French and Polish auteurs will face off in Spain this September after the 73rd San Sebastián International Film Festival added five features to its main competition, led by new works from Arnaud Desplechin, Agnieszka Holland and Alice Winocour. The festival, which runs 19–27 September, confirmed the additions in a statement released 29 July.
Desplechin joins the contest for the first time with “Deux pianos,” a Lyon-set drama in which a virtuoso, played by François Civil, reunites with his mentor and confronts a past romance. The cast also features Nadia Tereszkiewicz, Charlotte Rampling and Hippolyte Girardot, continuing Desplechin’s habit of pairing seasoned performers with rising French talent.
Holland returns after previous bids for the Golden Shell with “Franz,” a mosaic-style look at Franz Kafka’s life that spans Prague, Berlin and Vienna. The Czech-German-Polish co-production stars Idan Weiss as Kafka and assembles an ensemble that includes Peter Kurth and Jenovéfa Boková. Festival notes highlight Holland’s long relationship with San Sebastián, dating to her 1978 collective debut in the New Directors strand.
Winocour, who earned the Jury Prize here in 2019 with “Proxima,” returns with fashion-world drama “Couture.” Angelina Jolie leads the English- and French-language project as a filmmaker confronting personal crisis during Paris Fashion Week, opposite Louis Garrel and Ella Rumpf. The film evolved from the working title “Stitches,” first reported in late 2024, and marks Winocour’s second collaboration with a Hollywood star after Eva Green.
The three European premieres arrive alongside Kentaro Hirase and Yutaro Seki’s Japanese thriller “SAI” and Milagros Mumenthaler’s Swiss-Argentine character study “Las corrientes,” joining four previously announced Spanish contenders. With the latest reveal, the official selection now stands at nine films; organisers indicated further titles will follow before the festival opens on the Bay of Biscay.
