The 74th San Sebastián Film Festival has unveiled new titles in its main competition, headlined by Pablo Larraín's "My Sad Dead," a feature adaptation of his Netflix horror miniseries produced by Fabula. The film, based on a story by Argentine writer Mariana Enriquez, stars top Argentine actors Mercedes Morán, Dolores Fonzi and Alejandra Flechner, and explores societal horrors masked beneath the supernatural. Also selected is Mike Leigh's "Tender Loving Care," described by the festival as an insightful look at the modern world, featuring Marion Bailey, Paul Jess0n, Kate O'Flynn and Alice Bailey Johnson. Benjamín Naishtat's "Glaxo," set between the late 1950s and 1980s in a small provincial town, examines desire and revenge amid national loss of innocence, with Lali Espósito, Esteban Lamothe and Marcelo Subiotto in the cast.
Additional entries include Nicole Garcia's "Milo," starring Marion Coillard, Maha Harada's "In My Father's Room," Hans Petter Moland's "Growth of the Soil" and Yeşim Ustaoğlu's "What Remains," a co-production between Turkey, France, Luxembourg and Bulgaria. These join three Spanish films previously announced on July 17: Mikel Gurrea's "Sants" with Vicky Luengo, Berto Romero's time-loop comedy "Five Minutes More" and Roberto Bueso's family dramedy "El mal padre." The festival, held in the Basque capital of Gipuzcoa, runs from September 18 to 26 and remains one of the most prestigious in the Spanish-speaking world. The New Directors section, another major draw, will be revealed on Friday.
Pablo Larraín's return to San Sebastián with a feature version of a Netflix miniseries blurs the line between streaming content and traditional film prestige. The festival's continued emphasis on auteur-driven projects from Latin America, France and the Nordics reinforces its role as a gatekeeper of arthouse legitimacy. Yet selecting a film originally conceived for television raises questions about what now qualifies as cinematic.
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