New films by Bayona, Trueba, Castellitto in San Sebastian line-up

“The 60th edition of the San Sebastian Film festival has a bond with Spanish cinema” said festival director José Luis Rebordinos this morning during a presentation to unveil the Spanish films which will screen during the 60th edition of the San Sebastian Film Festival.

Competing for the Golden Shell will be Fernando Trueba, back in San Sebastián following The Dancer and The Thief in 2009, with The Artist and The Model, a black and white French spoken film about the relationship between an old painter (Jean Rochefort) and a young Spanish refugee (Aida Folch) during the 40s.

After the international success of Don’t Move, Sergio Castellitto also returns in competition with the much aniticpated Venuto Al Mondo, starring Penelope Cruz as a woman who lost her husband during the siege of Sarajevo.

Javier Rebollo, winner of the Silver Concha for best director for Woman Without a Piano (2009), will also compete with El Muerto Y Ser Feliz, a road movie set in Argentina about an assassin (José Luis Sacristán).

Also in official selection is Pablo Berger’s Blancanieves, a mute black and white new version of the tale of Snow White set in the Andalusia of the 20s with Maribel Verdú, Angela Molina and Daniel Giménez Cacho.

Meanwhile, J. Bayona’s $45m tsunami thriller The Impossible, starring Ewan McGregor and Naomi Watts will screen out of competition at the festival. The film is Bayona’s second following The Orphanage.

The other Spanish film screening out of competition will be Eduard Cortés’ ¡Atraco! (Robbery), a comedy about the bizarre recovery of Argentinian Peron loyalists of the jewelry of Evita Perón starring Oscar Jaenada, Guillermo Francella and Amaia Salamanca.

The remainder of the Official Selection titles are yet to be announced.

In the festival’s New Directors section, which this year has a competitive status, short film maker David Valero will show Los increíbles (The Incredibles) about three real life every day heros. Also screening in this section will be Marçal Foré’s Animals, the story of a tragic teenage romance and Chaika, by Miguel Ángel Jiménez, a drama set in Kazajistan and Siberia.

Screening in the Zabaltegui Special section will be Miguel Courtois’ Operation E, a thriller set in the Colombian jungle about the real story of the kidnapped Clara Roja, Aitor Mazo and Patxo Telleria’s romantic comedy Bypass, Baztan, by debutant Iñaki Elizalde, about the primitive rituals of the traditional inhabitants in a Basque valley, Zuloak, a documentary by Fermín Muguruza about a rock band and 7 Days in Havana, which opened at Cannes earlier this year.