MADRID —
With a Golden Bear for Spanish
director Carla Simon and four compatriots
nominated for the Oscars, including superstars Javier Bardem and Penelope Cruz,
Spanish cinema has now begun to captivate a global audience.
اضافة اعلان
When Bardem and Cruz, who have been married for over
a decade, were both tapped for Oscars, the 53-year-old actor could hardly
contain his excitement.
“The fact that (Penelope’s) nomination was for a
role in Spanish ... seems really extraordinary, even historic in terms of the
Spanish brand,” he said in February.
Unlike other countries with a long and distinguished
history of cinema, Spain has struggled to establish itself on the international
stage.
So far, Luis Bunuel has been the only Spanish
director to win the coveted Palme D’Or at
Cannes Film Festival for his
provocative 1961 feature “Viridiana”.
All that is changing now, with Spanish cinema
increasingly recognized for its contribution to the silver screen, the most
recent being Carla Simon’s triumph at this year’s Berlinale where she took the
top prize for “Alcarras” (2022), a Catalan drama about peach farmers.
And according to
Variety magazine, Cruz is rumored
to be in the running for president of the jury at Cannes, an honor already
bestowed upon the legendary Pedro Almodovar, by far Spain’s best-known
filmmaker.
Cruz herself is the only Spanish actress ever to win
an
Oscar, taking home the gong in 2009 for best supporting actress in the Woody
Allen comedy “Vicky Cristina Barcelona”.
And if she wins best actress at the Oscars later
this month for Almodovar’s “Parallel Mothers”, it will be a coup for a film
entirely “Made in Spain”, whose soundtrack has also been nominated for best
original score.
Years of work by film schools
The score was written by
Basque composer Alberto Iglesias, who has worked with Almodovar for two decades
on 13 of his films. This is the fourth time an Iglesias soundtrack has been
nominated for an Oscar.
For him, there is “strong momentum” within Spanish
cinema.
“There is an energy ... it has to do with the film
schools that have been working for a long time to create new filmmakers,” he
told AFP.
“It has been really difficult for Spanish cinema to
cross the threshold and get into these big international festivals,” explains
Pilar Martinez-Vasseur, director of the
Spanish Film Festival in the French
city of Nantes.
Spanish films which have received acclaim abroad are
often not identified as such, she said, pointing to the 2001 psychological
thriller “The Others” starring Nicole Kidman which was directed by Spain’s
Alejandro Amenabar.
“In Spain, we still have the idea that Spanish
cinema is bad, that it’s a nest of communists, that filmmakers are pampered,
they do nothing and get subsidies,” she said, calling for greater support from
the government.
Filmmaking in Spain receives far less state aid than
in France, experts say.
Spanish cinema has had to “learn how to break into a
globalized ecosystem,” said Beatriz Navas who heads the Institute of
Cinematography and Audiovisual Arts (ICAA), which is subsidized by the culture
ministry.
“This hasn’t happened overnight because you need
some sort of ‘greenhouse’ environment where filmmakers can work with freedom,”
she told AFP.
“And the ‘incubation time’ needs to be sufficient
for these productions to achieve the recognition and prestige they deserve.”
‘Spanish cinema’s best moment’
As well as Cruz, Bardem, and
Iglesias, Spain also has a fourth horse in the Oscar race in the form of
Alberto Mielgo’s “The Windshield Wiper” which has been nominated for best
animated short film.
“This is the best moment for Spanish cinema,” said
Jose Luis Rebordinos, director of the prestigious San Sebastian film festival.
“We are making a lot of cinema and audiovisual
productions in Spain, as well as for streaming platforms which is bringing a
lot of work so Spanish film technicians are getting better and better,” he
said.
Spain’s
Western-friendly landscapes have drawn Hollywood directors since the 1960s, and it is becoming an increasingly popular destination for filming series — Netflix,
which set up its first European studios in Madrid in 2019, scored huge hits
with “Money Heist” and “Elite”.
Last year, the government said it wanted Spain to
become
Europe’s “audiovisual hub”, pledging to inject 1.6 billion euros to
expand the film and TV production sector by 30 percent by 2025.
“International critics are increasingly focusing on
our cinematic output thanks to figures like Almodovar, Javier Bardem and
Penelope Cruz,” said Rebordinos.
“They are finding ways to draw more attention to Spanish
cinema.”
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