'Arbitrage' will open the San Sebastian Film Festival

At its opening gala, the 60th San Sebastián International Film Festival will be presenting the European premiere of the US production Arbitrage, a film competing in the Official Section starring Richard Gere and Susan Sarandon from writer/director Nicholas Jarecki.

The gala will mean the return to San Sebastián for both actors, who are very well-remembered at the Festival where both of them have received Donostia awards in previous years in recognition of their entire careers: Richard Gere at the 55th edition in 2007 and Susan Sarandon at the 43rd edition in 1995.

Arbitrage is a taut and alluring thriller about love and loyalty in the world of high finance. Gere and Sarandon are accompanied by a cast that also includes Tim Roth, Brit Marling, Laetitia Casta, and Nate Parker.

The main character in the film is Robert Miller (Richard Gere), a magnate who on the eve of his 60th birthday seems to be the very portrait of success in American business and family life, always accompanied by his loyal wife Ellen (Susan Sarandon) and Brooke (Brit Marling), his daughter and heir-apparent. However, behind the gilded walls of his mansion, Miller is in over his head, desperately trying to complete the sale of his empire to a major bank before the depths of his fraud are revealed. He is also having an affair with a French art-dealer (Laetitia Casta) behind his wife’s and daughter’s backs. Just as he’s about to unload his troubled empire, an unexpected bloody error forces him to confront the limits of his moral duplicity.

Arbitrage is the fictional full-length debut film by the writer and director Nicholas Jarecki, a talented youngster who shot to fame thanks to his book Breaking In: How 20 Film Directors Got Their Start, a best-seller published in 2002. Jarecki has also directed the documentary The Outsider, has written the adaptation of the novel by Bret Easton Ellis The Informers for the big screen and has produced the documentary by James Toback Tyson, that won a Special Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival in 2008.

Arbitrage will be screened at the opening gala of the 60th San Sebastián Film Festival on the 21st of September. The film will be distributed in Spain by TriPictures and handled internationally by Parlay Films.