The San Sebastian International Film Festival on Thursday named five additional titles to its competition lineup, bringing to 21 the number of films that will compete for the Golden Shell at this year’s event, which is set to run Sept. 16-24 in the seaside resort city in northern Spain.
The new entries include two titles from Europe: The Oath from Everest director Baltasar Kormakur, a story of a heart surgeon who takes drastic steps to foil his daughter’s manipulative drug-dealing boyfriend; and Playground, the feature film debut of Polish documentary director Bartosz M. Kowalski, a crime story involving a 12-year-old schoolgirl.
Two films from Asia — China’s I Am Not Madame Bovary from festival favorite Xiaogang Feng and Rage, a Japanese drama starring Ken Watanabe from director Lee Sang-il — have secured San Sebastian competition slots, as has The Winter, a France-Argentina co-production that marks the helming debut of screenwriter and assistant director Emiliano Torres and tells the story of an old foreman and a young cowhand having to survive a brutal winter on a Patagonian cattle ranch.
The fest is set to announce further titles for its official selection on Friday.
