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Goya Awards 2009

2009 Goya Awards
2009 Spanish Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ Goya Award nominees: December 19, 2008
2009 Goya Award winners: Madrid, February 1, 2009
("*" denotes the winner in each category)
Photos: © Spanish Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
 

Written and directed by Javier Fesser, the controversial drama Camino — described by Screen Daily’s Lee Marshall as a "kind of three-way collision between The Magdalene Sisters, Amelie and The Song of Bernadette" — was the big winner at the 2009 Goya Awards, bagging a total of six trophies: best film, director, original screenplay, actress (Carme Elias, holding the "Jesus Loves You" poster), supporting actor (Jordi Dauder), and female newcomer (Nerea Camacho, lying in bed). Inspired by a true story, Camino [...]

BEFORE THE FALL: Q&A with F. Javier Gutiérrez

F. Javier Gutiérrez’s 3 Días / Before the Fall, the filmmaker’s feature-film debut (co-produced by Antonio Banderas), has an unlikely premise: as a giant meteorite is about to destroy the planet and all its denizens in three days — hence the original Spanish-language title — a young man (Victor Clavijo) living in a remote village in the south of Spain readies himself to protect his mother (Mariana Cordero, in a role akin to that of Lillian Gish in The Night of the Hunter) and his absent brother’s four children from a psycho (Eduard Fernández) on the loose. What follows is not a science-fiction tale, but a suspenseful character-driven drama about the importance of old loyalties and [...]

Tiburon Film Festival 2008

The 2008 Tiburon (Calif.) International Film Festival (TIFF), set for March 13–21, will be showcasing more than 225 films from 94 countries.
The festival will open with the US premiere of Miguel Angel Calvo Buttini’s political comedy Dos rivales casi iguales / Twins for President at 7 p.m. at the Playhouse Theater on March 13.
Twins for President follows twin brothers (Andoni Gracia) of different political stripes as they fight for the Spanish presidency. Calvo Buttini will attend the screening, which will be followed by a q&a session.
Among the 2008 TIFF tributes are those to John Wayne, with a screening of John Ford’s 1956 Western The Searchers (March 16 at 4:45pm), which some critics consider one of the greatest movies [...]

THE ORPHANAGE Is a Spanish Box-Office Hit

As per John Hopewell in Variety, Juan Antonio Bayona’s psychological thriller The Orphanage has grossed €5.8 million at the Spanish box office during its first few days of release. That is supposedly the second best opening ever — after Santiago Segura’s Torrente 3 — for a Spanish film. (I’m assuming inflation hasn’t been factored in.)
The Orphanage, which was much talked about at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, tells the story of a woman who moves to an old mansion that happens to be the orphanage where she grew up. Shortly thereafter, her young son starts talking about his cool playmates, who just happen to be invisible. (I haven’t seen the film, yet, so I don’t know who exactly is the [...]

PAN’S LABYRINTH d: Guillermo del Toro

El Laberinto del fauno / Pan’s Labyrinth (2006)
Direction and screenplay: Guillermo del Toro. Cast: Ivana Baquero, Sergi López, Maribel Verdú, Doug Jones, Ariadna Gil, Álex Angulo, Manolo Solo
 

OFELIA’S ADVENTURES IN WEIRDLAND
This review contains spoilers. Proceed at your own risk.
"If you expect to get laid after this screening," filmmaker Guillermo del Toro told the midnight (actually, closer to 1 a.m.) audience at the AFI FEST Los Angeles premiere of Pan’s Labyrinth, "it ain’t gonna happen." Indeed, del Toro’s "adult fairytale" is hardly the sort of fable that would induce either sexual or romantic yearnings. The story of a young girl who attempts to escape the brutal repression of General Francisco Franco’s Spain by creating her own dark fantasy world, Pan’s Labyrinth [...]

Pedro Almodóvar Is the Best-Known Spanish Film Director

Via Zinema:
According to a poll organized by SigmaDos, Pedro Almodóvar is the best known Spanish film director among Spanish citizens. Almodóvar was identified by 69 per cent of Spaniards.
He is followed by:

Academy Award winner and multiple Goya winner (for The Sea Inside) Alejandro Amenábar (34.3%);
Academy Award nominee (for The Grandfather) José Luis Garci (13.4);
Academy Award winner (for Belle Epoque) Fernando Trueba (10.7);
Academy Award nominee (for Placido) Luis García Berlanga (6.3);
Alex de la Iglesia (6.2; Perfect Crime);
Santiago Segura (4.6; Torrente, el brazo tonto de la ley and its sequels);
Bigas Luna (4; Jamón, jamón);
Academy Award nominee (for Carmen) Carlos Saura (3.4);
and Antonio Banderas (2); who has taken to directing in the last [...]

Pedro Almodóvar Becomes a Commander of the Italian Republic

This past Thursday, June 14, one of the world’s top directors of the last 25 years, Pedro Almodóvar, was presented with the title of Commander of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic, one of Italy’s highest civilian honors. The Spanish director received the Commendation for his "contributions to European cinema and culture" from Italy’s minister of culture Francesco Rutelli.
The ceremony was held at the Palazzo Chigi, following a reception for the nominees for the David di Donatello Awards, which were presented later that evening. Although Almodóvar’s Volver was nominated for a David di Donatello as best film from the European Union, the director declined to take part in the early morning ceremony. He received the Commendation on [...]

THE RAILROAD ALL STARS d: Chema Rodríguez

Estrellas de La Línea / The Railroad All Stars (2006)
Direction and screenplay: Chema Rodríguez
 

Directed by Chema Rodríguez, Estrellas de La Línea / The Railroad All Stars traces the lives of a plucky group of prostitutes who live in dismal conditions near a railroad in Guatemala City. Determined to bring some dignity to their lives — and to get publicity for their cause — they form a soccer team, "Estrellas de la Línea."
As a result of the girls’ sexy jokes, the film’s dialogue milks humor out of the situation while news commentators indulge these unlikely soccer players with amused encouragement.
It’s easy to sympathize with the team members who express their frustrations about their situation. It’s equally easy to [...]

Ariel Awards – 2007 Winners

Guillermo del Toro’s dark fairy-tale El Laberinto del fauno / Pan’s Labyrinth was the big winner at the Mexican Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences‘ 49th Ariel Awards ceremony held at the Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City on Mar. 20.
Set in the 1940s, the Mexican-Spanish co-production about a young girl’s entry into a fantastic world — so as to escape from the oppressive reality of General Franco’s Fascist Spain — won a total of 9 awards (out of 12 nominations), including best film and best director.
As a steely houseworker who befriends the young girl, Maribel Verdú (top) shared the best actress award with Elizabeth Cervantes, who plays a businesswoman and mother with little luck in love [...]

Golden Globes 2007: Foreign-Language Film Screenings

Penélope Cruz in Volver (top); Martina Gedeck in The Lives of Others (middle); Pan’s Labyrinth (bottom)

The American Cinematheque and the Hollywood Foreign Press Association will present all five foreign-language films nominated for the 2007 Golden Globe Awards at The Aero’s Max Palevsky Theatre in Santa Monica.
The five nominees are:

Apocalypto (U.S.)
El Laberinto del fauno / Pan’s Labyrinth (Spain / Mexico / U.S.)
Das Leben der Anderen / The Lives of Others (Germany)
Letters from Iwo Jima (U.S.)
Volver (Spain)

Invited guests (to be confirmed) for each screening are directors Pedro Almodóvar, Guillermo del Toro, Clint Eastwood, Mel Gibson, and Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, all of whom should also take part in a round-table discussion moderated by Screen International U.S. editor [...]

2007 Goya Awards: Nominations

Viggo Mortensen in Alatriste (top); Lola Dueñas, Yohana Cobo, Penélope Cruz in Volver (bottom)

Agustín Díaz Yanes‘ 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 2007 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. (Curiously, Volver failed to get a best editing [...]

Spirit Awards 2006: Nominations

With five nods each, the crowd-pleasing dysfunctional family comedy Little Miss Sunshine (US$59 million at the U.S./Canada box office) and the socio-psychological drama Half Nelson ($2.7 million at the U.S./Canada box office) led the pack of the 2006 nominees for the Independent Spirit Awards. In addition to its five nods, Half Nelson was listed (along with Point&Shoot) as Producer Award nominees Alex Orlovsky and Jamie Patricof’s two representative films.
Both Little Miss Sunshine and Half Nelson received nominations for Best Film (or, per the official category title, Best Feature), Director (Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris, and Ryan Fleck, respectively) and First Screenplay (Michael Arndt, and Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden, respectively).
Surprisingly, Little Miss Sunshine’s much-touted Abigail Breslin failed to show [...]

Stockholm Film Festival 2006 Winners

For only the second time, the Stockholm Film Festival’s Best Film award was presented to a female director, Laurie Collyer, whose feature-film debut, Sherrybaby, took the festival’s top prize and brought star Maggie Gyllenhaal a Best Actress award. Earlier this year, Sherrybaby won those two honors at the Karlovy Vary Film Festival.
The U.S.-made Sherrybaby tells the story of a former heroin addict who, after serving a three-year jail sentence, tries to prove to herself and to those around her that she can take care of her little daughter.

The Best Actor award went to Canadian-born Ryan Gosling for his superb portrayal of an idealistic drug-addicted New York City high-school teacher in the Ryan Fleck’s Half Nelson, which has been nominated in [...]

Huelva Ibero-American Film Festival Awards 2006

2006 Huelva Ibero-American Film Festival Awards
2006 Huelva Ibero-American Film Festival: Huelva, Andalucia, Spain, between November 18-25, 2006
 

 
Colón de Oro for Best Feature / mejor largometraje: El violín / The Violin by Francisco Vargas Quevedo (Mexico)
Special Jury Prize / Premio Especial del Jurado: Páginas del diario de Mauricio by Manuel Pérez (Cuba, Spain and Mexico)
Colón de Plata for best director / mejor director: Alejandro Doria for Las manos / The Hands (Spain and Argentina)
Carabela de Plata for best new director / mejor director novel: Jorge Durán for Proibido Proibir / Forbidden to Forbid (Brazil, Chile and Spain)
Colón de Plata for best actor / mejor actor: Jesús Aranda for Chicha tu madre (Peru and Argentina)
Colón de Plata for best [...]

Penelope Cruz AFI FEST Tribute

Likely Academy Award and European Film Award nominee Penélope Cruz – for Pedro Almodóvar’s Volver — will receive this year’s AFI FEST Tribute at 7 p.m. tomorrow, Nov. 2, at the ArcLight Hollywood’s Cinerama Dome.
Cruz happens to be a mere 32 years old, and has been in films for only 14 years, but her performance in Volver has elicited comparisons to Sophia Loren, Anna Magnani, and assorted Earth Mothers, and has received loads of publicity around the globe. Additionally, Cruz is awful pretty and a few years back dated Tom Cruise. All good reasons for a Career Tribute. (If only fellow Volver player Carmen Maura, one of the greatest film actresses ever, had dated Cruise…)
The ceremony, which will include [...]

Reeling – The 2006 Chicago Gay and Lesbian International Film Festival

Reeling: The Chicago Gay and Lesbian International Film Festival, the second-oldest gay-themed film festival in the United States, will be celebrating its 25th anniversary in November.
Reeling will open with what one publication has labeled "another significant milestone" in gay film history. That’s Phillip J. Bartell’s Eating Out Two: Sloppy Seconds, supposed to be the first ever sequel to a gay-themed flick. The film revolves around a gay man (Jim Verraros) pretending to be straight so he can get the guy of his dreams — something that may make sense to someone, somewhere.
Significant milestones aside, the festival’s film line-up does include a number of intriguing titles, among them Ramón Salazar’s 20 centímetros / 20 Centimeters, a musical starring Mónica Cervera [...]

Viva Pedro!

Beginning Friday, Aug. 25, the Sunset 5 theater complex in West Hollywood will present an eight-week, eight-film retrospective of one of the foremost film directors of the last 20 years, Pedro Almodóvar, whose latest film, Volver, opens in the U.S. on Nov. 3.
The retrospective, named "Viva Pedro," will screen brand-new prints of — in my invariably humble opinion — the director’s 8 best films. Two of those being screened, Matador (1986) and the outstanding La Ley del deseo / Law of Desire (1987), have never been released on DVD in the U.S. (La Ley del deseo is available, but in PAL format.)
Volver, by the way, won Almodóvar the Best Screenplay Award at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. (A [...]

Spanish Film Writers Awards 2006

2006 Spanish Film Writers Circle Awards
2006 Spanish Film Writers Circle Awards: January 23, 2006
("*" denotes the winner in each category)
 

Sarah Polley, Tim Robbins in The Secret Life of Words
 

Best Film
El Cielo gira
Habana Blues
Princesas
*La Vida secreta de las palabras / The Secret Life of Words
Best Foreign Film
Broken Flowers, USA/France
Match Point, UK
* Million Dollar Baby, USA
The Twilight Samurai, Japan
Best Director
Mercedes Álvarez, El Cielo gira
* Isabel Coixet, The Secret Life of Words
Fernando León de Aranoa, Princesas
Benito Zambrano, Habana Blues
Best Actor
Manuel Alexandre, Elsa y Fred
Eduard Fernández, El Método
* Óscar Jaenada, Camarón
Tim Robbins, The Secret Life of Words
Best Actress (tie)
Adriana Ozores, Heroína
* Candela Peña, Princesas
* Sarah Polley, The [...]

Goya Awards 2006

2006 Goya Awards
2006 Spanish Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ Goya Award winners: Jan. 29, 2006
("*" denotes the winner in each category)
 

Sarah Polley, Tim Robbins in The Secret Life of Words
 

Mejor película / Best Film
7 vírgenes / 7 Virgins, by Alberto Rodríguez
*La Vida secreta de las palabras / The Secret Life of Words, by Isabel Coixet
Obaba, by Montxo Armendariz
Princesas, by Fernando León de Aranoa
Mejor película europea / Best European Film
Der Untergang / Downfall, by Oliver Hirschbiegel (Germany)
The Constant Gardener, by Fernando Meirelles (United Kingdom)
Les Choristes / The Chorus, by Christophe Barratier (France)
* Match point, by Woody Allen (United Kingdom)
Mejor película extranjera de habla hispana / Best Spanish-Language Foreign Film
Alma mater, by Álvaro Buela (Uruguay)
* Iluminados por el [...]

QUEENS d: Manuel Gómez Pereira

Reinas / Queens (2005)
Director: Manuel Gómez Pereira. Screenplay: Yolanda García Serrano, Joaquín Oristrell, and Manuel Gómez Pereira. Cast: Betiana Blum, Carmen Maura, Verónica Forqué, Marisa Paredes, Mercedes Sampietro, Gustavo Salmerón, Unax Ugalde, Hugo Silva, Daniel Hendler, Paco León, Raúl Jiménez, Tito Valverde, Lluís Homar
 

Reinas / Queens is Manuel Gómez Pereira’s dramatic comedy about five mothers (Verónica Forqué, Carmen Maura, Betiana Blum, Mercedes Sampietro, and Marisa Paredes) who must cope with their gay sons’ (and their own) romantic problems as they all get ready for Spain’s first mass gay wedding ceremony. The film, made by Warner Bros. Spain, has the look and feel of a glossy Hollywood flick — or of a non-English-language film begging for an American remake. But cheesy [...]

BAD EDUCATION d: Pedro Almodóvar

La Mala educación / Bad Education (2004)
Direction and screenplay: Pedro Almodóvar. Cast: Gael Garcí­a Bernal, Fele Martí­nez, Daniel Giménez Cacho, Lluí­s Homar, Javier Cámara, Petra Martí­nez, Nacho Pérez, Raúl Garcí­a Forneiro, Francisco Boira, Juan Fernández, Leonor Watling
 
PAST IMPERFECT
One of Pedro Almodóvar’s best, most complex, and most daring films, La Mala educación / Bad Education twists all the conventions of the film noir genre to deliver an intelligent, touching, and quite disturbing film that works as a psychological study of shattered minds, as an indictment against hypocrisy and abuse of power, and as a vivid demonstration of the director’s love for the art of cinema. The cast, headed by Gael García Bernal, is uniformly excellent.
 
Synopsis:
Madrid 1980: Enrique Goded (Fele Martínez) is [...]

THE SEA INSIDE d: Alejandro Amenábar

Mar adentro / The Sea Inside (2004)
Direction: Alejandro Amenábar. Screenplay: Alejandro Amenábar and Mateo Gil. Cast: Javier Bardem, Belén Rueda, Lola Dueñas, Mabel Rivera, Celso Bugallo, Joan Dalmau
 
Although The Sea Inside often verges on melodrama, this story of a man, Ramón Sampedro, who wants to end his life "with dignity" is compelling and touching enough to make one forgive the not inconsiderable failings in Alejandro Amenábar’s direction. (Amenábar also composed the film’s at times overbearing score.)
Thanks to an excellent makeup job, Javier Bardem looks right for the part of Sampedro, though his performance frequently calls attention to itself in a manner that detracts from the character’s truth.
On the other hand, the supporting cast, led by Belén Rueda, Lola [...]

Goya 2005

2005 Goya Awards
2005 Spanish Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ Goya Award winners: Jan. 31, 2005
("*" denotes the winner in each category)
 

Javier Bardem, Lola Dueñas in The Sea Inside
 

Best Picture
La Mala educación / Bad Education. El Deseo
* Mar adentro / The Sea Inside. Sogecine / Himenóptero
Roma. Tesela P.C / Aristarain P.C
Tiovivo c. 1950. NickelOdeón Dos / Enrique Cerezo, PC / PC29
Best European Film
Being Julia, by István Szabó (United Kingdom / Hungary)
* Gegen die Wand / Head-On, by Fatih Akin (Germany)
Monsieur Ibrahim, by François Dupeyron (France)
Girl with a Pearl Earring, by Peter Webber (United Kingdom / Luxemburg)
Best Spanish-Language Foreign Film
El rey, by Antonio Dorado (Colombia)
Luna de Avellaneda, by Juan José Campanella (Argentina)
Machuca, by Andrés Wood (Chile)
* Whisky, [...]

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