San Sebastián festival to debate bodies, inclusion and new narratives in LGBTQIA+ cinema

The body as a narrative device in Ibero-American LGBTQIA+ cinema and the question of inclusion will be among the main topics at the 74th San Sebastián Film Festival in northern Spain.

Argentine filmmaker Benjamín Naishtat, Brazilian-American filmmaker Beth de Araújo and American director Ira Sachs are scheduled to take part in the festival’s Conversations program, alongside German artist Naëmi Ada and American filmmaker Jordan Firstman.

The discussions will also explore antiracist perspectives, international creative residencies and laboratories, and cinema’s ability to transform society. Other subjects include production design, art direction, new ways of narrating family relationships, and the challenges posed by audiences, algorithms and audiovisual distribution.

The festival’s Thought and Debate department organizes Conversations. The event says the section emphasizes San Sebastián’s role as a place for meeting, generating and sharing knowledge, while examining a changing film landscape and seeking future responses.

Sachs will preside over the Official Selection jury. Jeremy Irons, Orlando Bloom, Marion Cotillard, Penélope Cruz and Rami Malek are among the stars expected on the festival’s red carpet. Latin American cinema will feature across almost every section, with Argentine actresses Lali Espósito, Mercedes Morán and Dolores Fonzi among those appearing in the Official Selection.

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emphasizes its character as a place for meeting, generating and transmitting knowledge, as well as questioning itself and trying to offer future answers to a changing cinematographic landscape