Basque Fest not just social-issue films

SAN SEBASTIAN, Spain, Aug. 24 (UPI) -- Spain's San Sebastian Film Festival specializes in social-issue films, but this year is showing a wider variety of international films than ever before.

The festival, which runs Sept. 21-30, is screening several more commercial films, including two comedies -- "Border Post," Rajko Grlic's film about military life in the former Yugoslavia Republic; and "Sleeping Dogs Lie" by Bobcat Goldthwait, about a woman who confesses her most outrageous sexual act.

A thriller, "The Tiger's Tail," by John Boorman, also breaks the San Sebastian mold, Daily Variety reported.

Several films have obsession as their themes, including "El camino de San Diego" about soccer and "Copying Beethoven," with Ed Harris playing the famous composer.

Social-issue films include "Half Moon'" by Bahman Ghobadi, about post-Saddam Iraq; Marion Hansel's "Sounds of Sand," about displaced African villagers; "The Old Garden" by Korean Im Sang-soo, a political romance; and "Ghosts" by Nick Broomfield, the true story of illegal Chinese immigrants who drowned scouring the British mudflats for shellfish.