The 2020 San Sebastian Film Fest will open with the out-of-competition world premiere of Woody Allen’s Rifkin’s Festival starring Elena Anaya and Christoph Waltz.
The event made a few more additions to its official 2020 lineup today, finalizing its feature competition with closing night film Wuhai, the second feature from Chinese director Ziynag Zhou (Old Beast).
The drama follows a happily-married couple in a small town in Mongolia who get mired in serious financial troubles. Wuhai completes this year’s official line-up of 12 films competing for San Sebastian’s Golden Shell honor. Other highlights of San Sebastian’s 2020 program include Thomas Vinterberg’s Another Round, the François Ozon-directed Summer of 85 and the Julien Temple-helmed music docu Crock of Gold: A Few Rounds with Shane MacGowan, produced by Johnny Depp.
Other late additions to the San Sebastian lineup include Spagat from Swiss director Christian Johannes Koch, which will close the festival’s New Directors competition section; and Simon Calls, by the Portuguese director Marta Sousa Ribeiro, a final addition to San Sebastian’s Zabaltegi-Tabakalera sidebar.
Organizers are going ahead with plans to hold the 68th edition of the venerable Spanish festival from Sept. 18-26 despite a recent surge in COVID-19 cases in Spain.
Coronavirus infections, which dropped sharply after Spain introduced a strict lockdown in March, have bounced back, with authorities currently reporting more than 5,000 cases a day detected on average, much higher than other European countries such as Italy or Germany.