San Sebastian Interntional Film Festival 2026 (SSIFF 2026) Overview – Jennifer Green reports
San Sebastián Kicks Off in Spain (Sept 18-26), inaugurating its 74th annual edition in the northern Spanish city, with 263 films from 47 countries screening across its line-up. The Official Selection features 17 films making their world premieres outside their production territories and competing for the fest’s top Golden Shell prize, including new works from directors Jesse Eisenberg, Mike Leigh, Fatih Akin, Nicole Garcia, Pablo Larrain and more. The full list is below.
Other top talents expected in the coastal town for the event, which runs Sept. 18-26, include Brad Pitt, Penelope Cruz, Jeremy Irons, Ira Sachs, Diego Luna, Orlando Bloom, Marion Cotillard, Rami Malek, Lena Olin, JA Bayona, Pawel Pawlikowski, Lukas Dhont, Cristian Mungiu and more. Actor Naomi Watts and filmmaker Werner Herzog will receive the fest’s honorary Donostia Awards. SSIFF houses seven different competitive sections and six non-competitive sections.
Among the sidebar industry events are Spain-focused panels, screenings and pitch/project development sessions, co-production forums focused on Europe and Latin America, a meeting of Ibero-American LGBTIAQ+ Festivals, and the fifth-annual two-day Creative Investors’ Conference hosting global industry leaders for discussions, networking and meetings. The festival drew 2,400 accredited professionals from more than 1,500 companies across 65 countries last year.
“I think one of the San Sebastián Film Festival’s strengths is its awareness of its core characteristics and its refusal to try to be anything else,” Festival Director José Luis Rebordinos told me in May. “We can’t be a major market, but we can have interesting industry activities… We can’t have the year’s biggest American releases as premieres, but we can showcase some of them with members of their teams in parallel sections.”
“We are a festival with a large enough audience to interest both the industry and critics, but small enough to feel human and welcoming,” Rebordinos said. “We work with humility, and our slogan is ‘We are the smallest of the greats.’”
Official Selection Line-Up
Geister / Ghost Song – Opening Film (In Competition)
FATIH AKIN (Ger)
Farasha and Faris are 20 when they meet at a graduation party – one glance that changes everything. But Farasha dies that very same night. Refusing to be separated from him, she discovers a way to cross the boundary between worlds: for 40 nights, and 40 nights only, she can meet Faris in his dreams. And so their love continues to grow, until the very last night.
Le Faux Soir – Closing Film (Out of Competition)
MICHAEL R. ROSKAM (Belg-Fr)
1943. The Nazis occupy Belgium and have turned the national daily Le Soir into their propaganda tool. With 1918 Armistice Day commemorations forbidden, a group of Resistance fighters comes up with a wild idea: what if, to lift the spirits of the Belgian people, they could print a fake edition of Le Soir? Same paper, same nameplate, same format, but packed with articles mocking the occupier. A true story. A fake newspaper. The world’s first media hack.
50 years of freedom
JAVIER RUIZ CALDERA (Sp)
5 more minutes tells the story of a couple in crisis who decide to spend a weekend getaway in a remote house in the countryside. They are met on arrival by the agent who shows them round the house and hands them the keys. However, before leaving them to it, something strange happens: time suddenly rewinds 5 minutes.
7h40 ce matin-là / Milo
NICOLE GARCIA (Fr)
Alice arrives in a quiet provincial town and takes a job at a local café, blending easily into a life that isn’t hers. Her presence is no coincidence. She is there because of Milo, a young mechanic who works at a nearby garage. To him, Alice is a stranger. To her, he is someone tied to a past she has never truly left behind. As buried tensions begin to surface and Milo drifts toward uncertain ground, both are pushed to a crossroads: is it possible to rebuild a bond that shattered decades ago?
Artakalan / What Remains
YEŞIM USTAOĞLU (Turk-Fr-Lux-Bulg)
A poet breaks free from a life that has become suffocating to reconnect with her inner voice and conscience and allow her creativity to flow again. As she begins to question the conventions of family, identity and the meaning of life, her journey towards self-discovery challenges those around her to reconsider their own lives — taking the whole family in a new direction.
Bian jing / Border
AH BIAO (HK-US-So Kor)
In a forgotten town where men have learned to survive by keeping their feelings buried and their words few, a broke young miner quietly drifts through a life he barely feels. His numb routine fractures with the arrival of an enigmatic young woman, who sparks a dormant curiosity and the promise of something new. He follows her down a dark path, leaving behind the quiet safety of the only world he knows, unaware that this stranger is not all she seems to be.
The Debut
JESSE EISENBERG (US)
When Mona Friedman is cast in a bit part at a small community theater, she transforms from a shy, unassuming housewife into a zealous method actor willing to do anything to protect the artistic integrity of her marginal role—even if it means waging war against the show’s domineering director.
Garrat du váimmu / Brace Your Heart
AMANDA KERNELL (Sw-Nor-Den-Ice-Bulg)
Ejva inherits her late father’s reindeer herd. As she struggles to keep the herd thriving, local leader Heaika falls for her, and though hesitant, she feels compelled to accept. But everything changes when Nejla, Heaika’s cousin, arrives, and Ejva discovers true love for the first time. Betrayed and jealous, Heaika reacts harshly, leaving Ejva with a condition that makes her hands shake uncontrollably, threatening her ability to care for the herd.
Glaxo
BENJAMÍN NAISHTAT (Br-Arg)
Chivilcoy, 1957. In a quiet Argentinian town, the arrival of an ominous former police commissioner and his seductive wife fractures the bond between four inseparable young men. Decades later, the past resurfaces, forcing them to confront old wounds, guilt, and the possibility of revenge in a country which has lost its innocence.
Krux
TONY VAHL (Ger-Pol)
Inspired by true events, Krux tells the dark story of a small northeastern German village at the end of WWII, when the Nazi regime gave its citizens the order to leave nothing alive for the enemy to find. Most of the men are at the front. What remains is a handful of women, children, and the few men who were allowed to stay behind. Life still runs on its old rituals: school, church, weddings, work. The villagers still believe it will end well. Then the river gives up bodies no one can name. No one knows when the enemy will come, or what will happen when they do. Rumors fill the silence where facts should be. Out of that silence grows a fear larger than the enemy itself.
El mal padre
ROBERTO BUESO (Sp)
After years of estrangement, the famous writer and academic Santiago Balmes gathers his three children for a last request: to spend Christmas in the house where they used to spend summers as kids.
Markens grøde / Growth of the Soil
HANS PETTER MOLAND (Nor-Den-Ger)
A stranger appears over the mountain, carrying little more than his determination. Isak, a man without a past, seeks a place to settle and carve life from the earth. High above the tree line, he finds a barren stretch of land, as unforgiving as it is full of promise. The land tests him to his limits, until he meets Inger, a solitary woman shaped by resilience and quiet secrecy. Together, they endure the elements and build a life, cultivating both the soil and a growing family as the seasons turn. Yet as years pass and the world closes in, and time, hardship, and desire reshape them.
Mis muertos tristes / My Sad Dead
PABLO LARRAÍN (Arg-Ch)
Ema, a recently retired doctor who can see the dead, tries to process her mother’s death and her own unresolved matters. The arrival of her niece Julie and the murder of three teenagers in Piedrabuena, a suburban neighborhood marked by violence, trigger a strange phenomenon that breaks the fragile balance between the living and the dead. What had been Ema’s burden until then begins to spread throughout the neighborhood: the dead start to make themselves present, and no one will be able to escape the sound of their own ghosts.
Les Misérables
FRED CAVAYÉ (Fr)
After enduring 19 years in prison for stealing a loaf of bread, Jean Valjean emerges a hardened man. He seeks redemption by reinventing himself as a respected dignitary under a new identity. He promises Fantine, a dying factory worker, to rescue and protect her daughter Cosette, who is being exploited and mistreated by the deceitful Thénardier family. As Valjean raises Cosette as his own, he is relentlessly pursued by Inspector Javert. Amidst the social unrest shaking France, the fates of Valjean, Cosette, her lover Marius, and Javert become intertwined in a turbulent, revolutionary Paris. Through struggles, sacrifices, and a deep yearning for justice, Valjean strives to complete his journey of redemption and offer Cosette a future of love and freedom.
Muyou no hito / In My Father’s Room
MAHA HARADA (Jap)
Satomi works at an art museum until an envelope arrives, containing a mysterious key. It leads to an unknown room once belonging to her late father, who died alone a month earlier. Drawn by this small object, she retraces his final days: a man seemingly left behind by society, yet sustained by a quiet devotion to words, the art of tea, and subtle beauty. Through the traces of his solitude, Satomi slowly discovers the quiet grace of the world he inhabited.
Sants / Saints
MIKEL GURREA (Sp-It)
While dealing with her mother’s impending death, Lali joins a gang of thieves dedicated to stealing religious artefacts.
Tender Loving Care
MIKE LEIGH (UK)
Cannes Festival’s Palme d’Or winner and Academy Award nominee Mike Leigh returns with his next feature film, continuing his insightful exploration of the contemporary world.
Vicentina pede desculpas / On Behalf of My Son
GABRIEL MARTINS (Br)
When a bus driven by her son plunges off an overpass, killing dozens, Vicentina seeks out the victims’ families to apologize, only to discover the limits of forgiveness.
NOT IN COMPETITION
Heart of the Beast (Not in Competition)
DAVID AYER (US)
After a harrowing plane crash, Special Forces officer James Belmont and his combat dog, Odin, find themselves stranded deep in the Alaskan wilderness. Together, they are forced into a brutal fight for survival against the elements. From acclaimed filmmaker David Ayer, Heart of the Beast is an intense adventure thriller that explores the unbreakable bond between a man and his best friend as they face their greatest battle yet.
El castillo / The Castle (Series)
ISABEL PEÑA, EDUARDO VILLANUEVA, ELENA MARTÍN GIMENO, SANDRA ROMERO (Sp)
Gerardo Liesa is a young police inspector who has recently joined the UCRIF (the Central Unit for the Fight against Illegal Immigration Networks and Document Forgery). He and his colleague, Carmen Osés, sense that something is changing in brothels across Spain. Suizo and his associates run several brothels, sexually exploiting sex workers from all over the world. One of these women is Claudia. Aged 18, she has a young son in Colombia and has just arrived in Spain in search of a better future.
Azken agurra / The Last Goodbye
KOLDO ALMANDOZ (Sp)
When you own a non-denominational funeral parlor. When you’ve lost your driver’s license for drinking too much. When you fall in love with an office trainee 25 years your junior. When your daughter begins to understand that you’re not the father she thought you were. When the retired boxer who lent you money is on your back. When death seems more interesting than life… What could go wrong?
Bajañí
FERNANDO TRUEBA (Sp)
Bajañí is the word for guitar in Caló language. Based on this instrument, and specifically, on the guitar and art of Niño Josele, Fernando Trueba invites spectators to listen to music as never before. This is a new musical journey in his body of work through three musical planets: flamenco, jazz and Brazilian music, where Niño Josele and his guitar engage in musical dialogue with Caetano Veloso, Ron Carter, Rubén Blades, Kenny Barron and Marisa Monte.
Más allá de la sociedad / Beyond Society
JUAN ANTONIO BAYONA , CARLOS TORRES (Sp)
The story of the Andes air crash didn’t end with the rescue. Another story began when the survivors returned to the neighborhood where the families of those who didn’t survive were waiting for them. While the world turned their tragedy into a universal narrative, the survivors had to learn to live with the weight of what they had done. Spanning half a century, this series explores a community divided between the living and the dead, and how retelling a story can change the way we come to terms with it.
Ruega por nosotras / Pray for Us
DANIEL MONZÓN (Sp-Fr)
The year 1974. Ana is a rebellious 19-year-old. Having run away one night, her father decides to hand her over to the Women’s Protection Board. She is sent from Barcelona to Madrid for internship in a reformatory run by nuns who follow a brutal disciplinary regime. There she will try to survive by seeking comfort and support in the friendship with Sole, a small-town girl with contagious vitality, and other girls in the same situation.
Sacamantecas / The Harvester
DAVID PÉREZ SAÑUDO (Sp-Belg)
Álava, 19th century. Towards the end of the Third Carlist War, several women are found strangled to death on the outskirts of Vitoria. Ángela Berrosteguieta, sister of one of the victims, arrives seeking justice, determined to prove that Juan Díaz de Garayo, an illiterate farmer, is responsible for the crimes. Meanwhile, Pío Pinedo, head of the constabulary, must contend with the lack of resources in times of war and pressure from the authorities, who prefer to keep the rising wave of murders under wrap.
