San Sebastian 2011 preview: Michael Fassbender and Steve McQueen to present 'Shame'

Yesterday two fellow bloggers and yours truly agreed to jointly take on questions and suggestions in our twitter accounts from colleagues and readers to pass on guests and attendees to the 59th San Sebastian Film Festival. We forgot, however, to explicitly warn against asking for current-man-of-the-hour Michael Fassbender's telephone number.

Fresh from his victory in Venice, Fassbender made a last-minute announcement confirming his presence in San Sebastian together with Shame director Steve McQueen to present the film for which he earned the Volpi Cup a mere week ago. For all the star power and glamour that the likes of Glenn Close, Catherine Deneuve and Anouk Aimée will undoubtedly bring to the Kursaal Palace, I have a feeling the square metre around this well-built German-born Irishman is going to be the most coveted space at this year's festival, so don't expect miracles on that front.

After solid work this year in Jane Eyre and X-Men: First Class (I still haven't seen David Cronenberg's A Dangerous Method, but you can add it to the list), his award-winning lead in McQueen's tale of sexual addiction or, as some like to call it more academically, hypersexuality might place him up there against Ryan Gosling as this year's busiest man in the business.

In the absence of a trailer (the film will be released theatrically in January 2012 in the UK), here's a leaked scene from the film.