San Sebastián New Directors: Billy Lumby, Marlene Emilie Lyngstad, ‘Money Heist’ Star Jaime Lorente and More

BAFTA nominee Billy Lumby and Norway’s Nordic Talents winner Marlene Emilie Lyngstad will compete at San Sebastian’s New Directors strand.

Also in the mix is “Erratics,” starring Denis Lavant. a Chile-France-Argentina co-production directed by
Thomas Woodroffe.

One of the most prestigious new talent spreads in Europe, New Directors will open with “The Bad Son” (“El mal hijo”), the debut feature film as a director of “Money Heist” star Jaime Lorente, and close with Lumby’s “Florid,” which marks the feature debut of Lumby, whose second short, “Samuel 613,” was nominated for a BAFTA, 

As a project, “Cute” won the Nordic Talents top prize at Cannes, Its Norwegian director Marlene Emilie Lyngstad and Danish producer Carl Olsbæk Adelkilde hace already made the joint graduation film “Norwegian Offspring” which scooped Cannes La Cinef first prize and Haugesund’s Next Generation Award marking them out as talent to track.

Of New Directors titles announced July 30, there’s also good word on Ayana Nurdinova’s “Mugalim,” from Kazakhstan burgeoning film scene, produced by Kazakh Cinema and Art East Films, and “Morro,” a Mexican small town set tale of grief and unlikely friendship. 

 San Sebastián’s just announced New Directors entries join three Spanish features announced on July 17: Javier Giner’s “Esa Soledad,” a portrait of Millennial existential emptiness; El mal hijo,” directed by “Money Heist” star Jaime Lorente, and “February, Seven Days,” (“Sieben Tage Februar,”), from Tatjana Moutchnik, a family drama unfolding on the eve of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. 

These are the titles selected for the New Directors sidebar at this year’s San Sebastián Film Festival:

“The Bad Son” (“El mal hijo,” Jaime Lorente, Spain) – Opening Film
Cast: Miguel Ángel Puro, Susi Sánchez Arbués, Óscar de la Fuente

The first feature as a director of Lorente, Denver in “Money Heist,” adapting a novel by Salvador S. Molina, a screenwriter on Bambú productions such as “Jaguar” and “13 Exorcisms.” Set in Murcia, a coming of age tale in which a half gitano boy is abandoned by his father, goes to live with his grandmother, who has kidnapped his father. Produced by Frank Ariza at AF.  

“The Ballet Lesson” (Kazuya Murayama, Japan)
Cast: Vadim Bushmakin, Nikita Kondo, Niina Kondo, Yukina Shimizu

Murayama follows his 2021 debut, “Torao,” with a family journey centred on Japanese-Russian siblings Nikita and Nina. Raised by their Russian grandparents in a provincial Japanese town, the children know their absent parents largely through stories. When their father, Nikolai, suddenly returns, he takes them to see their mother, Yuki, a Japanese ballet dancer. Along the way, unfamiliar landscapes and brief encounters reveal the fragile bonds holding their divided family together again.

“Erratics” (“Bloques erráticos,” Thomas Woodroffe, Chile-France-Argentina)
Cast: Denis Lavant, Daniel Muñoz

Freed from the Patagonian tundra, ad played by Lavant, the spirit of filmmaker Lucien Castlenau – a reference to Paul Castelnau and Lucien Le Saint, director of 1926 hit “Voyage à la Terre de Feu” – wanders through a futuristic Patagonia. The top winner at Rotterdam’s 2025 Cinemart from Bloques Erráticos La Belle Affaire Productions and Un Puma, positing ghosts as memories, and questioning who owns historical memory.  

“Florid” (Billy Lumby, U.K.-Sweden) – Closing Film
Cast: Jonathan Jules, Saskia Chana, Unknown T

Social issue genre: Jamal in a London of “supported accommodation and psychiatric wards,” hears voices, battles psychotic breakdown, takes medication, aims to make it in music, has his frail balance rocked when Kyla moves in next door. Backed by BBC Film and Film4, part of the BFI’s Cannes Great 8 showcase, produced by Atar Studio and Film i Väst and sold by Atar.  

“Body of Glass” (Naëmi Ada, Germany-France)
Cast: Soma Pysall, Elise Tilloloy, Manuel Severin, Younès Boucif

German filmmaker Ada draws on her contemporary dance training for her feature debut, following dancer Tian after a violent incident with her controlling partner, Felix. Fleeing their Marseille life, she infiltrates the grieving cycle of a dead young man by posing as his secret girlfriend. As mourning, affection and deception intertwine, Tian conceals a truth: Felix remains tied captive in their apartment, forcing her to confront whether she can break the cycle.

“Cute” (Marlene Emilie Lyngstad, Denmark-Sweden-Norway)
Cast: Jan Gunnar Røise, Gina Jaqueline, Karin Bertling, Kitt Maiken Mortensen

Backed by Nordisk Film, Cannes project winner “Cute” turns on a mass produced stuffed animal that links different human destinies in what has been described as a “global tale about the longing for innocence in a world filled with guilt and an “exploration of the grotesqueness and the tenderness in the human desire for “the cute.”  

“February, Seven Days” (“Sieben Tage Februar,” Tatjana Moutchnik, Germany-Austria-Spain)
Cast: Serhii Korshykov, Volodymyr Holosniak, Maria Shtofa, Arsenii Markov

German-Ukrainian filmmaker Tatjana Moutchnik makes her feature debut with a family drama unfolding on the eve of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. A man from Odesa travels with his son to Stuttgart for his mother’s funeral, reuniting with an estranged brother as competing ideas of family collide. The project won San Sebastián’s WIP Europa Industry Award and WIP Europa Award in 2025.

“Lovers Sleep Alone” (Massih Parsaei, Germany)
Cast: Pooyesh Frozandeh, Ava Darvishi, Marcel Kohler, Wolfgang Wobéto

Selected for San Sebastián’s WIP Europa in 2025, Parsaei’s feature debut centres on Iman, an Iranian exile who has built his Berlin life around absence: from family, homeland and intimacy. He fills the silence with work, inventing stories and encounters with a man he meets for sex in a park. When a barely known cousin arrives from Tehran, the world Iman abandoned quietly begins finding its way back into his constructed existence.

“Morro” (Rodrigo García Saiz, Mexico)
Cast: Gustavo Sánchez Parra, Anna Diaz, Ernesto Meléndez

Mateo, a small-town vet, is called in to tend Morro, the local cartel leader’s injured dog. Through this simple act of care, he begins to return to life. “‘Morro’ was born out of a need to look closely at an environment where violence has become part of everyday life” focusing on what remains after it: the silences, the bodies that continue inhabiting the world, and the relationships that endure despite loss,” says García Saiz (“Lluvia”).

“Mugalim” (Ayana Nurdinova, Kazakhstan)
Cast: Oljas Dalelkhan, Rustem Zhanyamanov, Shynar Janysbekova, Olga Landina

From Kazakhstan burgeoning film scene, produced by Kazakh Cinema and Art East Films, the tale of a music teacher who dreams of leaving the small town of Balkhash, who is suddenly given the chance to leave. He hesitates, however. The debut feature of Yurdinova, who has worked as a production designer and direction assistant.

“My Father’s Shoes” (“Obuvkite na bashta mi,” Hristo Simeonov, Bulgaria-France)
Cast: Valeria Varbanova, Tanya Shahova, Vyara Kolarova

Bulgaria’s Simeonov makes his feature debut with a mother-daughter drama rooted in absence and pain. Mima has grown up without her father, raised by her uncompromising mother, Boyka. When news of his death arrives and his body is returned to their village, identifying him becomes both a duty and a  dilemma. Boyka refuses to confront the man she once loved, leaving Mima to decide what it means to inherit the life she never chose.

“This Solitude” (“Esta soledad,” Javier Giner, Spain)
Cast: Oriol Pla, Marina Salas, Gemma Martínez, Kai Etxaniz, Itziar Lazkano

Giner’s feature debut, once more partnering with star Oriol Plá. here with Marina Salas (“El Barco”), in a portrait of Millennial “existential emptiness in a fragmented and chaotic present,” Giner has said. Sold by Filmax and produced by Fuga de cuerpos, A.I.E., Balance Media Entertainment, La Embajada TV and  Basajaun Filmak.

“Will You Still Be My Friend” (“Ri Guang,” Lu Po-Shun, Taiwan-Singapore)
Cast: Jaden Wang, Aloysius Looi, Lung Tien Hsiang, Lu Yi-Ching, Andie Chen

Set amid an escalating feud in a rural Taiwanese village, Lu Po-Shun’s feature debut follows a boy trying to protect his secret friendship with his Singapore-raised best friend. As conflicts among the adults threaten to pull them apart, he begins quietly questioning the true nature of his feelings. The film turns a hostile community into the backdrop for an intimate story about loyalty, emotional discovery and a relationship placed under mounting pressure.

“The World Before” (Yoon Dan-bi, South Korea-Japan-France)
Cast: Su-bin Sim, Eo-jin Kim

After winning several awards at Busan and Rotterdam with her debut, “Moving On,” which screened in San Sebastián’s Perlak section in 2020, Yoon Dan-bi returns with her second feature. Seventeen-year-old Jin has never left the remote island where she was born. When Dujae arrives for his grandmother’s funeral, an unexpected intimacy develops between them, gradually transforming Jin’s perception of the island, its quietly familiar rhythms and herself as summer draws toward its close.