San Sebastian: Nick Robinson & Bel Powley Sci-Fi Romance ‘Turn Me On’ Among Lineup For New Directors Strand

Eleven filmmakers from Argentina, China, France, Georgia, Spain, Thailand, Turkey and the USA will show their first and second films in the San Sebastian Festival’s (Sep 20-28) New Directors section.

Among them are new projects featuring Nick Robinson and Bel Powley, Nicolas Duvauchelle and Denis Lavant, and Roschdy Zem and Bella Kim.

Below is the lineup:

Gülizar / Gulizar is a Turkish-Kosovar co-production about a young victim of sexual assault in the run-up to her wedding. It marks the feature debut from Turkish moviemaker Belkis Bayrak;

Roschdy Zem and Bella Kim star in Hiver à Sokcho / Winter in Sokcho, the first movie from the French-Japanese director Koya Kamura. The French-Korean co-production tells the tale of a young Korean girl whose life is thrown into disarray when a French artist arrives in the Asian country;

Sivaroj Kongsakul made his feature directorial debut with Eternity (2010), screened at festivals including Busan, Rotterdam and Hong Kong. In his second work, Regretfully at Dawn, the Thai director entwines the fates of an old man, a little girl and a young soldier;

Brûle le sang / In the Name of Blood, a French-Belgian-Austrian co-production, is the first work from Georgia’s Akaki Popkhadze. Starring names including Nicolas Duvauchelle, Florent Hill-Chouaki and Denis Lavant, Popkhadze’s debut following the murder of a pillar of the Georgian community is set in Nice;

Having directed Walking in Darkness (2019), which premiered in the Bright Future section of the Rotterdam Festival, Chinese moviemaker Yongkang Tang (Taiyuan, 1983) will participate in New Directors with his second film, Stars and the Moon, about a boy from a mountain village who spends every day scouring the sky, convinced that he will see aliens.   

Michael Tyburski, who made his debut at Sundance Festival with The Sound of Silence (2019), will compete in the section with his second film, Turn Me On. Starring Bel Powley and Nick Robinson, this sci-fi romantic comedy is set in a new age community where people must take a pill every day to eradicate all human emotions.

These projects join Spanish projects already announced including debuts La guitarra flamenca de Yerai Cortés, from Antón Álvarez (C. Tangana), opening film of New Directors, and Por donde pasa el silencio / Where the Silence Passes, from Sandra Romero. There are two second features: La llegada del hijo / The Arrival of the Son, from Cecilia Atán and Valeria Pivato (La novia del desierto / The Desert Bride), and Azken erromantikoak (Los últimos románticos), from David Pérez Sañudo (Ane).

All of these films will compete for the Kutxabank-New Directors Award, coming with €50,000 divided equally between the director and distributor of the film in Spain.