Very strong reception for Prison 77 spanish film opening San Sebastian 70th edition

I have been impressed by the warmth of the audience welcome to the red carpet show. Young people mostly and very loud. The opening ceremony offered as surprise guests some of the performers of the inagural 1st edition of the festival, commenting 70 years later about their emotions and memories of that special moment. Bruno Chatelin

Actress Loreto Mauleón joined the actor and director Paco León to present the opening gala of the San Sebastian Festival’s 70th edition on Friday 16 at 20:30.  

The gala, paying homage to several participants of the Festival’s first edition in 1953, saw a variety of guests take to the stage to announce the contents of the edition. Some surprises or live music performances and the FIPRESCI Grand Prix was presented to the film Drive My Car (Ryûsuke Hamaguchi, 2021).

The event  also remembered several people from the organisation who have recently passed away and to whom the Festival dedicates the edition: Alfredo Knuchel, member of the Selection Committee in 1991 and 1992 and delegate in Germany, Austria, Switzerland and the Netherlands from 1993 to 2010; Mariano Larrandia, member of the Management Committee in 1978 and of the Board of Directors in 1985; Tony Partearroyo, who was a member of the Selection Committee in 1993 and 1994, and José Ángel Herrero-Velarde, who had been connected to the Festival for more than 40 years as a member of the Management and Selection Committees, among other responsibilities.  

As usual, the opening gala  welcomed the Official Jury, made up of the casting director and filmmaker Antoinette Boulat (France), the director and screenwriter Tea Lindeburg (Denmark), the writer and journalist Rosa Montero (Spain), the filmmaker and visual artist Lemohang Jeremiah Mosese (Lesotho), the director and screenwriter Hlynur Pálmason (Iceland) and the producer Matías Mosteirín (Argentina), President of the Official Jury. Next, the filmmaker Alberto Rodríguez together with the actors Miguel Herrán and Javier Gutiérrez  introduced the premiere of Modelo 77 / Prison 77, the film opening the Official Selection out of competition.

Santiago Tabernero is a journalist, screenwriter and film director. He made his debut behind the camera with Vida y color (Life in Colour,2007), winner of the Audience Award at the Seminci in Valladolid and which was followed by Presentimientos (2013). As well as having put his name to several short films, he has also written the screenplays for films including Desvío al paraíso (Gerardo Herrero, 1994), Taxi (Carlos Saura, 1996) and Asfalto (Daniel Calparsoro, 2000). He has extensive experience in television, where he has created original formats such as Versión Española and the trilogy Torres y Reyes, Alaska y Coronas and Alaska y Segura, as well as having connections to programmes on the cinema including Días de Cine. He has been the artistic director of the Actual Festival since 2021.

Loreto Mauleón co-hosts the gala in a year when she participates in the San Sebastian Festival with the projects Los renglones torcidos de Dios / God’s Crooked Lines and Gelditasuna ekaitzean / La quietud en la tormenta, programmed respectively in Perlak and the Basque Cinema Gala. For his part, Paco León also comes to San Sebastian with a new film under his arm, Rainbow, an extremely personal take on the classic The Wizard of Oz screening among this year’s films at the Velodrome.  

The team after the screening receiving another applause