The Festival closes with 'Le Faux Soir' by Michaël R. Roskam

Belgian filmmaker Michaël R. Roskam returns to the San Sebastian Film Festival with 'Le Faux Soir' and closes the Official Section of the 74 edition on September 26. The film will be seen for the first time in Europe in San Sebastian after passing through Toronto and will be shown out of competition in the Kursaal following the award ceremony.

The film exposes one of the most unique operations carried out by the Belgian resistance during World War II and is set in 1943, when the Nazis turned the national newspaper "Le Soir" into a propaganda tool in occupied Belgium.

Faced with this situation, a group of Resistance members devised a clandestine operation to publish a fake edition of the newspaper to ridicule its occupants and raise public morale, an action that some historians consider to be the first hack in history against a media outlet.

"Le Faux Soir" is based on Marie Istas's book "Le faux Soir, 9 November 1943." The cast includes Arieh Worthalter, Mélanie Thierry, Karim Leklou, Mara Taquin, Bouli Lanners, Julien Frison and François Damiens, among others.

Michaël R. Roskam, born in 1972 in Sint-Truiden, worked as a journalist in the Neerland-based newspaper "De Morgen" before starting his film career. After directing several short films, he debuted in the feature film with "Rundskop" (2011), nominated for the Oscar for the best international film after passing through the Panorama section of the Berlin Film Festival.

In 2014, he presented "The Drop" in the Official Section, starring Tom Hardy, Noomi Rapace and James Gandolfini, and won the Jury Award for Best Screenplay.

Roskam also directed "Le Fidèle/Racer and the Jailbird" (2017), selected to represent Belgium at the Oscars, and led the first three episodes of the miniseries "Black Bird", starring Taron Egerton, nominated for the Emmy and the Golden Globes.