FROM SARAJEVO TO PALM BEACH BY WAY OF SAN SEBASTIAN

With pride and passion, San Sebastian has hosted some of the liveliest, most richly varied film festivals of the past half century. On September 18, 2003, the earthily cosmopolitan Spanish coastal city will bring up the curtain on its 51st season, and before the show comes to an end on September 27, viewers will have sampled experimental and traditional movies from today’s most talented filmmakers—such as England’s Michael Winterbottom, who will be paid special tribute with a series that includes "Butterfly Kiss," "Jude," "Wonderland," "24 Hour Party People," "Welcome to Sarajevo (pictured above) and two new films--"In This World" and "Code 46."

Another festival highlight: a series of comic gems from American master Preston Sturges. Be prepared to laugh along with "The Lady Eve," "Sullivan's Travels," "The Miracle of Morgan's Creek," "Hail the Conquering Hero," "Unfaithfully Yours" and "The Palm Beach Story" (at right).

Below, courtesy of the San Sebastian Festival Press Department, are the films that will unspool in the Official Section of the festival. For more information about these and many other festival films and events, visit www.sansebastianfestival.com.

THEY MADE IT OFFICIAL

ARVEN (INHERITANCE), by Per Fly, Denmark-Sweden
The second part of Per Fly's trilogy on Danish society. While in the first part, Baenken (The Bench), he concentrated on the destitute, on this occasion the subject at hand is high-flying industry and the lack of scruples shown by entrepreneurs when struggling to stay in power. The tale centers on Christoffer, heir of a powerful family business who has to give up the things he loves most to become harsh and implacable.

DANS LE ROUGE DU COUCHANT, by Edgardo Cozarinsky, France-Spain
Marisa Paredes, Feodor Atkine and Bruno Putzulu are the three stars of this tale set in Paris but with its roots in Buenos Aires. The cinema of Argentinean Edgardo Cozarinsky, a resident of France for several years, maintains a strange, attractive balance between both sides of the Atlantic. On this occasion embodied in the faces of three actors who bring vibrant life to the people who run into each other one red dusk.

EN LA CIUDAD (IN THE CITY), by Cesc Gay, Spain
Following the success of Krámpack (Nico and Dani), the Catalan director has chosen to make a completely different film. An urban, choral and wintry tale portraying from a particularly unconventional and harsh point of view a group of thirty-something year old friends. En la ciudad (In the City) is more of a contained melodrama than a custom comedy, surprising audiences with the perfect understanding existing between the seven actors playing the leading parts: Chisco Amado, Álex Brendemühl, Eduard Fernández, Mònica López, Vicenta N'Dongo, María Pujalte and Leonor Watling.

GIRL WITH A PEARL EARRING, by Peter Webber, UK-Luxembourg (Competing for the Altadis-New Directors Award)
The screen version of Tracy Chevalier's bestseller, Girl with a Pearl Earring, is exquisitely set and studied in every detail. Young actress Scarlett Johansson embodies Griet, the young maid turned model for one of the most famous paintings by Vermeer, played by Colin Firth. The light and mystery reflected against the pearl hanging from Griet's ear fill this film above all about a love for painting. Lions Gate will exhibit the painterly "Earring" on U.S. screens starting on December 12.

GRIMM, by Alex van Warmerdam, Holland
Abandoned by their parents, Jacob and Mary set out to search for their uncle who lives in what they believe to be the sunny, Utopian Costa del Sol. As in the fairy tales told by the Grimm brothers, reality rarely resembles our dreams and the pair are suddenly thrown into a nightmare where this reality is overtaken by the obscure, the occult. The fourth movie by the director of De Noordenlingen (The Northerners) (1992) is a delirious comedy. Briefly speaking, we could say that this is a remake of Hansel and Gretel adapted to today's world.

L'HISTOIRE DE MARIE ET JULIEN, by Jacques Rivette, France-Italy
Julien, a mature, unmarried watchmaker, meets the young, beautiful and vulnerable Marie. The intense love sparked off between the two leads them to shelter in a place where neither life or death exist, a house where dream and reality merge. Actors Emmanuelle Béart and Jerzy Radziwilowicz star in this latest work by the great moviemaker Jacques Rivette.

EL MISTERIO GALINDEZ (THE GALINDEZ FILE), by Gerardo Herrero, Spain (Out of competition)
Based on the novel by Manuel Vázquez Montalbán, Gerardo Herrero's film is a mixture of adventure, thriller and political chronicle. Saffron Burrows, Harvey Keitel, Eduard Fernández and Guillermo Toledo are the heroes of this story attempting to unveal an open and as yet unsolved mystery almost forty years on: that of the strange disappearance of Basque politician Jesús Galíndez in 1956 during his exile in America.

NOVIEMBRE (NOVEMBER), by Achero Mañas, Spain (Competing for the Altadis-New Directors Award)
Noviembre (November) focuses on a provocative street theatre group. Told documentary style with interviews of veteran actors who recall their past in an avant-garde theatre group, alternating with the representation of this past, the film is a combination of spectacular street productions and totally contemporary political reflections. Noviembre (November) features a cast of young actors headed by Ingrid Rubio and Óscar Jaenada.

OJOS QUE NO VEN (WHAT THE EYE DOESN'T SEE), by Francisco Lombardi, Peru-Spain
Lombardi tells us six tales set at a particularly harsh political moment in Peruvian history: the fall of the Fujimori régime as a result of what was known as the "vladi-video" scandal showing the presidential advisor Vladimiro Montesinos bribing people of national importance. A movie denouncing the hyprocrisy, opportunism and corruption of political power by reflecting these factors on the lives of the different characters presented to us by Lombardi. The Ojos que no ven (What the Eye doesn't see) project was presented at last year's Films in Progress.

SA-LIN-EUI CHU-EOK (MEMORIES OF MURDER), by Bong Joon-ho, Korea (Competing for the Altadis-New Directors Award)
This second feature by the director of Barking Dogs Never Bite, screened as part of the San Sebastian Official Section in 2000 and highly acclaimed, is based on a true story which profoundly shook Korea in 1986 when several murders were committed by a serial killer. The initial comic overtones gradually fade into a dark drama the most important part of which is not discovering the murderer, but observing how his behaviour transforms a town and particularly how it transforms its police force. One of the biggest Korean movie hits of the year.

SCHUSSANGST (GUN-SHY), by Dito Tsintsadze, Germany
The director of Lost Killers brings us a film hard to classify, full of a dark, surreal humour set in a realistic context. The tale of a man obliged to do something he never thought he'd do. A quiet, peaceable youngster doing social work to escape from doing his military service is inexorably drawn into taking vengeance. A movie shot through with extravagant characters, absurd and funny moments despite its darkness.

THE STATION AGENT, by Tom MacCarthy, USA (Competing for the Altadis-New Directors Award) The tale of three lonely beings. And different. Fin, the train-loving dwarf (played by Peter Dinklage, pictured here), and Olivia, the artist who has lost a son. But loneliness is impossible if the neighbours of the old station in which you live include an amusing, extroverted Cuban who doesn't give up until having succeeded in creating a sort of new family. The message is clear: isolation is better shared. A bittersweet comedy which won Best Actress (Patricia Clarkson), Best Screenplay and the Audience Award at the Sundance Festival.

SUITE HABANA, by Fernando Pérez, Cuba-Spain
This year's most successful Cuban movie is neither documentary nor fiction. It is a mixture of the two, moreover collectively portraying a city and its people. Suite Habana narrates a regular day in the life of ten ordinary Cubans, with nothing special about them. Ten real people who become actors without stopping being themselves and without ever losing sight of reality in this fictional operation. With no need for words, the film traces a continuous dialogue between the city, its inhabitants and the spectator.

SUPER TEX, by Jan Schutte, Germany-Holland
Super Tex is a classic in the best sense of the word. Based on a fine Dutch novel by León de Winter, the movie is shot in Amsterdam with British actors. The tale of Max, heir to a textile empire founded by his father, an old Jewish survivor of the holocaust, is told with the solidity and density of melodrama without even the merest touch of sentimentalism. The latest work by one of the most promising directors in today's German cinema.

TE DOY MIS OJOS (MY EYES ARE YOURS), by Iciar Bollaín, Spain
Starring Laia Marull and Luis Tosar, Te doy mis ojos (My eyes are yours) takes a close-up look at the terrible reality of battered women from a completely new perspective of surprisingly courageous clear ideological stance. The movie, written in collaboration with Alicia Luna, is born as an extension of the short film Amores que matan. Candela Peña, Rosa María Sardá, Kity Manver and Sergi Calleja complete the cast of this film which will leave no-one indifferent.

VERONICA GUERIN, Joel Schumacher, USA-UK-Ireland
Cate Blanchett stars in this story based on the real character of Veronica Guerin, a brave Irish reporter, correspondent for the Sunday Independent, who in the mid-90s dared to denounce the powerful Irish drug mafia chiefs, for which she was brutally murdered in 1996. Veronica Guerin's name became a legend for the Irish.