SAN SEBASTIAN — Having placed second in Toronto’s People’s Choice Awards, James Franco scored his first big outright win as a director, his “The Disaster Artist” scooping Saturday night the 65th San Sebastián Festival’s Golden Shell, the top plaudit at the highest-profile film event in the Spanish-speaking world.
“This was a family affair, my brother, my sister, my old friend Seth Rogen,” Franco said, accepting the award on stage at San Sebastián.
He added, thanking Warner Bros,: “It’s a very simple film about a crazy man but he had big dreams and it’s better than not having dreams. I hope that in these crazy times this brings a little light and inspiration.”
Described by Variety as “the comedy sensation of SXSW,” James Franco’s uproarious “making-of” satire of 2003’s “The Room,” Tommy Wiseau’s best worst movie of this century, “The Disaster Artist” had already won the Spanish critics’ Feroz Zinemaldia Prize, and was one of the two best-ranked titles on a reviewers’ poll run by El Diario Vasco, a local newspaper.
