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In terms of stars — Cate Blanchett, Johnny Depp, Javier Bardem, Tilda Swinton, Pamela Anderson — and auteur power — Pedro Almodóvar, Sean Baker, Costa Gavras, Edward Berger, Mike Leigh, Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Joshua Oppenheimer, François Ozon, Lupita Nyong’o, Mohammad Rasoulof, Walter Salles, Maite Alberdi — this year’s San Sebastián Festival promises one of its biggest editions ever.

Yet it’s the Spanish festival’s wealth of new talent and rising names in its industry competitions sets it apart. Here are 10 things to expect from the fest, which runs Sept. 20-28 at the stunning Basque seaside resort:

Blanchett, Almodóvar, Bardem, Depp, Swinton, Anderson

Blanchett, Almodóvar and Bardem will collect career achievement Donostia Awards, with Blanchett talking up Guy Maddin’s Cannes hit “Rumours,” set for U.S. theatrical release via Bleecker Street on Oct. 18; Almodóvar and Swinton will present Venice success “The Room Next Door.” Depp will unveil “Modi,” his second film as a...

The surface glamor and beauty of Nice is peeled away from the off in Akaki Popkhadze’s debut feature “In The Name Of Blood” (“Brûle le sang”) which premieres in San Sebastian’s New Director section.

“Nice is a city where the rich and the poor live side by side.” the director tells Variety. “The poor neighborhoods are just a few minutes by tramway from the center. No need to drive hours to see the dirt. I think the particularity of Nice is that poor people live surrounded by palm trees, beautiful landscapes, super cars, casinos, a seaside full of tourists and it can make people dizzy and give them the wrong life-goals. For me all this is just appearance.”

The opening shot tracks from a postcard scene of Nice’s curved bay out to show a chain link fence, the high rise apartments and the highway of an oft ignored side to Nice.

Spain’s San Sebastian Film Festival has unveiled a 10-title lineup of its New Directors competition, the festival’s biggest sidebar, which takes in “Turn Me On,” the new feature from Michael Tyburski, helmer of Sundance hit “The Sound of Silence.”

Starring Bel Powley and Nick Robinson and sold by Film Constellation, “Turn Me On,” a sci-fi romantic comedy, joins buzz titles in the section, such as “In the Name of Blood,” a Nice-set Georgian mafia movie from Georgia’s Akaki Popkhadze, prized at Clermont Ferrand for his latest short, and “Gulizar,” the first feature from Turkish moviemaker Belkis Bayrak, about a young victim of sexual assault in the run-up to her wedding.

Also selected for New Directors are “Winter in Sokcho,” from French-Japanese director Koya Kamura, starring Roschdy Zem and Bella Kim, and “Regretfully at Dawn,” a drama set in a province near Bangkok directed by Thai helmer Sivaroj Kongsakul.

The revenge story stars Nicolas Duvauchelle, Finnegan Oldfield, Denis Lavant and Florent Hill-Chouaki.

Georgian-French director Akaki Popkhadze’s mafia thriller In the Name of Blood has joined the Urban Sales family with the Paris-based sales company headed by Frédéric Corvez acquiring global rights to the France-set feature ahead of the Cannes market.

In the Name of Blood (Brûle le Sang) stars Nicolas Duvauchelle, Finnegan Oldfield, Denis Lavant and Florent Hill-Chouaki. Set in a working-class neighbourhood in Nice, the film follows an aspiring orthodox priest whose father, a pillar in the local Georgian community, is murdered and his older brother with...

Legendary French actor Denis Lavant, best known for his collaborations with “Annette” director Leos Carax, has found the latest role he will disappear into.

Lavant is set to star in “Blood Burn,” a French-Georgian gangster thriller which is currently being presented in the Locarno Film Festival’s Alliance 4 Development program.

The film hails from first-time feature director Akaki Popkhadze and is based on his own experiences of immigrating from Georgia to the “poor neighborhoods” of Nice when he was 13 years old.

Set in that environment that Popkhadze knows like the back of his hand, the action in “Blood Burn” kicks off when a pillar of the local Georgian community is murdered. His son Tristan, who aspires to become an orthodox priest, finds himself alone with his grieving mother. Then Gabriel, his older brother with a troubled past, returns from a long exile to try and make amends by washing away his family’s honor.