Romanian director, screenwriter and actress Alina Grigore will preside over the New Directors section of this year's San Sebastian International Film Festival.

The New Directors jury includes programmer Paolo Moretti (Italy), film critic Paula Arantzazu Ruiz (Spain), writer Selva Almada (Argentina), and filmmaker Ashmita Guha (India).

The New Directors section covers first or second feature movies yet unscreened – they can only have been released in the country of their production – and produced in the last year. All of the films in this section compete for the Kutxabank-New Directors Award, offering EUR 50,000 distributed in equal parts between the director and the distributor of the film in Spain.

The official selection jury will be presided over by the Donostia Award winner Glenn Close, the lead character in movies such as Fatal Attraction, Dangerous Liaisons, Albert Nobbs (Official Selection, 2011) and The Wife (Official Selection closing film, 2017). She has been nominated for an Academy Award eight times. Accompanying her are the casting director and filmmaker Antoinette Boulat (France), director and screenwriter Tea Lindeburg (Denmark), producer Matías Mosteirín (Argentina), author and journalist Rosa Montero (Spain), filmmaker and visual artist Lemohang Jeremiah Mosese (Lesotho) and director and screenwriter Hlynur Pálmason (Iceland).  

Grigore studied acting and directing at the UANTC in Bucharest. Her films as an actress include titles such as Aurora (Cristi Puiu; 2010), Din dragoste cu cele mai bune intentii /Best Intentions (Adrian Sitaru; 2011) and Ilegitim/ Illegitimate (Adrian Sitaru; 2016), for which she also co-wrote the screenplay, as well as several series in Romania. She has directed the shorts Domino (2016), Triptic (2016) and River-bet (2017). Her feature debut, Crai nou/ Blue Moon (2021), won the Golden Shell for Best Film at last year's San Sebastian Festival.

The festival, which takes place between September 16 and September 24, will see a long list of top filmmakers, actors, screenwriters and producers attending. Among them are Sebastián Lelio (The Wonder), Ulrich Seidl with the actor Georg Friedrich (Sparta), Hong Sangsoo (Walk Up), Wang Chao (A Woman) and Christophe Honoré, together with actors Vincent Lacoste and Paul Kircher (Le Lycéen / Winter Boy) who compete for the Golden Shell in the official section, which will be closed by Neil Jordan (Marlowe). 

French cinema will be represented by the filmmaker Claire Denis (Avec amour et acharnement / Both Sides of the Blade), director, actor and screenwriter Louis Garrel (L'innocent / The Innocent), François Ozon (Peter von Kant) and Thomas Salvador (La Montagne / The Mountain). 

Other European filmmakers who will take to the red carpet or attend the talks with the public are Romanian Cristian Mungiu (R.M.N.) and the Dardenne brothers (Tori et Lokita / Tori and Lokita).

Nobel Prize in Literature laureate Kazuo Ishiguro will present Living, the British drama directed by Oliver Hermanus for which he authored the screenplay.

(Photo: Alex Abril/ SSIFF press section)

simona@romania-insider.com