Mike Leigh’s latest feature Tender Loving Care and My Sad Dead, a new series from Chilean filmmaker Pablo Larraín, are among the titles that were announced this morning for the San Sebastian Film Festival. Scroll down for the full list of titles.
My Sad Dead will screen at San Sebastian in its feature-length format. The series stars Mercedes Morán, Dolores Fonzi, and Carolina Álvarez. The project is based on four short stories by Mariana Enríquez, and tells the story of Ema, a woman with the ability to see and hear the dead. The San Sebastian screening will be a World Premiere.
Leigh’s Tender Loving Care will arrive at San Sebastian after a world premiere at TIFF. Marion Bailey, Paul Jesson, Kate O’Flynn, and Alice Bailey Johnson star in the film. No synopsis for Tender Loving Care has been provided on either the San Sebastian or TIFF website. San Sebastian simply describes the film as an “insightful exploration of the contemporary world.”
Other titles added to San Sebastian today include 7:40 ce matin-là / Milo, the latest feature film from Nicole Garcia. Marion Cotillard and Théodore Pellerin star in the project, which tells the story of a woman fresh out of jail as she takes on a waitress job in a café to get closer to a young boy who works in the area.
Norwegian filmmaker Hans Petter Moland also returns to the San Sebastian Official Selection with Markens Grode /Growth of the Soil, a story set in northern Norway about a couple who must put their love to the test when faced with looming challenges. The film is based on the Nobel Prize-winning novel by Knut Hamsun.
Today’s titles join the nine films already announced for the Official Selection. Those titles include El mal padre, from Roberto Bueso; Sants / Saints, from Mikel Gurrea; and 5 minutos más / 5 more minutes, from Javier Ruiz Caldera.
The 2026 San Sebastian Film Festival runs from September 18 to 26.
San Sebastian 2026:
7:40 ce matin-là / MILO
Nicole Garcia (Algeria)
Country(ies) of production: France. Cast: Marion Cotillard, Théodore Pellerin, Artus , Laure Calamy, Alexis Manenti, Anne Brochet, Eric Elmosnino, Charles Berling
Alice arrives in a quiet provincial town and takes a job at a local café, blending easily into a life that isn’t hers. Her presence is no coincidence. She is there because of Milo, a young mechanic who works at a nearby garage. To him, Alice is a stranger. To her, he is someone tied to a past she has never truly left behind. As buried tensions begin to surface and Milo drifts toward uncertain ground, both are pushed to a crossroads: is it possible to rebuild a bond that shattered decades ago?
Artakalan / What Remains
Yeşim Ustaoğlu (Turkey)
Country(ies) of production: Turkey – France – Luxembourg – Bulgaria. Cast: Öykü Karayel, Metin Akdülger, Ali Kayra Kul, İlyas Salman
A poetess breaks out of her suffocating life in order to get back in touch with her inner voice and conscience, questioning accustomed concepts of family and the meaning of life and paving a new path for her family members, as well.
Glaxo
Benjamín Naishtat (Argentina)
Country(ies) of production: Brazil – Argentina. Cast: Lali Espósito, Marcelo Subiotto, Esteban Bigliardi, Esteban Lamothe, Manu Fanego, Alan Sabbagh
Chivilcoy, 1957. In a quiet Argentinian town, the arrival of an ominous former police commissioner and his seductive wife fractures the bond between four inseparable young men. Decades later, the past resurfaces, forcing them to confront old wounds, guilt, and the possibility of revenge in a country which has lost its innocence.
Markens Grode / Growth of the Soil
Hans Petter Moland (Norway)
Country(ies) of production: Norway – Denmark – Germany. Cast: Herbert Nordrum, Asta Kamma August, Gard B. Eidsvold
A stranger appears over the mountain, carrying little more than his determination. Isak, a man without a past, seeks a place to settle and carve life from the earth. High above the tree line, he finds a barren stretch of land, as unforgiving as it is full of promise. The land tests him to his limits, until he meets Inger, a solitary woman shaped by resilience and quiet secrecy. Together, they endure the elements and build a life, cultivating both the soil and a growing family as the seasons turn. Yet as years pass and the world closes in, and time, hardship, and desire reshape them.
Mis muertos tristes / My Sad Dead
Pablo Larraín (Chile)
Country(ies) of production: Argentina – Chile. Cast: Mercedes Morán, Dolores Fonzi, Carolina Álvarez
Based on the work from Mariana Enriquez and directed by Pablo Larraín, My Sad Dead follows Ema, who can see and hear the dead. After her mother’s death, Ema receives an unexpected visit from her niece Julie, with whom she shares the same unsettling gift. With Julie’s return, family secrets and wounds that never fully healed will resurface —but so will a strange phenomenon from which no one will emerge unscathed. The entire neighborhood will sense presences and hear the distinctive sounds of their own dead.
Muyou no hito / In My Father’s Room
Maha Harada (Japan)
Country(ies) of production: Japan. Cast: Yu Aoi, Issey Ogata, Eita Nagayama, Eri Watanabe
Satomi works at an art museum until an envelope arrives, containing a mysterious key. It leads to an unknown room once belonging to her late father, who died alone a month earlier. Drawn by this small object, she retraces his final days: a man seemingly left behind by society, yet sustained by a quiet devotion to words, the art of tea, and subtle beauty. Through the traces of his solitude, Satomi slowly discovers the quiet grace of the world he inhabited.
Tender Loving Care
Mike Leigh (United Kingdom)
Country(ies) of production: United Kingdom – USA – Singapore. Cast: Marion Bailey, Paul Jesson, Kate O’Flynn, Alice Bailey Johnson
Cannes Festival’s Palme d’Or winner and Academy Award nominee Mike Leigh returns with his next feature film, continuing his insightful exploration of the contemporary world.
