Dance firsta biographical drama The theory of everything director James Marsh on the life of the Irish Nobel Prize winner for playwright Samuel Beckett, will conclude the 71st San Sebastian Festival.
The feature film, starring Gabriel Byrne as Beckett alongside Sandrine Bonnaire as his longtime partner, and eventual wife Suzanne Deschevaux-Dumesnil, closes the 2023 San Sebastian Festival on September 30. Dance first will be screened out of competition in San Sebastian.
Dance first follows Beckett’s life from his time as a fighter for the French Resistance during World War II, through his friendship with fellow Irish literary luminary James Joyce, his rise to fame with seminal plays such as Waiting for godot, Endgame And Happy Days — who founded the Theater of the Absurd movement — until his receipt of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1969 and later life as a recluse. Written by Neil Forsyth, the film also features Aidan Gillen as James Joyce and Fionn O’Shea as a younger Beckett. The cast of the film also includes Maxine Peake, Robert Aramayo, Leonie Lojkine, Bronagh Gallagher, Lisa Dwyer Hogg, Barry O’Connor and Gráinne Good.
Marsh, an Oscar winner for the 2009 documentary man on wire, which he co-directed with Simon Chinn headlined 2014 The theory of everythingabout the relationship between famed physicist Stephen Hawking and his wife, who received five Oscar nominations and one win, for starring Eddie Redmayne as Hawking.
The 71st San Sebastian Film Festival will take place from September 22 to 30.
