San Sebastian, Spain / founded in 1953
Takes place in September
One of Spain’s biggest cultural events and a festival that once crowned the budding Francis Ford Coppola and Terrence Malick and has already celebrated its 60th anniversary, traditionally opens in the second half of September. The big masters are still found in its competition, but most of the selected films are, quite naturally, from Spain, Argentina, Chile, France, Mexico and the United States.
The obligatory international competition here is accompanied by a program of debut and second director’s works, a program of current international cinema, retrospectives of classics, and programs of children’s, Spanish and Latin American films. There are many prizes to be won, and to list them would take too much space; some of them are backed by cash prizes.
There are also events for professionals (mostly seminars, presentations, round tables), the most important of which is the Europe-Latin America co-production forum.