San Sebastian | MostlyFilm

Matthew Turner went to the San Sebastian Film Festival in 2011 and has vowed to return every year until death. Well, so far, so good.

The Kursaal in San Sebastian, where people watch films - sometimes having paid money to do it — The Kursaal in San Sebastian, where people watch films – sometimes having paid money to do it

Thursday 19th September – Day One

Arrive in San Sebastian the day before the festival begins. Check in at the lovely pension I stayed in last year (Pension Edorta, pension fans – in the old town and very reasonable at 60 Euros a night) and immediately head to the press centre in the Kursaal to pick up my accreditation and the screening schedule. My girlfriend is with me for the first five days so I’m having to choose the films very selectively rather than basically see everything. Sit down in wi-fi equipped Cafe Kursaal to start going through the schedule (cross-referencing with the LFF guide) but get distracted by the arrival of friends and next thing you know, it’s 2am and several cañas (beers) later. Decide cross-referencing of screening schedule can wait. Continue reading San Sebastian Diary 2013 →

by Matthew Turner

As regular readers of Europe’s Best Website may remember, this time last year I attended the San Sebastian Film Festival and had such a great time that I vowed to go back every year until death. Well, so far, so good. For the truly curious, pictures and a tweet-by-tweet account of the entire festival can be found here and here respectively, but let’s keep this blog post mostly about film. Here, then, are some notes on the ten best films I saw at San Sebastian this year (out of a total of 35). Note that a) I would have included The Imposter on this list if I hadn’t already seen it at Edinburgh and b) I deemed retrospective films ineligible for the top ten, otherwise Franju’s Judex would have been on the list too.

Continue reading Ten of the Best Films From the 2012 San Sebastian Film Festival →