San Sebastian’s Director Said Three Donostia Awards Were Ideal. He Is Leaving With Two

On 6 July, in a television interview reported by a Basque daily, José Luis Rebordinos was asked how many Donostia Awards the 74th San Sebastián festival would hand out. His answer was specific: "Para mí lo ideal son tres" — for me the ideal is three. And then a breakdown: "Dos potentes de glamour y uno potente de calidad." Two heavy on glamour, one heavy on quality.

He added the working arithmetic: "Normalmente, para confirmar tres, tenemos que probar con quince, porque están rodando." Normally, to confirm three, we have to try fifteen, because they are shooting.

He got two. The festival closes on Saturday 26 September and no third has been announced.

The two that happened

• Werner Herzog — announced 7 August, presented on Friday 18 September at the Kursaal opening gala by Orlando Bloom, who stars in Herzog's Bucking Fastard. Herzog, accepting: "Me siento parte de la comunidad vasca y recibo este premio de un pueblo de poesía."
• Naomi Watts — announced 31 August, explicitly as the second Donostia of the edition, presented on Saturday 19 September by J.A. Bayona, her director on The Impossible, alongside a screening of The Housewife. She dedicated it to David Lynch: "He believed in something he saw in me before I believed in it myself. And that is a gift." And then: "David Lynch, I miss you."

Two notes for anyone reprinting those dates. Several write-ups place Herzog's on the 19th and Watts's on the 20th; those are next-morning datelines, not ceremonies. And Bayona presented Watts's award, while Jon Plazaola hosted the gala — two different jobs that keep getting merged.

The record is five, and it was an accident

From the same July interview, on the 2012 edition: "Por primera vez ofrecemos cinco y se confirman los cinco, ¡que es de locos!" For the first time we offered five and all five confirmed, which is madness.

• 2012 — five: Oliver Stone, Ewan McGregor, Tommy Lee Jones, John Travolta, Dustin Hoffman.
• 2002 — four: Jessica Lange, Bob Hoskins, Dennis Hopper, Francis Ford Coppola.
• 2023 — three announced, and arguably one physically handed over. Javier Bardem's was postponed to 2024 on 8 September 2023 because of the actors' strike. Hayao Miyazaki's reached him by video link from Tokyo. Only Víctor Erice collected his in the hall.

So the festival has form for announcing a number of these and delivering a different one. What is unusual this year is that nothing was announced and then withdrawn. There was only ever a stated preference, in July, that did not materialise.

The Australian line does not work either

The convenient framing — Watts as the second Australian Donostia recipient after Cate Blanchett in 2024 — fails twice.

• The festival's own biography describes her as born in England and raised in Australia, and the award's records file her nationality as United Kingdom.
• Hugh Jackman took a Donostia in 2013, eleven years before Blanchett. If you are counting Australians, he is ahead of both.

What is not known

• Which of the two was the "bastante importante" award Rebordinos said in July was already locked in. He never said, and neither announcement refers back to the tease.
• Why no third came. There is no festival statement and no reported withdrawal. Do not assume a refusal; he also said they approach fifteen people to land three.
• Whether one still arrives before Saturday. Three days of festival remain.

The last edition of a fifteen-year directorship

Rebordinos leaves on 31 December. Maialen Beloki, deputy director since 2016, takes over on 1 January 2027 after a public competition and a unanimous board vote — the festival's first woman director.

He spent July telling an interviewer what the ideal farewell looked like, with the caveat that it takes fifteen phone calls to get there. He made the calls. Two people were free.

It is a more honest ending than three would have been.