Woody Allen starts shoot of San Sebastian film

The US director’s latest movie is filming in San Sebastian, Spain from July 10 to August 23 with an impressive international cast, including Christoph Waltz and Elena Anaya.

Provisionally titled Rifkin’s Festival, the film tells the story of a married American couple, played by Waltz and Gina Gershon, who fall in love with other people while attending the San Sebastian Film Festival. “It is a comedy-romance that resolves itself in a funny but romantic way,” according to the film’s Spanish co-producers, The Mediapro Studio.

The production department of the San Sebastian film festival will assist the film’s creative team to make the look of the festival in the movie appear as close to the look and feel of the actual event as possible.

MediaPro also confirmed to KFTV.com that the film will shoot in the area surrounding San Sebastian, including “forests not far from the centre of the city and nearby beaches”.

Speaking at a press conference in the Basque city on Tuesday, Allen revealed that he deliberately set his screenplay there. “I remembered San Sebastian from having been here for the festival as an exceptionally beautiful city and very charming. It seemed like a place I and my family would enjoy for the few months it takes to make a film.”

Allen also insisted that “the actors and actresses are the success of my movies.” This latest movie boasts an impressive line-up that also includes France’s Louis Garrel (A Faithful Man), Spain’s Sergi López (Pan’s Labyrinth) and long-time Allen regular Wally Shawn (Radio Days).

There has been a lot of coverage about Allen’s latest movie following the decision by Amazon in the US to drop his last completed movie, A Rainy Day in New York, and high-profile actors saying they will never work with him again. These decisions followed renewed sexual molestation allegations levelled against the director from 2016 by his adoptive daughter Dylan Farrow.

Referring to the situation in the US, Gershon said: "These are crazy times; one has to analyse the situation and decide how you feel; I’m delighted to be part of this team."

Mediapro has continued its partnership with Allen having worked with him for 14 years, including on Vicky Cristina Barcelona and Midnight in Paris, both of which won Academy awards. Letty Aronson’s Gravier Productions, which co-produced those two films, is doing so again on this San Sebastian set project.

“This movie has all the ingredients to be right up there along with what we've become accustomed to from a director of Woody Allen's talent: an intelligent script and a first-rate international cast. In addition, we're delighted to be able to shoot the movie in a city such as San Sebastian, which has such strong ties to cinema,” says Jaume Roures, founding partner of Mediapro.

New York-based FilmNation is co-handling international sales of the movie with Mediapro, having previously managed sales on Allen’s 2016 Cafe Society and the upcoming A Rainy Day in New York.

Photo: Mediapro