San Sebastin New Directors: Lumby, Lorente join the lineup
San Sebastián Film Festival has unveiled its New Directors competition, opened by Money Heist star Jaime Lorente’s debut “The Bad Son” and closed by BAFTA nominee Billy Lumby’s “Florid.” Norway’s Nordic Talents winner Marlene Emilie Lyngstad also competes with “Cute,” putting San Sebastin New Directors firmly on the emerging-talent map.
Key Takeaways
- New Directors opens with Jaime Lorente’s debut feature “The Bad Son” (“El mal hijo”) and closes with Billy Lumby’s “Florid.”
- Marlene Emilie Lyngstad’s “Cute,” a Nordic Talents winner at Cannes, joins the competition slate.
- Fourteen titles from Spain to South Korea fill one of Europe’s most prestigious new-talent strands.
- Three Spanish features were previously announced July 17, with the wider lineup revealed July 30.
For festival watchers and streamers hunting tomorrow’s breakout filmmakers, the Variety report confirms why this sidebar still matters: it mixes star-adjacent debuts with award-proven shorts talent from across Europe, Asia, and Latin America. Follow more festival and platform news on our Streaming & TV Alerts hub.
Who is competing in San Sebastin New Directors?
Variety describes New Directors as one of the most prestigious new-talent spreads in Europe. The strand opens with “The Bad Son” (“El mal hijo”), the debut feature from Jaime Lorente, known for “Money Heist.” Cast includes Miguel Ángel Puro, Susi Sánchez, Hugo Arbués, and Óscar de la Fuente.
It closes with Billy Lumby’s “Florid,” a U.K.-Sweden feature debut. Lumby’s second short, “Samuel 613,” was nominated for a BAFTA. The cast lists Jonathan Jules, Saskia Chana, and Unknown T.
Marlene Emilie Lyngstad’s “Cute,” a Denmark-Sweden-Norway production, also competes. As a project, “Cute” won the Nordic Talents top prize at Cannes. Lyngstad and Danish producer Carl Olsbæk Adelkilde previously made the joint graduation film “Norwegian Offspring,” which won Cannes La Cinef’s first prize and Haugesund’s Next Generation Award.
Which other titles made the New Directors slate?
Beyond the openers and closers, Variety lists a broad international field. Standouts called out include Ayana Nurdinova’s “Mugalim” from Kazakhstan, produced by Kazakh Cinema and Art East Films, and Rodrigo García Saiz’s “Morro,” a Mexican small-town story of grief and unlikely friendship.
Other selected titles include Thomas Woodroffe’s “Erratics” (“Bloques erráticos,” Chile-France-Argentina), with Denis Lavant and Daniel Muñoz; Naëmi Ada’s “Body of Glass” (Germany-France); Massih Parsaei’s “Lovers Sleep Alone” (Germany); Hristo Simeonov’s “My Father’s Shoes” (Bulgaria-France); Lu Po-Shun’s “Will You Still Be My Friend” (Taiwan-Singapore); Kazuya Murayama’s “The Ballet Lesson” (Japan); and Yoon Dan-bi’s “The World Before” (South Korea-Japan-France).
Spanish entries already flagged include Javier Giner’s “This Solitude” (“Esta soledad”), a portrait of millennial existential emptiness, and Tatjana Moutchnik’s “February, Seven Days” (“Sieben Tage Februar”), a family drama set on the eve of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Why does this San Sebastián lineup matter now?
First features at San Sebastián often become the titles agents, buyers, and platforms track into awards season and streaming deals. Pairing a recognizable TV star’s directing debut with BAFTA- and Cannes-validated short-form talent gives the strand both buzz and credibility.
With the full New Directors sidebar now public as of July 30, audiences can watch how Lorente, Lumby, Lyngstad, and the wider international class fare when their debuts face festival scrutiny—and where those films might surface next for viewers beyond the Basque Country.