IT WAS always going to be a tough choice, but the judges have made it – and Spain is one very small step closer to scooping up an Oscar in the 2021 Awards ceremony.
As we reported a month ago, three Spanish films had been chosen as pre-candidates, two of which had won Goya Awards and all of which had notched up nominations – the dystopian futuristic El Hoyo ('The Platform'), the 'danger-of-making-assumptions' Galicia-based O Que Arde ('Fire Will Come'), and the partly-true story of an agoraphobic mayor, La Trinchera Infinita ('The Infinite Trench').
You can read about them all here – and about their fellow Goya candidates, award-winners and nominees in this article.
Although cult director Pedro Almodóvar's semi-autobiographical Dolor y Gloria ('Pain and Glory') was nominated for Best International Film this year, and its main star, Antonio Banderas, received the first-ever nomination of his long career for Best Actor, neither of them won the coveted statuette.
However, theirs was the first time Spain had made it to the final leg of the contest since 2004 when Alejandro Amenábar – the director behind The Others, with Nicole Kidman – was nominated for his hard-hitting Mar Adentro ('The Sea Inside'), starring 'Mr Penélope Cruz' Javier Bardem (Skyfall, No Country for Old Men, Eat Pray Love) as paraplegic Ramón Sampedro fighting for his right to die with dignity.
Today (Tuesday) it has been confirmed that one of the three Spanish pre-candidates is now, officially, an Oscar pre-nominee for Best International Film – what used to be called 'Best Foreign Language Film' until the definition changed to allow entry to candidates from non-English-speaking countries, but which were shot in the English language, to be included.
The 'best of three' is La Trinchera Infinita, in which Higinio, played by Antonio de la Torre, hides indoors, frightened of being shot by supporters of dictator General Franco – a fate that was, sadly, very common for anyone, civilian or not, who opposed the despotic leader's fascist régime.
Except Higinio does not leave his house for another 33 years, never seeing daylight again until 1969.
His ordeal is shared by his long-suffering wife Rosa, played by nationally-famous actress Belén Cuesta.
As proof that real life can be stranger than fiction, La Trinchera Infinita is based on the true story of the mayor of Mijas (Málaga province), Manuel Cortés, who remained in self-imposed lockdown for three decades, fearing Franco's firing squad, not emerging until six years before the dictator's death.
Cortés' story became the subject of a TV documentary nine years ago, titled 30 Años de Oscuridad ('30 Years of Darkness').
Directors Aitor Arregi, Jon Garaño and José Mari Goenaga are said to be thrilled to hear they are in the running for an Oscar – as are De la Torre and Cuesta – having netted an eye-watering 15 Goya nominations an award for Belén Cuesta for Best Lead Actress, beating Penélope Cruz, who was gunning for the same for her part in Dolor y Gloria as the main character's mother during his childhood scenes.
The film also won Best Soundtrack Goya for Iñaki Díez, Alazne Ameztoy, Xanti Salvador and Nacho Royo-Villanova, and cleaned up at San Sebastián Film Festival, with a Silver Shell (Concha de Plata) for Best Direction and Best Script.
As all the above shows, the road to an Oscar involves a number of hurdles, and those considered to have the potential can fall by the wayside at any stage of the journey: Firstly, you have to make the pre-candidate list for your country; next, you have to be the only one chosen from your country for the pre-nominee list, a selection that normally only includes 10 films; then, you have to be one of the five on this list to be picked out as an actual nominee for the award.
After that, you have to beat four others to get your golden trophy.
Among the nine others Spain's successful entry has to fight off to make entertainment history are some exceptionally strong entries that have been blockbusters on home soil.
They include Beginning, directed by Dea Kulumbegashvili (Georgia), winner of a Golden Shell (Concha de Oro) at San Sebastián Film Festival; Quo Vadis, Aida?, by Jasmila Zbanić (Bosnia); The Man Standing Next, directed by Woo Min-ho (South Korea); and True Mothers, by Naomi Kawase (Japan), all of whom are considered to be the strongest candidates.
Photograph: Screen-shot from La Trinchera Infinita ('The Infinite Trench') from FilmAffinity and Cinemanía magazine
