Netflix to World Premiere ‘The Platform 2’ at San Sebastian 

Galder Gaztelu-Urrutia’s high-anticipated “The Platform 2,” the Basque director’s follow-up to Netflix mega-hit “The Platform,” will world premiere this September at the San Sebastián film festival, closing its culinary section. 

Subject of a high-profile acquisition by Netflix at the 2019 Toronto Film Festival, engineered by CAA Media Finance, XYZ Films and Latido Films, “The Platform” has gone on to shoot to the near top of Netflix’s chart of non-English film hits on record, now featuring as No. 5 with 82.8 million views, thanks to its terrorific mix of futurist dystopian sci-f and redolent social allegory wrapped in a brutal survival thriller. That comes from the set-up: a vertical prison, with hundreds of floors, with every day a stone dumbwaiter descending with food left over from tenants above. Higher-level inmates gorge themselves; those below face starvation, suicide or cannibalism.

That structure looks to be retained in “The Platform 2,” set for release on Netflix on Oct. 4, which, however, has new characters played by Milena Smit (“The Snow Girl”) and Hovik Keuchkerian (“Money Heist”) who star alongside Natalia Tena (“Game of Thrones”) and Óscar Jaenada (“Luis Miguel: The Series”).

Galder Gaztelu-Urrutia returns to direct, along with Basque Film producers Carlos Juarez and Raquel Perrea, behind “The Platform.” 

“The Platform 2” bulwarks Netflix’s presence at San Sebastian, which already includes in main competition both Oscar two-times nominee Maite Alberdi’s fiction debut “In Her Place” and Argentinian Diego Lerman’s “The Man Who Loved UFOs.”

The latest doc-feature from Movistar Plus+, “Mugaritz” is directed by Spanish horror doyen Paco Plaza (“[REC],” “Véronica,” “Sister Death”), in a more sybaritic mood. It portrays celebrated restaurant Mugaritz, one of the world’s best, which challenges diners to rethink and expand their tastes. 

This year’s Culinary Zinema also features “Northern Food Story,” from Japan’s Tatsuya Uesugi, Ian Cheney’s U.S. film “Shelf Life” and Ayuko Tsukahara’s “Grand Maison Paris.”

San Sebastian’s 2024 Culinary Zinema Lineup

“The Platform 2,” (Galder Gaztelu-Urrutia, Spain)

2019’s “The Platform” depicted a nightmarish version of the world’s wealth gulf, said Gaztelu-Urrutia. This time round, it looks like depicting the suffering people are capable of imposing on others. “As a mysterious leader imposes their rule in the Platform, a new resident becomes embroiled in the battle against this controversial method to fight the brutal feeding system,” the synopsis says. “But when eating from the wrong plate becomes a death sentence, how far would you be willing to go to save your life?”

“Mugaritz,” (Paco Plaza, Spain)

A doc-feature which focuses on the sheer singularity of Andoni Aduriz’s restaurant, a 20-minutes drive outside San Sebastián, which closes six months a year to rethink its menu around a single concept, here in the film that of “the unseen.” Part of Movistar Plus+’s ever more muscular drive into non-fiction and an early production from Fonte Films, headed by ex-Zara CEO Pablo Isla.