Alternative Film Guide

Agustín Díaz Yanes’s 17th-century tale of a Spanish soldier turned mercenary, Alatriste, and Pedro Almodóvar’s story of the women of La Mancha, Volver, dominated the Spanish Film Academy’s XXI Goya Award nominations announced yesterday, Dec. 18, by actors Pilar López de Ayala and Juan José Ballesta. Alatriste, the most expensive Spanish film ever made (€24 million), received a total of 15 nods, while Volver received 14.

Both Alatriste and Volver were nominated for Best Film, Best Director, and, respectively, for Best Adapted Screenplay (Alatriste is a cinematic condensation of five novels by Arturo Pérez Reverte) and Best Original Screenplay. (Strangely, Volver failed to get a Best Editing nod, though Alatriste was shortlisted in that category.)

Volver, which has earned more than €10 million in Spain (Alatriste has earned €16 million), is that country’s entry for the 2006 Oscars — and it is by far the favorite to win. Additionally, the film’s star, Penélope Cruz, in all probability will receive a Best Actress Academy Award nod. Volver has already won Best Director and Best Actress awards at this year’s European Film Awards.

American actor Viggo Mortensen received a Best Actor nod — the Goyas don’t restrict their nominations to Spanish nationals — for playing the title role in Alatriste, while four of the five chief actresses in Volver were recognized: Penélope Cruz as Best Actress, and Carmen Maura (the mother), Lola Dueñas (the sister, right), and Blanca Portillo (the La Mancha neighbor) in the Best Supporting Actress category. (All four — plus Yohana Cobo, the daughter — won an ensemble Best Actress Award at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. Note: Cobo couldn’t have received a Best New Actress Goya Award nod because the 21-year-old actress has been working in films and television for more than a decade.)

Alatriste is Díaz Yanes’ third film as a director. His 1995 directorial debut, the crime drama Nadie hablará de nosotras cuando hayamos muerto / Nobody Will Speak of Us When We’re Dead won eight Goyas. Two Almodóvar films have won the Best Film Goya: Mujeres al borde de un ataque de nervios / Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (1988) and Todo sobre mi madre / All About My Mother (1999).

Pedro Almodóvar (left) remarked that Volver’s 14 nominations were "a reward for my manchego [of La Mancha] surroundings, which helped me to create this film; like my sisters who, with their recollections, served as co-screenwriters." (The director has apparently made peace with the Spanish Film Academy; he and his brother, Agustín, had resigned in 2005, following the perceived snub of his La Mala educación / Bad Education.)

Another multiple nominee was Guillermo del Toro’s Spanish-Mexican-American co-production El Laberinto del fauno / Pan’s Labyrinth, which garnered 13 nods. Del Toro’s ultra-violent "fairy-tale for adults" — as he himself described it at the Los Angeles AFI FEST in November — follows a young girl’s immersion into a fantasy world where she finds an escape from the oppressiveness of General Francisco Franco’s Fascist regime.

Among the nominations for Pan’s Labyrinth are those for Best Film; Best Actor for Sergi López (right), excellent as the psychopathic captain who lives by the clock and by the gun; Best Actress for Maribel Verdú, as the captain’s tough anti-Fascist servant; Best New Actress for Ivana Baquero, as the girl whose boundless imagination both dooms and saves her; and Best Director and Best Original Screenplay for del Toro.

Manuel Huerga’s Salvador was the fourth Best Film nominee. Salvador recounts the last days of Catalan anarchist Salvador Puig Antich, who was executed in 1974. The political drama received 11 nominations, including a Best Actor nod for Daniel Brühl. (Though raised in Cologne, Brühl was actually born in Catalunya to a Spanish mother and a German father.)

Other nominations include Best European Film for Ken Loach’s The Wind That Shakes the Barley and Stephen Frears’s The Queen; Best Spanish-Language Foreign Film for Juan Carlos Valdivia’s American visa and Rodrigo Triana’s Soñar no cuesta nada / A Ton of Luck, respectively, Bolivia’s and Colombia’s submissions for the 2006 Oscars; Best New Director and Best Original Screenplay for Daniel Sánchez Arévalo, for the well-received drama Azuloscurocasinegro / DarkBlueAlmostBlack (photo, right); and Best Actor for veteran Juan Diego, whose performance in Vete de mí / Go Away from Me has already earned him a Best Actor Award at this year’s San Sebastián Film Festival. (Juan Diego is not to be confused with Juan Diego Botto, who earned a Best Supporting Actor nod for the same film.)

Producer Tadeo Villalba will receive an Honorary Award for his career and for his "contributions to Spanish cinema." Curiously, Villalba worked as "production manager" (apparently, the Spanish version of "line producer" or "executive producer") with both of this year’s top Goya nominees: Pedro Almodóvar (Entre tinieblas / Dark Habits and ¿Qué he hecho yo para merecer esto!! / What Have I Done to Deserve This) and Agustín Díaz Yanes (Nadie hablará de nosotras cuando hayamos muerto).

And finally, I was glad to discover that I’m not the only person who enjoyed Woody Allen’s Scoop. The British-made murder comedy, which was panned by most U.S. critics, is up for a Goya Award for Best European Film.

During the period of eligibility for the 2006 Goyas — Nov. 30, 2005, to Dec. 1, 2006 — 133 Spanish films were released.

The Goya Awards ceremony will be held at the Palacio Municipal de Congresos del Campo de las Naciones in Madrid on the last weekend of January 2007.

Note: If anyone knows what is the current web address of the Spanish Academy of Cinema, please contact me at editor at altfg dot com. With the one I have in my files, I keep getting a "page not found" notice.

Full list of nominees for the 2006 Goya Awards.

Full list of nominees for the 2005 Goya Awards.

Full list of nominees for the 2004 Goya Awards.

London Film Critics’ Circle Awards - 2006 Nominations

Toronto Film Critics Association Awards - 2006 Nominations

Dallas-Ft. Worth Film Critics Association Awards - 2006 Winners

Satellite Awards - 2006 Winners

GOJIRA / GODZILLA (1954): DVD Review

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