The San Sebastián Film Festival will dedicate a 20-feature retrospective to French director, screenwriter and novelist José Giovanni at its 74th edition, running 18–26 September 2026 in the Basque city (Variety).

The programme spans films released between 1960 and 2001, covering nearly all of Giovanni's work behind the camera alongside eight titles he wrote for other filmmakers — among them Jacques Becker, Jean-Pierre Melville, Claude Sautet, Jacques Deray, Robert Enrico and Henri Verneuil (San Sebastián Film Festival).

Giovanni directed 15 theatrical features across his career, starting with Law of Survival in 1967. The retrospective will screen those alongside screenwriting credits that read like a roll call of post-war French cinema.

Giovanni was born Joseph Antoine Roger Damiani in Paris in 1923 and lived until 2004. His own prison experience fuelled his 1958 novel Le Trou, which Jacques Becker adapted as The Hole in 1960 — Giovanni co-wrote the screenplay for what became Becker's final film. Claude Sautet turned Giovanni's Classe tous risques into The Big Risk. Jean-Pierre Melville adapted Le Deuxième souffle as Second Wind, starring Lino Ventura. Giovanni also wrote Henri Verneuil's The Sicilian Clan, which brought together Ventura, Alain Delon and Jean Gabin — three of French cinema's biggest names sharing a single frame.

The retrospective's directorial selections include Birds of Prey, Last Known Address, One Way Ticket, Hit Man, Two Men in Town, The Gypsy, Une robe noire pour un tueur, and his final films My Friend the Traitor and My Father Saved My Life.

Organised by the San Sebastián Film Festival and the Basque Film Archive, in collaboration with the Spanish Film Archive, the season will be accompanied by a bilingual study written by Felipe Cabrerizo and edited by Quim Casas — giving audiences a written companion to the screenings.

For festival-goers and cinephiles, the retrospective offers a rare chance to trace one writer-director's path across four decades of French crime cinema, from the prison-cell realism of The Hole to late-career features released at the turn of the millennium. Giovanni's name may not carry the instant recognition of Melville or Becker, but his fingerprints are on some of the genre's most durable titles — as novelist, screenwriter and director alike.

The 74th San Sebastián Film Festival runs 18–26 September 2026.