{"id":423580,"date":"2026-08-04T14:04:08","date_gmt":"2026-08-04T14:04:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/423580\/"},"modified":"2026-08-04T14:04:08","modified_gmt":"2026-08-04T14:04:08","slug":"san-sebastian-sets-jose-giovanni-retrospective","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/423580\/","title":{"rendered":"San Sebasti\u00e1n Sets Jos\u00e9 Giovanni Retrospective"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tThe San Sebasti\u00e1n Film Festival<\/a> will dedicate a 20-feature retrospective to Jos\u00e9 Giovanni<\/a>, the French director, screenwriter and novelist who became one of the defining figures of the country\u2019s postwar crime cinema.<\/p>\n

\n\tRunning during the festival\u2019s 74th edition, the program will span films released between 1960 and 2001, presenting almost all of Giovanni\u2019s work as a director alongside eight titles he wrote for filmmakers including Jacques Becker<\/a>, Jean-Pierre Melville, Claude Sautet, Jacques Deray, Robert Enrico and Henri Verneuil.<\/p>\n

\n\tBorn Joseph Antoine Roger Damiani in Paris in 1923, Giovanni helped shape the French crime genre known as polar, first through his novels and screenplays and later as a director with a raw, direct and highly physical style.<\/p>\n

\n\tHis turbulent and controversial life supplied much of the material for his fiction. Accused of murder and sentenced to death, Giovanni avoided the guillotine after his punishment was commuted to hard labor. His prison experience inspired his 1958 novel \u201cLe Trou,\u201d which Becker adapted as \u201cThe Hole\u201d in 1960. Initially hired as a technical adviser, Giovanni ultimately co-wrote the screenplay for Becker\u2019s final film.<\/p>\n

\n\tOther novels from the period also became key works of French crime cinema<\/a>. Sautet adapted \u201cClasse tous risques\u201d as \u201cThe Big Risk,\u201d while Melville turned \u201cLe Deuxi\u00e8me souffle\u201d into \u201cSecond Wind,\u201d starring Lino Ventura. Giovanni later wrote Verneuil\u2019s \u201cThe Sicilian Clan,\u201d which brought together Ventura, Alain Delon and Jean Gabin.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCourtesy of San Sebasti\u00e1n Film Festival<\/p>\n

\n\tAfter collaborating with Deray and Enrico, Giovanni made his directing debut with \u201cLaw of Survival\u201d in 1967. The war-inflected polar introduced three subjects that would recur throughout his work: the French Resistance, the Corsican milieu and betrayal.<\/p>\n

\n\tAcross 15 theatrical features, Giovanni focused on hired killers, Marseille gangsters, prisoners, marginalized thieves, wayward youths and ex-convicts struggling to re-enter society, often portraying characters governed by personal codes of loyalty and honor.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe program will include \u201cBirds of Prey,\u201d \u201cLast Known Address,\u201d \u201cOne Way Ticket,\u201d \u201cHit Man,\u201d \u201cTwo Men in Town,\u201d \u201cThe Gypsy\u201d and \u201cUne robe noire pour un tueur,\u201d as well as his final films, \u201cMy Friend the Traitor\u201d and \u201cMy Father Saved My Life,\u201d which drew more directly on the experiences and moral conflicts that shaped his life.<\/p>\n

\n\tOrganized by the festival and the Basque Film Archive, in collaboration with the Spanish Film Archive, the retrospective will be accompanied by a bilingual study written by Felipe Cabrerizo and edited by Quim Casas.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe 74th San Sebasti\u00e1n Film Festival will run Sept. 18-26.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The San Sebasti\u00e1n Film Festival will dedicate a 20-feature retrospective to Jos\u00e9 Giovanni, the French director, screenwriter and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":423581,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[169026,169027,169028,88,90,89,169029],"class_list":["post-423580","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-jose","tag-french-crime-cinema","tag-jacques-becker","tag-josu00e9-giovanni","tag-san-jose","tag-san-jose-headlines","tag-san-jose-news","tag-san-sebastiu00e1n-film-festival"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/423580","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=423580"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/423580\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/423581"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=423580"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=423580"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=423580"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}