Garance Marillier)

The Currents (Las corrientes)

When her plans fall through, Sana secretly decides to stay with her twins at her former in-laws home on the Riviera without telling anyone. Six days of sunshine that mark the end of innocence.

(Country: Switzerland, Argentina; Year: 2025; Director: Milagros Mumenthaler; Stars: Isabel Aimé González Sola, Esteban Bigliardi)

See: Milagros Mumenthaler on the psychological journey of her latest film

The Fence (Le Cri des Gardes)

As supervisor Horn is welcoming his partner Léone into the hut he shares with engineer Cal, a man called Alboury appears outside. He is determined to stay there until they return the body of his brother to him, who was killed on the site.

(Country: France; Year: 2025; Director: Claire Denis; Writer: Claire Denis, Suzanne Lindon, Andrew Litvack; Stars: Tom Blyth, Matt Dillon, Mia McKenna-Bruce, Isaach De Bankolé)

Franz

Review preview for Franz

Playful biopic that rips up chronology and frequently tears down the fourth wall so that we’re never sure if we’re going to be the ones looking into the fishbowl of his life or the ones being inspected.

Amber Wilkinson · 4 out of 5
The life of the writer Franz Kafka, from his birth to his death.

(Country: Czech Republic, Poland, Germany, France, Turkey; Year: 2025; Director: Agnieszka Holland; Writer: Marek Epstein, Agnieszka Holland; Stars: Karel Dobrý, Peter Kurth, Stanislav Majer, Katharina Stark, Sebastian Schwarz)

Full review

Good Valley Stories

In a peripheral neighbourhood, where the rural and urban worlds meet, the houses of the first migrants who arrived after the post-war period coexist with the new blocks of the dormitory city, where the latest wave of migration is concentrated.

(Country: Spain, France; Year: 2025; Director: José Luis Guerin)

Her Heart Beats In Its Cage (Jianyu laide mama)

When a woman who was jailed for killing her husband gets an opportunity for early release she tries to reconnect with her son.

(Country: China; Year: 2025; Director: Qin Xiaoyu; Writer: Qin Xiaoyu; Stars: Zhao Xiaohong, Zhang Jingqi, Wang Junyan)

Los Tigres

A brother and sister who are both divers face an uncertain future after an accident.

(Country: Spain, France; Year: 2025; Director: Alberto Rodríguez; Stars: Antonio de la Torre, Bárbara Lennie)

Maspalomas

Review preview for Maspalomas

Arregi and Goenaga are at pains to suggest that no matter what your political or sexual stance, we’re all human underneath.

Amber Wilkinson · 4 out of 5
An accident forces a septugenarian to return to his home town and the daughter he abandoned years before.

(Country: Spain; Year: 2025; Director: Jose Mari Goenaga, Aitor Arregi; Writer: Jose Mari Goenaga, Aitor Arregi; Stars: Jose Ramon Soroiz, Nagore Aranburu, Kandido Uranga)

Full review

Nuremberg

Review preview for Nuremberg

It relies on often clumsy exposition, a common construction of "only if X" with a cut to "X has happened" leaves one asking "why?".

Andrew Robertson · 2.5 out of 5
Drama chronicles the events that brought the Nazi high command to justice following the Second World War.

(Country: US; Year: 2025; Director: James Vanderbilt; Writer: James Vanderbilt; Stars: Russell Crowe, Rami Malek, Leo Woodall, Michael Shannon, Richard E Grant, John Slattery)

Full review

SAI: Disaster

Four people lead ordinary lives in different places, their paths never crossing. A mysterious man appears in each story, always as someone else. Then, death strikes. A detective pursues the truth...

(Country: Japan; Year: 2025; Director: Yutaro Seki, Kentaro Hirase; Writer: Yutaro Seki, Kentaro Hirase; Stars: Teruyuki Kagawa, Anne Nakamura, Kaito Miyachika, Pistol Takehara)

She Walks In Darkness (Un fantasma en la batalla)

Thriller follows a young Civil Guard who spends more than ten years with terrorist group ETA as an undercover agent, tasked with finding the hiding places used by the organisation in southern France.

(Country: Spain; Year: 2025; Director: Agustín Díaz Yanes; Stars: Susana Abaitua, Andrés Gertrúdix, Iraia Elias, Raúl Arévalo, Ariadna Gil)

Out of competition

Six Days In Spring (Six jours ce printemps-là)

Review preview for Six Days In Spring

Haïdara’s ability to switch moods from fun to fear is a key selling point of the film.

Amber Wilkinson · 4 out of 5
Despite adversity, Sana wants her twins to have a spring vacation, but all her plans fall through. Together, they decide to stay in a luxury villa on the Riviera, owned by Sana's former in-laws. Without telling anyone. Six days of sunshine that mark the end of innocence.

(Country: Belgium, France, Luxembourg; Year: 2025; Director: Joachim Lafosse; Writer: Joachim Lafosse; Stars: Eye Haïdara, Leonis Pinero Müller, Teodor Pinero Müller, Jules Waringo)

Full review See: Eye Haïdara on building her character and the world of Six Days In Spring

Sundays (Los Domingos)

Ainara, an idealistic and brilliant 17-year-old has to decide what university degree to pursue — or at least that's what her family hopes she will do. However, the young woman says she feels increasingly closer to God and is considering embracing the life of a cloistered nun.

(Country: Spain, France; Year: 2025; Director: Alauda Ruiz de Azúa; Stars: Blanca Soroa, Patricia López Arnaiz, Miguel Garcés, Juan Minujín, Mabel Rivera, Nagore Aranburu)

Two Pianos

Returning to France after a long exile, pianist Mathias Vogler reunites with his mentor, Elena, to prepare a concert. In a park, an encounter with a child who looks just like him will lead him to Claude, the woman he once loved.

(Country: France; Year: 2025; Director: Arnaud Desplechin)

Ungrateful Beings

David takes his two children on holiday to the Adriatic Sea, hoping to hold their fractured bilingual family together... but an accusation sees things go from bad to worse.

(Country: Czech Republic, Slovenia, Poland, Slovakia, Croatia, France; Year: 2025; Director: Olmo Omerzu; Writer: Olmo Omerzu; Stars: Barry Ward, Barbora Bobulova, Dexter Franc , Antonín Chmela, Timon Sturbej)

Winter Of The Crow

Review preview for Winter Of The Crow

As a director Adamik is good when it is close up and claustrophobic.

Donald Munro · 3 out of 5
A psychiatry professor gets caught up in Poland's instigation of martial law during a trip to Warsaw and ends up in a cat-and-mouse chase to escape.

(Country: UK, Poland, Luxembourg; Year: 2025; Director: Kasia Adamik; Writer: Sandra Buchta, Kasia Adamik, Lucinda Coxon, inspired by the short story Professor Andrews In Warsaw by Olga Tokarczuk; Stars: Lesley Manville, Zofia Wichlacz, Andrzej Konopka, Sascha Ley, Tom Burke, Magdalena Smalara, Miron Jagniewski, Jakub Guszkowski)

Full review

Closing film. Out of competition