The 73rd San Sebastian International Film Festival is officially underway.
The opening night gala, headlined by the world premiere of Daniel Hendler’s 27 Nights, kicked off the Friday festivities on Spain’s northern coast.
The Uruguayan director also co-stars in his movie, written with Martín Mauregui and Agustina Liendo. The Netflix original tells the story of Martha Hoffman (Marilú Marini), an eccentric and wealthy patron of the arts who is committed to a psychiatric clinic by her daughters. Forensic expert Casares (Hendler) attempts to investigate whether this is a plot to control her mother’s fortune, or if Martha is actually suffering from some form of dementia. Humberto Tortonese, Paula Grinszpan, Julieta Zylberberg and Carla Peterson round out the supporting cast.
Hendler was in attendance with Argentine superstar Peterson at the film’s photocall earlier in the day, on a stiflingly hot San Sebastian afternoon. Fans flanked the red carpet rolled out below the towering brutalist structure and the fest’s main theater, the Kursaal Center, and whooped as the pair made their way in, alongside producers Liendo and Santiago Mitre.
Before the screening, brothers Pedro and Agustín Almodóvar honored Esther García with San Sebastian’s prestigious Donostia Award. The producer, who lifted her award to raucous applause inside the venue, is considered one of the most influential women in Spanish cinema having worked on Almodóvar’s films since 1986.
As director of Almodóvar’s production outfit El Deseo, founded alongside his sibling Agustín, García has been a producer on the likes of Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown and the Oscar-winning dramas All About My Mother and Talk to Her. She also produced 2024’s The Room Next Door starring Tilda Swinton and Julianne Moore.
“I never felt like throwing the towel in,” García said about working in a male-dominated industry at her Donostia Award press conference on Friday. The producer wore a “Stop Genocide” pin in relation to the ongoing Israel-Gaza war. “Initially, I could have given up but I had a son, that was my job. I enjoyed very much doing my job,” though she confessed she felt boxed in by the roles women were assigned to in the ’70s and ’80s, such as costume designer or production secretary. “To pave a way to the position I hold now… what was urgent was to meet with the day-to-day work, to do my work well and for others to put their trust in me. I jumped in the deep end, and I did time and time again until I found the Almodóvar brothers.”
The six-time Goya Award winner is “an incredible woman,” festival director José Luis Rebordinos told The Hollywood Reporter on Thursday. “An incredible career — it’s impossible to think about Pedro Almodóvar without thinking about Esther. She works a lot in Latin American film, too.” García is one of two recipients of 2025’s Donostia Award (given to her long-time collaborator Almodóvar last year), with American actress Jennifer Lawrence set to pick up the honor on Sept. 26.
“Little by little, we found our place,” Rebordinos added about garnering respect for San Sebastian on a global film stage. “The festival is in a good moment, and at the same time, we have a very good team.”
The San Sebastian International Film Festival 2025 runs Sept. 19-27.