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LAWRENCE KASDAN'S MUMFORD
WILL OPEN THE OFFICIAL The upcoming edition of the Donostia-San Sebastián Film Festival, which will take place from 16th-25th September next, will open its Official Section competition with Lawrence Kasdan's latest film, Mumford. The Festival will on the other hand be brought to a close by Martha Fiennes' Onegin, starring her brother Ralph Fiennes. With Mumford, Kasdan continues his research of small human groups. In this case, he has set his story in a city where a young psychiatrist treats his patients with a rather peculiar therapy... until his main secret is discovered. The director of Body Heat, Grand Canyon and The Accidental Tourist, among other great works, continues in the line of committed cinema, on a note of personal comedy. Martha Fiennes' Onegin, based on the novel by the great Russian writer, Pushkin, whose 200th anniversary has just been celebrated, shot in Saint Petersburg and London, is a faithful adaptation of the 19th Russian czarist universe. Starring Ralph Fiennes as Eugene Onegin and Liv Tyler as his lover Tatiana, this directorial debut by the young Martha Fiennes is likely to become one of the most beautiful films of the year. Although the programme is not yet complete, here are a few of the other titles that will take part in the Official Section competition: Miss Julie, by Mike Figgis, a new adaptation of August Strindberg's classical theatre piece that caused havoc with the puritan consciences of the late 19th century public and which is still charged with sexuality and social criticism. Orfeu, by Carlos Diegues, one of the most important directors of Brazil's Nuovo Cine, continues to show his talent in this spectacular adaptation of the myth of Orfeo and Euridice with music by Caetano Veloso. La maladie de Sachs, a new work by the ever-disturbing Michel Deville who, on this occasion, concentrates on the life of a doctor (Albert Dupontel), whose ailment is a direct reflection of the suffering endured by his patients. Nichts als die wahrheit (After the Truth), by the German Roland Suso Richter, an interesting and controversial question on the possibility of Joseph Mengele, the Auschwitz concentration camp's "angel of death" asking to be judged in today's Germany. Under the Sun, by the British filmmaker who now lives in Norway, Colin Nutley, director of House of Angels, depicts a triangle of love set in 1956 in a lonely farmhouse, home to two brothers, and the upsetting arrival of a disturbing young girl from the city. Xizhao (Shower), by Chinese cinema's bright young hope, Zhang Yang. A father and his two sons live in the warm and comfortable surroundings of an old bathhouse that is condemned to disappear. C'est quoi la vie?, by the French Director François Dupeyron. A high-budget film that takes us to that rural, provincial France where life has little or nothing in common with life in the big cities, but where it is also possible to suffer from urban problems. The Crossing, a Dutch film in coproduction with Germany and Denmark, directed by Nora Hope, an American who lives in Berlin, and starring a Belgian (Johan Leysen) and an Iranian actor (Behrouz Vossoughi). The action takes place during one single day when an elderly Afghan gentleman who finds a stranger in his kitchen is obliged to remember a past he'd rather forget. Jaime, by Antonio-Pedro Vasconcelos. Oporto is the city where the 13-year-old Jaime tries to survive with self-respect, working illegally even though he knows it's an unfair world. A brave film that rejects sentimentalism to offer the harshest angle of a present-day reality. The Red Ribbon, by Ebrahim Hatamikia. A veteran Iranian director coming to San Sebastián for the first time, bringing a film with a subject and style that are sure to surprise. In addition to the above works are the two Spanish films already announced: Gracia Querejeta's Cuando vuelvas a mi lado (By my Side Again) and Bigas Luna's Volavérunt, and, in a special screening, José Luis Cuerda's La lengua de las mariposas (Butterfly's Tongue).
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