Second Spanish Oscar on the trot...and who else won?

FOR THE second year running, Spain has taken home an Oscar – although not for the country's star 'Mr and Mrs', who were up for the top awards in completely different films.

Cult director Pedro Almodóvar's latest feature, Madres Paralelas ('Parallel Mothers'), did not make the top five, but one of its two main females, Penélope Cruz, went head-to-head with Nicole Kidman for Best Actress in a Leading Rôle.

And Nicole Kidman's nomination was for her part in Being the Ricardos, the film which earned Penélope's Skyfall villain husband Javier Bardem his own place in the top five for Best Actor in a Leading Rôle.

It seemed unlikely, given the enormous acclaim some of their rival films had achieved, but Spanish cinema fans were crossing their fingers that 2022 would see the first-ever married couple from their country taking home statuettes in major categories.

Neither Penélope nor Javier had to worry about acceptance speeches, and Spain did not have a nomination for Best International Film this year – neither did Alberto Iglesias win after being nominated for Best Original Score for Madres Paralelas.

But following on from Cantabria-born Sergio López-Rivera's Oscar for 'Best Hair and Makeup' for 'Ma Rainey's Black Bottom' in 2021 – still considered to be a 'Spanish award' even though Sergio has lived in Los Angeles for 35 years – one of the country's films has netted a statuette at the 94th edition.

Alberto Mielgo's The Windshield Wiper (El Limpiaparabrisas in Spanish) centres on one man's existential crisis: Sitting in a café chain-smoking, mulling over his past mistakes, life's peaks and troughs, expectations and longings – mostly unrealistic or unfulfilled – a lone man considers the fundamental and rhetorical question, 'what is love'?

A series of comic strips focusing on the various phases of romantic relationships, the future of dating and love, and the basics of human nature, bring the protagonist through a journey of enlightenment and, finally, to a conclusion.

All of that in just 15 minutes of screen time.

Mielgo, who will turn 43 in April, was born in the Greater Madrid region town of Torrelodones, but moved to the USA when he was 24 to join the production team of Sinbad: The Legend of the Seven Seas. 

He formed part of the conceptual art team for the 2010 Harry Potter film, The Deathly Hallows, and has been artistic director for several videos for Blur's Damon Albarn's 'animated' group, Gorillaz.

Mielgo was taken on by Sony Pictures Animation in 2015 as visual consultant for Spider-Man: A New Universe, which would go on to win Best Animated Feature Film at the 2019 Oscars. 

His artistic direction of the 2012 series Tron: Uprising earned him a Primetime Emmy and an Annie Award – in fact, in total, he has four of the former and two of the latter to his name.

As well as Sony, Mielgo has worked with Disney and with director Tim Burton.

The complete list of winners

Despite a whopping 12 nominations, the western starring Benedict Cumberbatch, The Power of the Dog, only took home one award; the latest screen adaptation of Frank Herbert's sci-fi classic, Dune, with eight nominations, only missed out on two, earning its creators a massive six statuettes.

CODA, something of an outsider and well below The Power of the Dog and Dune on the various 'favourites' list, netted three awards. 

Produced for Apple TV, CODA features a family of deaf fishermen whose daughter decides she wants to go into the music industry.

Nightmare Alley, Licorice Pizza, Don't Look Up, The Lost Daughter, Tick, Tick...Boom!, House of Gucci, The Worst Person in the World and Being the Ricardos fell at the final hurdle, their cast and creators going home without any awards.

Here are all this year's winners.

Best Picture: CODA

Best Director: Jane Campion for The Power of the Dog

Best Actor in a Leading Rôle: Will Smith for King Richard

Best Actress in a Leading Rôle: Jessica Chastain for The Eyes of Tammy Faye

Best Actor in a Supporting Rôle: Troy Kotsur for CODA

Best Actress in a Supporting Rôle: Ariana DeBose for West Side Story

Best Original Screenplay: Kenneth Branagh for Belfast

Best Adapted Screenplay: Siân Heder for CODA

Best Cinematography: Greig Fraser for Dune

Best Film Editing: Joe Walker for Dune

Best Original Score: Hans Zimmer for Dune

Best Original Song: Billie Eilish and Finneas O'Connell for No Time to Die

Best Costume Design: Jenny Beavan for Cruella

Best Makeup and Hairstyling: Linda Dowds, Stephanie Ingram and Justin Raleigh for The Eyes of Tammy Faye

Best Visual Effects: Dune

Best Achievement in Sound: Mac Ruth, Mark Mangini, Theo Green, Dough Hemphill and Ron Bartlett for Dune 

Best Production Design: Patrice Vermette and Zsuzsanna Sipos for Dune

Best Animated Feature Film: Jared Bush, Byron Howard and Charise Castro Smith for Encanto

Best Live Action Short Film: Aneil Karia and Riz Ahmed for The Long Goodbye

Best Documentary Feature: Questlove for Summer of Soul (or, When the Revolution Could Not be Televised)

Best Documentary Short Subject: The Queen of Basketball

Best International Film: Ryûsuke Hamaguchi for Drive My Car (Japan)

Best Animated Short Film: Alberto Mielgo and Leo Sánchez for The Windshield Wiper