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Banderas stars as Spain's top film fest gets under way
2008-09-18
SAN SEBASTIAN, Spain (AFP) - The 56th San Sebastian film festival opened Thursday with one of Spain's top Hollywood stars, Antonio Banderas, taking the spotlight with his new film, "The Other Man". Banderas stars with Liam Neeson and Laura Linney in the film by British director Richard Eyre, which opened the festival in the northern Spanish city. "The Other Man", screened out of competition, is the story of a man who discovers his wife has been receiving emails and text messages from an unknown rival played by Banderas. "We hear about men that have a wife, a mistress, separate family lives," said Eyre. "I was fascinated by the story of this woman who has relationships with two men in parallel." The film, which had its premiere at this month's Toronto film festival, "shows that a person belongs to nobody else... It's what the character played by Liam Neeson seems to have forgotten in this film," said Banderas, who became a global star after leaving Spain for a career in Hollywood in the late 1980s. On Friday, Banderas is to receive one of the festival's two honorific Donostia Awards from Spanish director Pedro Almodovar, who first thrust him into the spotlight with such films as "Women On The Verge Of A Nervous Breakdown" and "Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!". US actress Meryl Streep is to receive the other Donostia Award next week. Banderas is one of the first big names to walk the fuchsia carpet at the festival in the Basque city. Woody Allen, along with Spanish actor Javier Bardem and Britain's Rebecca Hall, were also in town Thursday to present the US director's "Vicky Cristina Barcelona", already seen at Cannes this year. The official competition begins on Friday with Iranian director Samira Makhmalbaf, a two-time winner of the Jury Prize at Cannes, showing her feature "Two-Legged Horse." She is the sister of Hana Makhmalbaf, whose film "Buddha Collapsed Out of Shame" won the Special Jury Prize at San Sebastian last year, and daughter of filmmaker Mohsen Makhmalbaf, co-screenwriter of "Two-Legged Horse." The jury presided over by US director Jonathan Demme will view 15 films competing for the Golden Shell award. They include British director Michael Winterbottom's "Genova", a ghost story starring Colin Firth; "Frozen River" by American Courtney Hunt, which won the Jury Prize at the 2008 Sundance film festival; and "Fear Me Not" by Denmark's Kristian Levring, one of the creators of the Dogme 95 movement. Last year's Golden Shell for best film went to Hong Kong-born Wayne Wang's "A Thousand Years of Good Prayers". The San Sebastian festival, the oldest and most prestigious in the Spanish-speaking world, lasts until September 27.
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