Father Geek here with an on the scene report from the Spanish Academy Awards... The Goyas...
My name is Dani, and I am writing from Spain. I don´t know if you have heard of this, but you probably haven´t.....
Last Saturday, the Spanish Academy of Cinema Awards, the Goyas, were held in Madrid.
The absolute winner of the night was the movie “Los Lunes al sol” ( Mondays on the sun, I suppose ), directed by the most promising young director in Spain, Fernando León de Aranoa. The movie won the goyas for Best Movie, best director, best actor ( Javier Bardem ), best supporting actor ( Luis Tosar ) and best new male actor ( José Angel Egido ).
The big defeat was Pedro Almodovar and his Talk to her, who only won the Goya for the best music.
I should say that I am very happy with this result. Althought I am a fan of Almodovar, I think he is overrated usually, specially in the USA. I really hope that americas, and the Academy, won´t forget "Los Lunes al sol" for the best foreign movie and for the best actor. If you liked Bardem in Before Night Falls, you will love him in this one.
I am afraid that "Los Lunes al sol" is not the Hollywood kind of movie but I hope people understand it.
Besides the winners, and that´s the main reason of my mail, the ceremony was a total act of protest against war. You know, to me it meant a lot of things, because usually the movie industry shows itself as “non-political”. But the fact was that ALL the winners, and almost everybody in the theater showed their disconformity about attacking Iraq. This fact, which was totally spontaneous, has brought a lot of discussions in every newspaper and television in Spain.
You know, here in Spain we have this little president called Jose Maria Aznar, who has become a kind of new version of Franco ( the dictator who killed lots of people in Spain for 40 years, and a good friend of Adolf and Benito ). This Aznar is one of the few who support Bush in this economic operation called war against Iraq. The fact that every winner has rejected this plan, caught the goverment off guard. The immediate reaction of the “right-winged” political class has been to ask the dimission of the Spanish Academy President, Marisa Paredes.
I am very afraid of the way things are going. It seems to me that the reaction of the Goverment shows a total lack of respect for a human right called freedom of expression, of speech. But it shouldn´t surprise me looking at the things they are doing. Have you heard about the problem with the Prestige? This boat sunk in front of Spain three months ago, it has lost millions of tons of Fuel and the goverment does nothing about it. But well, that´s another story.
I just want to say that I feel very proud of what the guys who won the Goyas did, because they expressed what they feel. And isn´t cinema just about that?
Dani
