Seventeen Fresh Faces in San Sebastian New Directors Section

7:03 AM PDT 8/10/2012 by Pamela Rolfe

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The section with a handsome prize to be split between director and Spanish distributor, debuts this year as an independent sidebar.

MADRID – Seventeen fresh filmmakers will showcase their feature films in the New Directors section at the 60th San Sebastian International Film Festival and vie for the coveted €90,000 ($110,400) prize.

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The section, which this year spins off from Zabaltegi into its own section designed to foment distribution in Europe by creating greater international visibility, will screen first and second features from directors from Denmark, Holland, France, Lebanon, Germany, UK, Romania, Peru, Chile, Paraguay, Brazil, China, Iran, Israel and Spain.

Paraguayan Fernando Guzzoni’s much-anticipated follow-up to his 2008 La Colonia, called Dog Flesh will premiere worldwide in the section, depicting a complex moment in the life of a solitary many crushed by his past experiences.

Indeed, the section trumpets dozens of world and international premieres—including the winner of last year’s Cinema in Motion award, enabled to complete production thanks to the award’s funding. Elaine Raheb’s documentary Sleepless Nights (Lebanon/Dubai) looks closely at war wounds through the eyes of an ex high ranking leader in the Christian militia-- responsible for many killings in the Lebanese Civil War.

Others seeing their directorial debuts slated for the section include Brazilian Francisco Garcia’ Films in Progress finalist Colors about love and betrayal among three teenagers in Sao Paolo, Scottsman Scott Graham—whose 2010 short Native Son screened in Cannes’ Critics’ Week— and his father-daughter love story Shell and Israeli advertising and television professional Jonathan Garfinkel with Six Acts, a dive into sexual abuse as seen through a teenager Gili who tries to improve her lame social status by hooking up with three boys in her new school.

San Sebastian runs Sept. 21-29 in Spain’s northern Basque region.