Spanish Queen meets two British ones: Award for Dame Judi Dench in Mallorca

TWO 'Queens' - or, in theory, three - met on the same island and one gave the other an award this week: HRH Letizia rounded off the Atlàntida Mallorca Film Fest by presenting multiple on-screen ‘Royal’ Judi Dench with the Masters of Cinema prize.

King Felipe VI and Queen Letizia spend their summers at the family estate, Marivent, in Mallorca – usually joined by their daughters Leonor, 15 and Sofía, 14, although in past years they have split the holidays between the largest of the Balearics and summer camp in the USA to improve their already near-perfect English – and veteran actress Dame Judi Dench was there this time for the festival.

This summer is already overshadowed for Queen Letizia, who lost her grandmother a week ago – long-running and pioneering radio DJ and on-air reporter Menchu Álvarez del Valle, 93; in fact, Letizia was so distraught that she did not go to the funeral in Menchu's home town of Ribadesella (Asturias).

Whether Queen Letizia's dark-coloured dress was coincidental or a sign of mourning is not clear, but her attendance at the Atlàntida Mallorca Film Fest certainly gave her something to take her mind off her loss, and gave her the chance to meet some of Europe's top silver-screen stars in person.

Being royalty takes nothing away from the thrill of meeting celebrities in other fields, and Letizia was evidently delighted to be able to chat briefly to British film director Stephen Frears, 80, the brains behind major productions such as Les Liaisons Dangereuses and The Queen.

Frears also picked up a Masters of Cinema award, which was actually for 2020 but which he was unable to collect at the time due to the pandemic.

Dame Judi, who appeared vibrant and much younger than her 86 years, talked enthusiastically to Queen Letizia and answered questions about the highlights from her long career, which launched in 1964.

The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel star said: “It was 1950 when I first came to this island, and fell completely in love with it and everything in it. And I never imagined I'd be back here 70 years later. I'm profoundly overwhelmed!”

As well as key rôles in James Bond films – playing M in GoldenEye, Tomorrow Never Dies, Die Another Day and Casino Royale – in the Shakespearean productions Hamlet and Macbeth, and starring alongside Cate Blanchett in Notes on a Scandal and Kevin Spacey in the screen adaptation of Annie Proulx's The Shipping News, Dame Judi Dench is no stranger to the job of being Queen, even if only for the benefit of the camera.

She has fleshed not just one, but two different monarchs – even though she has yet to play the UK's current Queen, Her Majesty Elizabeth II – and in three separate productions, taking the part of Elizabeth I in Shakespeare in Love, for which she won an Oscar in 1999, and Queen Victoria in Mrs Brown and Victoria and Abdul.

After the awards presentation, a 'lost' silent film with eerie parallels to life as we know it in the 2020s was resurrected and shown – Le Chef Politique, a French production first aired 96 years ago and 'out of print' until now, created by the famous silent-film director André Hugon, who died in 1960.

It was restored by the Spanish Film Library and Mallorca Sound and Vision Archive (ASIM), and seen again for the first time in decades.

Le Chef Politique was shot entirely in Mallorca and opens with scenes of patients being treated in a hospital during the Spanish 'flu pandemic, which serves as the backdrop for timeless themes such as social revolution and struggle, human ambition and political corruption.

The last time Queen Letizia was at the Atlàntida Mallorca Film Fest was in 2019, when she cut the red tape on the official opening and presented the Masters of Cinema award to British film director Ken Loach.

This year's started on July 26 and ended on Sunday, organised by Filmin, the largest Spanish-language film portal on the internet.