IF YOU'RE in the Comunidad Valenciana any time between now and the early hours of March 20, you may notice an awful lot of noise and colour on the streets. It's the season for the region's biggest festival,...
Goya Award for Ghostbuster Sigourney Weaver...and other winners for 2024
11/02/2024
SIGOURNEY Weaver and survivors of a South American plane crash took centre stage at Spain's answer to the Oscars this week, the Goya Awards – and one film netted 12 prizes out of its 13 nominations.
For the past three years, this huge red-carpet gala celebrating Spanish cinema has also decorated an international silver-screen legend in a brand-new award category – last year, this went to Juliette Binoche (Chocolat, The English Patient, Trois Couleurs: Rouge), and in 2022, amid rumours of her possibly becoming the next 'Almodóvar Girl', to Cate Blanchett (Charlotte Gray, Notes on a Scandal).
And the International Goya in 2024 went to a Hollywood icon who is certainly not Alien to the Spanish language – Sigourney Weaver proved this as she gave her acceptance speech fluently in the native tongue of the awarding nation.
Born Susan Alexanda Weaver to an NBC television reporter dad and a British actress mum, Ghostbusters star Sigourney, 74, was visibly overwhelmed, and told the applauding audience that they 'were making her feel like a queen'.
She had previously been nominated for a Goya in the Best Supporting Actress category for her rôle in A Monster Calls, based upon the Patrick Ness novel of the same name and directed by J. A. Bayona.
And as well as presenting Sigourney with her statuette, Bayona spent most of the evening welded to the stage as his own film, Sociedad de la Nieve ('Society of the Snow') swept the board.
Sociedad de la Nieve, a tale of survival in the snow, nets a dozen trophies
Made for Netflix, the hard-hitting production is based upon a true story and one that has become legendary worldwide: When Uruguayan Air Force flight 571, carrying a team of rugby players to Chile, crashed in the Andes in 1972, only 29 of the 45 passengers and crew survived. They then had to face the elements to stay alive long enough to be rescued, in some of the harshest and most hostile conditions on earth, and resorting to extreme measures to cheat death – in the end, only 16 of the 29 lived to tell the tale.
Their unprecedented ordeal became a bestselling novel, penned by Uruguayan author Pablo Vierci, 73, and now adapted to screen by Bayona.
The 48-year-old Spaniard has a string of mainstream global films to his name: As well as A Monster Calls, Bayona directed The Impossible (2012), starring Ewan McGregor and Naomi Watts as holidaymakers caught up in the devastating Boxing Day tsunami in Thailand; Jurassic World: The Fallen Kingdom (2018), featuring Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard; and the multiple Goya-nominated El Orfanato ('The Orphanage', 2007), a suipernatural horror film starring prolific Spanish actress Belén Rueda and lifelong Spain resident Geraldine Chaplin.
Dr Zhivago star Geraldine, now 80, is the daughter of legendary British actor Charlie Chaplin, has lived in Spain since the 1960s after settling there with her then-partner, film director Carlos Saura, holds a Goya Award of her own, and her daughter Oona is a regular face on Spanish TV and cinema – as well as playing Talisa Maegyr in Game of Thrones.
So although Sociedad de la Nieve is a very Spanish production, it has numerous international links, and its huge collection of Goyas will only help it to become more famous worldwide.
Taking home Goyas for Best Film, Best Direction, Best New Actor for Matías Recalt, Best Original Score for composer Michael Giacchino, Best Production for Margarita Huguet, Best Photographic Direction for Pedro Luque, Best Set Design for Andrés Gil and Jaume Martí, Best Artistic Direction for Alain Bainée, Best Costume Design for Julio Suárez, Best Hair and Makeup for Ana López-Puigcerver, Belén López-Puigcerver and Montse Ribé, Best Soundtrack for Jorge Adrados, Oriol Tarragó and Marc Orts, and Best Special Effects for Pau Costa, Félix Bergés and Laura Pedro, the only nomination it did not win was Best Adapted Screenplay (for Bayona, Bernat Vilaplana, Jaime Marqués Olarreaga and Nicolás Casariego).
This latter award went to Pablo Berger for his cartoon Robot Dreams, about a dog called Dog living in 1980s' Manhattan who builds himself an android best friend – one of two Goyas it earned along with Best Animated Film.
Best Lead Actress
Along with Best Film and Best Direction, the biggest and most sought-after awards for cast and crew are the Actress and Actor categories. Other than Best New Actor, Sociedad de la Nieve was not nominated for any of these.
Instead, Best Lead Actress was won by Malena Alterio for playing Lucía in Que Nadie Duerma ('May No-One Sleep'), a crime thriller about an IT programmer who loses her job and decides to become a taxi driver. In search of love and new adventures, Lucía finds herself embroiled in a revenge plot against people she never should have trusted and who have stolen her identity.
Best Lead Actor
Light relief came with the film that won the top male award – a comedy set in 1960s' Barcelona about two young lovers and their on-stage journey starting from their instant attraction to each other on a bus.
David Verdaguer plays young jeweller Eugenio Jofra in Saben Aquell...? - which translates, for the purpose of the film, as 'Have you heard the one about...?' - who, smitten with musician Conchita, learns to play the guitar and battles his stage fright to accompany her on tour. During a two-week absence from the city, Conchita convinces Eugenio to carry on performing without her – and by the time she returns, he has shot to fame as an underground stand-up comedian on the arts circuit.
They decide to take their stage career down the comedy route, styling themselves in black shirts and dark glasses with cigars, half-pints of beer and bar stools, becoming an unexpected success in a gloomy, dictatorship-era Spain, whose people are desperate for some laughs.
Best Supporting Actress
Described as 'a delicate and perfect portrait of identity, childhood and family' by Cadena SER radio, the heartwarming 20.000 Especies de Abejas ('20,000 Species of Bees') focuses on three generations of women and their emotional journey one summer. Cocó (Sofía Otero), aged eight, doesn't fit in anywhere and fails to live up to everyone's expectations, and for some reason, keeps getting called 'Aitor'; mum Ane, grappling with work and love-life problems, decides to get away from it all and take her three children on holiday to her childhood home, where her own mother Lita (Itziar Lazkano) and aunt Lourdes live, working as beekeepers and producing honey. As they all face up to their fears and doubts, Ane is finally forced to be honest with herself.
Ane is played by Patricia López Arnaiz, but confusingly, winner of Best Supporting Actress has the same name in real life as the main character – Aunt Lourdes is played by Ane Gabarain, who took home the trophy.
This heartwarming 'family secrets' drama also earned Goyas for Best Original Script and Best New Director for its creator, Estíbalíz Urresola Solaguren.
Best Supporting Actor
A mystery spanning many years and plenty of twists, in Cerrar los Ojos ('Close Your Eyes'), a high-profile Spanish actor Julio Arenas, goes missing out at sea during filming and is presumed dead, although his body has never been found. A generation later, a TV documentary on Arenas' life and disappearance is made, featuring some of the scenes he shot before he vanished, which were directed by the star's close friend Miguel Garay.
Manolo Soto, who played Miguel Garay, was nominated for Best Lead Actor, but it was the fleeting presence of the missing Julio Arenas that led to Cerrar los Ojos gaining a Goya – José Coronado, who fleshed out the screen star who disappeared, took the Best Supporting Actor trophy.
Best New Actress
Set on Arousa Island off the coast of north-western Galicia in 1971, and entirely in the regional language gallego – but subtitled in Spanish – O Corno centres on María, who earns a meagre living through collecting shellfish off the beach and also assisting women give birth. An unofficial midwife, she is known locally for her excellent bedside manner and conscientious focus when called in to help deliver islanders' babies. But an unexpected and traumatic incident forces her to go on the run, making a dangerous journey across the Galicia-Portugal border via a well-documented smugglers' route, fighting for her life.
According to director Jaione Camborda, the corno is the name of a type of fungus that grows between the grains of the rye plant and which, decades ago, was taken as a herbal medicine to induce abortions, which could not be performed legally in Spain until 1985.
Best New Actress winner Janet Novás, 42, who plays María, is only credited with this one production, according to FilmAffinity – her main profession is as a dancer and choreographer. But scooping up a Goya for your first-ever screen acting job is momentous, outstanding and a sure-fire sign of future stardom; in fact, O Corno is the first film in gallego ever to take home a coveted trophy at these prestigious national awards.
Best European Film
Nominations for this category include the British coming-of-age drama Aftersun, starring Celia Rowlson-Hall, Paul Mescal and a young Frankie Corio as 11-year-old Sophie; German school detective production The Teachers' Lounge, where idealistic maths and PE tutor Carla Nowak investigates a series of burglaries; Croatian family and mental health drama Sigurno Mjesto ('Safe Place'); and Italian friendship epic Le Otto Montagne ('The Eight Mountains'), where two young boys, one a city lad and another growing up in rural isolation, forge a lifelong bond.
The winner, a French production, appears harrowing at first, with a storyline that reflects every family's worst nightmare, but a sensational twist changes everything. In Anatomie d'une Chute ('Anatomy of a Fall'), 11-year-old Daniel, who lives with parents Sandra and Samuel in a remote mountain village, is found dead outside his home. Mum Sandra is immediately suspected and charged, although police are unsure whether they are dealing with a murder or a suicide. But when Sandra stands trial for her son's death a year later, Daniel is present in the courtroom.
Goyas: The background
The awards, named after late-18th and early-19th neo-classical painter Francisco de Goya, have been running since 1987, when the first-ever Best Film award went to the slapstick El Viaje a Ninguna Parte ('Voyage to Nowhere'), set in the 1940s and loosely based on Don Quijote. The following year, Best Lead Actress and Best Supporting Actress both went to the late Verónica Forqué, who would go on to star in numerous films by world-famous director Pedro Almodóvar and, in 2019, alongside British actress Sienna Guillory and US and British actors Bruce Dern and Brian Cox in the Anglo-Spanish production Remember Me.
Over the last 37 years, actor and actress awards have gone to global household names such as Nicole Kidman, Penélope Cruz, Viggo Mortensen, Salma Hayek, Benicio del Toro, and Rachel Weisz.
Honorary Goyas for lifetime achievement
Every year since the first edition, an Honorary Goya has been given as a lifetime achievement prize – starting with photographic director José Aguayo in 1987, via actor and director Tony LeBlanc in 1994, Málaga-born Hollywood star Antonio Banderas in 2015, and posthumously to director Carlos Saura in 2023.
The 2024 Honorary Goya: Nearly 90 years in the industry and still working
This year the Honorary Goya went to its oldest-ever winner – Juan Mariné turned 103 on New Year's Eve, and his eight-decade-long career as a photographic director, film restorer and film researcher includes over 150 productions, some of them pivotal moments in social and cultural history. Mariné recorded the funeral of Buenaventura Durruti in 1936 – before being captured and held in concentration camps in France during World War II – and photographed the first-ever Spanish film in colour, La Gata ('The Cat', in the feminine).
Starting work at age 14, in 1935, Juan Mariné's first job as photographic director was on Antonio del Amo's Cuatro Mujeres ('Four Women') in 1947 – but despite his enormous filmography and collaborations with hundreds of directors and producers, Mariné was never bothered about seeking fame in Hollywood. Not even when Orson Welles offered to let him stay at his Los Angeles home when Mariné was taking classes at the University of California.
“After surviving the Civil War, I swore that I'd devote the rest of my life to film,” Mariné, who fought in and was imprisoned during the three-year conflict in Spain.
And he has kept his word. Juan Mariné's last photographic director job was on Juan Piquer's La Grieta ('The Rift') in 1989, after which he focused entirely on restoring and researching old films, setting up his own laboratory in the basement of the Madrid Region Cinematography and Audio-Visual School (ECAM) – which he jokingly refers to as 'The Submariné' – using technology of his own design.
The extent of Juan Mariné's experience is practically impossible to replicate, given that he has been working longer than most people expect to even live, but he semi-retired aged 99 when the pandemic hit Spain in 2020 and lockdowns prevented him from travelling to his 'Submariné'.
Anyone who loves their job enough to still be at it when their age hits treble figures more than deserves an award – and the 2024 Honorary Goya is the latest in a string of them he has acquired since his début in the industry nearly 90 years ago.
Related Topics
SIGOURNEY Weaver and survivors of a South American plane crash took centre stage at Spain's answer to the Oscars this week, the Goya Awards – and one film netted 12 prizes out of its 13 nominations.
For the past three years, this huge red-carpet gala celebrating Spanish cinema has also decorated an international silver-screen legend in a brand-new award category – last year, this went to Juliette Binoche (Chocolat, The English Patient, Trois Couleurs: Rouge), and in 2022, amid rumours of her possibly becoming the next 'Almodóvar Girl', to Cate Blanchett (Charlotte Gray, Notes on a Scandal).
And the International Goya in 2024 went to a Hollywood icon who is certainly not Alien to the Spanish language – Sigourney Weaver proved this as she gave her acceptance speech fluently in the native tongue of the awarding nation.
Born Susan Alexanda Weaver to an NBC television reporter dad and a British actress mum, Ghostbusters star Sigourney, 74, was visibly overwhelmed, and told the applauding audience that they 'were making her feel like a queen'.
She had previously been nominated for a Goya in the Best Supporting Actress category for her rôle in A Monster Calls, based upon the Patrick Ness novel of the same name and directed by J. A. Bayona.
And as well as presenting Sigourney with her statuette, Bayona spent most of the evening welded to the stage as his own film, Sociedad de la Nieve ('Society of the Snow') swept the board.
Sociedad de la Nieve, a tale of survival in the snow, nets a dozen trophies
Made for Netflix, the hard-hitting production is based upon a true story and one that has become legendary worldwide: When Uruguayan Air Force flight 571, carrying a team of rugby players to Chile, crashed in the Andes in 1972, only 29 of the 45 passengers and crew survived. They then had to face the elements to stay alive long enough to be rescued, in some of the harshest and most hostile conditions on earth, and resorting to extreme measures to cheat death – in the end, only 16 of the 29 lived to tell the tale.
Their unprecedented ordeal became a bestselling novel, penned by Uruguayan author Pablo Vierci, 73, and now adapted to screen by Bayona.
The 48-year-old Spaniard has a string of mainstream global films to his name: As well as A Monster Calls, Bayona directed The Impossible (2012), starring Ewan McGregor and Naomi Watts as holidaymakers caught up in the devastating Boxing Day tsunami in Thailand; Jurassic World: The Fallen Kingdom (2018), featuring Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard; and the multiple Goya-nominated El Orfanato ('The Orphanage', 2007), a suipernatural horror film starring prolific Spanish actress Belén Rueda and lifelong Spain resident Geraldine Chaplin.
Dr Zhivago star Geraldine, now 80, is the daughter of legendary British actor Charlie Chaplin, has lived in Spain since the 1960s after settling there with her then-partner, film director Carlos Saura, holds a Goya Award of her own, and her daughter Oona is a regular face on Spanish TV and cinema – as well as playing Talisa Maegyr in Game of Thrones.
So although Sociedad de la Nieve is a very Spanish production, it has numerous international links, and its huge collection of Goyas will only help it to become more famous worldwide.
Taking home Goyas for Best Film, Best Direction, Best New Actor for Matías Recalt, Best Original Score for composer Michael Giacchino, Best Production for Margarita Huguet, Best Photographic Direction for Pedro Luque, Best Set Design for Andrés Gil and Jaume Martí, Best Artistic Direction for Alain Bainée, Best Costume Design for Julio Suárez, Best Hair and Makeup for Ana López-Puigcerver, Belén López-Puigcerver and Montse Ribé, Best Soundtrack for Jorge Adrados, Oriol Tarragó and Marc Orts, and Best Special Effects for Pau Costa, Félix Bergés and Laura Pedro, the only nomination it did not win was Best Adapted Screenplay (for Bayona, Bernat Vilaplana, Jaime Marqués Olarreaga and Nicolás Casariego).
This latter award went to Pablo Berger for his cartoon Robot Dreams, about a dog called Dog living in 1980s' Manhattan who builds himself an android best friend – one of two Goyas it earned along with Best Animated Film.
Best Lead Actress
Along with Best Film and Best Direction, the biggest and most sought-after awards for cast and crew are the Actress and Actor categories. Other than Best New Actor, Sociedad de la Nieve was not nominated for any of these.
Instead, Best Lead Actress was won by Malena Alterio for playing Lucía in Que Nadie Duerma ('May No-One Sleep'), a crime thriller about an IT programmer who loses her job and decides to become a taxi driver. In search of love and new adventures, Lucía finds herself embroiled in a revenge plot against people she never should have trusted and who have stolen her identity.
Best Lead Actor
Light relief came with the film that won the top male award – a comedy set in 1960s' Barcelona about two young lovers and their on-stage journey starting from their instant attraction to each other on a bus.
David Verdaguer plays young jeweller Eugenio Jofra in Saben Aquell...? - which translates, for the purpose of the film, as 'Have you heard the one about...?' - who, smitten with musician Conchita, learns to play the guitar and battles his stage fright to accompany her on tour. During a two-week absence from the city, Conchita convinces Eugenio to carry on performing without her – and by the time she returns, he has shot to fame as an underground stand-up comedian on the arts circuit.
They decide to take their stage career down the comedy route, styling themselves in black shirts and dark glasses with cigars, half-pints of beer and bar stools, becoming an unexpected success in a gloomy, dictatorship-era Spain, whose people are desperate for some laughs.
Best Supporting Actress
Described as 'a delicate and perfect portrait of identity, childhood and family' by Cadena SER radio, the heartwarming 20.000 Especies de Abejas ('20,000 Species of Bees') focuses on three generations of women and their emotional journey one summer. Cocó (Sofía Otero), aged eight, doesn't fit in anywhere and fails to live up to everyone's expectations, and for some reason, keeps getting called 'Aitor'; mum Ane, grappling with work and love-life problems, decides to get away from it all and take her three children on holiday to her childhood home, where her own mother Lita (Itziar Lazkano) and aunt Lourdes live, working as beekeepers and producing honey. As they all face up to their fears and doubts, Ane is finally forced to be honest with herself.
Ane is played by Patricia López Arnaiz, but confusingly, winner of Best Supporting Actress has the same name in real life as the main character – Aunt Lourdes is played by Ane Gabarain, who took home the trophy.
This heartwarming 'family secrets' drama also earned Goyas for Best Original Script and Best New Director for its creator, Estíbalíz Urresola Solaguren.
Best Supporting Actor
A mystery spanning many years and plenty of twists, in Cerrar los Ojos ('Close Your Eyes'), a high-profile Spanish actor Julio Arenas, goes missing out at sea during filming and is presumed dead, although his body has never been found. A generation later, a TV documentary on Arenas' life and disappearance is made, featuring some of the scenes he shot before he vanished, which were directed by the star's close friend Miguel Garay.
Manolo Soto, who played Miguel Garay, was nominated for Best Lead Actor, but it was the fleeting presence of the missing Julio Arenas that led to Cerrar los Ojos gaining a Goya – José Coronado, who fleshed out the screen star who disappeared, took the Best Supporting Actor trophy.
Best New Actress
Set on Arousa Island off the coast of north-western Galicia in 1971, and entirely in the regional language gallego – but subtitled in Spanish – O Corno centres on María, who earns a meagre living through collecting shellfish off the beach and also assisting women give birth. An unofficial midwife, she is known locally for her excellent bedside manner and conscientious focus when called in to help deliver islanders' babies. But an unexpected and traumatic incident forces her to go on the run, making a dangerous journey across the Galicia-Portugal border via a well-documented smugglers' route, fighting for her life.
According to director Jaione Camborda, the corno is the name of a type of fungus that grows between the grains of the rye plant and which, decades ago, was taken as a herbal medicine to induce abortions, which could not be performed legally in Spain until 1985.
Best New Actress winner Janet Novás, 42, who plays María, is only credited with this one production, according to FilmAffinity – her main profession is as a dancer and choreographer. But scooping up a Goya for your first-ever screen acting job is momentous, outstanding and a sure-fire sign of future stardom; in fact, O Corno is the first film in gallego ever to take home a coveted trophy at these prestigious national awards.
Best European Film
Nominations for this category include the British coming-of-age drama Aftersun, starring Celia Rowlson-Hall, Paul Mescal and a young Frankie Corio as 11-year-old Sophie; German school detective production The Teachers' Lounge, where idealistic maths and PE tutor Carla Nowak investigates a series of burglaries; Croatian family and mental health drama Sigurno Mjesto ('Safe Place'); and Italian friendship epic Le Otto Montagne ('The Eight Mountains'), where two young boys, one a city lad and another growing up in rural isolation, forge a lifelong bond.
The winner, a French production, appears harrowing at first, with a storyline that reflects every family's worst nightmare, but a sensational twist changes everything. In Anatomie d'une Chute ('Anatomy of a Fall'), 11-year-old Daniel, who lives with parents Sandra and Samuel in a remote mountain village, is found dead outside his home. Mum Sandra is immediately suspected and charged, although police are unsure whether they are dealing with a murder or a suicide. But when Sandra stands trial for her son's death a year later, Daniel is present in the courtroom.
Goyas: The background
The awards, named after late-18th and early-19th neo-classical painter Francisco de Goya, have been running since 1987, when the first-ever Best Film award went to the slapstick El Viaje a Ninguna Parte ('Voyage to Nowhere'), set in the 1940s and loosely based on Don Quijote. The following year, Best Lead Actress and Best Supporting Actress both went to the late Verónica Forqué, who would go on to star in numerous films by world-famous director Pedro Almodóvar and, in 2019, alongside British actress Sienna Guillory and US and British actors Bruce Dern and Brian Cox in the Anglo-Spanish production Remember Me.
Over the last 37 years, actor and actress awards have gone to global household names such as Nicole Kidman, Penélope Cruz, Viggo Mortensen, Salma Hayek, Benicio del Toro, and Rachel Weisz.
Honorary Goyas for lifetime achievement
Every year since the first edition, an Honorary Goya has been given as a lifetime achievement prize – starting with photographic director José Aguayo in 1987, via actor and director Tony LeBlanc in 1994, Málaga-born Hollywood star Antonio Banderas in 2015, and posthumously to director Carlos Saura in 2023.
The 2024 Honorary Goya: Nearly 90 years in the industry and still working
This year the Honorary Goya went to its oldest-ever winner – Juan Mariné turned 103 on New Year's Eve, and his eight-decade-long career as a photographic director, film restorer and film researcher includes over 150 productions, some of them pivotal moments in social and cultural history. Mariné recorded the funeral of Buenaventura Durruti in 1936 – before being captured and held in concentration camps in France during World War II – and photographed the first-ever Spanish film in colour, La Gata ('The Cat', in the feminine).
Starting work at age 14, in 1935, Juan Mariné's first job as photographic director was on Antonio del Amo's Cuatro Mujeres ('Four Women') in 1947 – but despite his enormous filmography and collaborations with hundreds of directors and producers, Mariné was never bothered about seeking fame in Hollywood. Not even when Orson Welles offered to let him stay at his Los Angeles home when Mariné was taking classes at the University of California.
“After surviving the Civil War, I swore that I'd devote the rest of my life to film,” Mariné, who fought in and was imprisoned during the three-year conflict in Spain.
And he has kept his word. Juan Mariné's last photographic director job was on Juan Piquer's La Grieta ('The Rift') in 1989, after which he focused entirely on restoring and researching old films, setting up his own laboratory in the basement of the Madrid Region Cinematography and Audio-Visual School (ECAM) – which he jokingly refers to as 'The Submariné' – using technology of his own design.
The extent of Juan Mariné's experience is practically impossible to replicate, given that he has been working longer than most people expect to even live, but he semi-retired aged 99 when the pandemic hit Spain in 2020 and lockdowns prevented him from travelling to his 'Submariné'.
Anyone who loves their job enough to still be at it when their age hits treble figures more than deserves an award – and the 2024 Honorary Goya is the latest in a string of them he has acquired since his début in the industry nearly 90 years ago.
Related Topics
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