BARCELONA — Italian actress Monica Bellucci and French Nouvelle Vague icon Agnès Varda will be honored at the 2017 San Sebastián Film Festival with Donostia Awards for career achievement. John Malkovich will serve as the president of the main competition jury.
The awards and jury president announcements come as the Spanish Festival has announced that festival guests include Arnold Schwarzenegger, voicing “Wonders of the Sea 3D,” Javier Bardem, Bérénice Bejo, Steve Coogan, Penélope Cruz, and Jean-Pierre Léaud. Also attending: Benoît Magimel, Paz Vega, winner of the Jaeger-LeCoultre Prize to Latin Cinema, and Alicia Vikander-
Of directors, Darren Aronofsky, Raymond Depardon, Ildikó Enyedi, Robert Guédiguian, Todd Haynes, Aki Kaurismäki, Hirokazu Koreeda, Ruben Östlund, Lynne Ramsay, Carlos Saura, Wim Wenders, Michael Winterbottom and Frederick Wiseman will present their latest films. Boasting a dazzling beauty which evokes Italian divas such as Sofía Loren and Claudia Cardinale, Bellucci has demonstrated her range and language abilities in such noteworthy works as Giuseppe Tornatore’s “Malena,” Stephen Hopkins’ “Under Suspicion,” Gilles Mimouni’s “Flash-back” Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of Christ” and Gaspar Noé’s “Irreversible.”
One of the gradually reducing number of still active directors from France’s Nouvelle Vague and an inspiration to others – persuading Jean-Luc Godard to star in one of his shorts – Varda’s latest film “Faces, Places” premiered at this year Cannes Festival, where it took the Golden Eye Documentary Prize.
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Director of celebrated titles such as “Cleo from 5 to 7” (1962), Berlin Film Festival Silver Bear winner “Happiness” (1965), “Vagabond” (1985), which took a Venice Golden Lion, ”Jacquot” (1991), and “The Gleaners and I” (2000), a Gold Hugo winner at the Chicago Fest, Varda’s works – often documentaries– combine a social urge with constant formal experimentation.
She was honored by the Locarno Festival with a 2014 Pardo d’onore lifetime achievement award. A year later, she received an Honorary Palme d’Or at the Cannes Festival. In November, the Hollywood Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will grant her an Honorary Lifetime Achievement Award.
Argentine actor Ricardo Darin’s Donostia Award has already announced.
Twice Oscar-nominated Malkovich will head the official jury which also includes actresses Dolores Fonzi (Santiago Mitre’s “Paulina”) and Emma Suárez (Pedro Almodóvar’s “Julieta”), the director William Oldroyd (“Lady Macbeth”), the producer Paula Vaccaro (“On the Milky Road,” “Uncle Howard”) and the d.p. Fabio Cianchetti (Bernardo Beertolucci’s “The Dreamers”).
The San Sebastian Intl. Film Festival runs Sept 22-30.
