'El Mal Padre' Heads to San Sebastián's Main Competition
Roberto Bueso's new film, El Mal Padre ('The Bad Father'), is in the main competition at the San Sebastián festival in Spain's Basque Country, according to Variety. It is the first time Bueso has entered the festival's top section. The film is his third feature, after La Banda (2019) and Llenos de Gracia (2022).
The lead role goes to Eduard Fernández, who plays Santiago Balmes, a celebrated writer and academic who receives a terminal diagnosis. Fernández is a four-time winner of the Goya, Spain's main film prize, and has received Spain's National Cinematography Award. He appears alongside Adam Jezierski, Francesco Carril and Meritxell Calvo.
Bueso wrote the screenplay with Óscar Díaz Cruz. The cinematography is by Alex Catalán.
The film is a Spanish co-production. MOD Producciones and MOD Pictures produce it with Misent Producciones and Atresmedia Cine. Atresmedia, Netflix and À Punt take part in the project, and Spain's Instituto de la Cinematografía y de las Artes Audiovisuales, the national film institute, provides financing.
Sales are handled by Film Factory, a sales company that offers finished films to cinemas and television buyers in other countries. Deals for territories outside Spain have not been reported.
Spanish audiences get the first chance to see the film in cinemas. Caramel Films releases El Mal Padre in Spanish theatres on Friday, 20 November.
For a Spanish title, a place in the main competition puts the film in front of festival juries, critics and buyers at the same time. The festival's programme will show how the film is received there.
