From American Beauty to Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, from The Matrix to The Sixth Sense through Notting Hill, Fight Club, Magnolia and among others, Eyes Wide Shut, the last film by the immortal Stanley Kubrick. They were all released in 1999, a year of extraordinary impact in the history of cinema and the same year in which Ibiza entered the precious UNESCO World Heritage list. The Ibiza Film Festival, Ibicine, paid tribute in its 7th edition to this happy serendipity, traveling 25 years in time: the sculptor Andrés Herráez – author of the statuette of the Phoenician goddess Astarte that is presented in this contest – installed on the stage of the Can Ventosa theater a replica of the one we saw Rod Taylor handle in Time in His Hands and with it, the audience felt 25 years younger.
This seventh edition had a notable Argentine flavor thanks to the Astarte of Honor to Leonardo Sbaraglia, the International to producer Axel Kuschevatzky and the presence of Santiago Vaca, actor of The Snow Society, who by the way is involved in an audiovisual project with Albert Espinosa. Sbaraglia was excited when he went on stage and went back to the beginning:
“It is very important to receive this award when we are having a bad time in Argentina. I am concerned about this inhospitable moment for culture, public education, health, science... Anyway. When one of the winners dedicated the Astarte to his father, I remembered my grandmother Edeleweiss. In 1987 I took my first steps as an actor and every time I worked on a soap opera or appeared on a program, I recorded myself on VHS. Every Friday afternoon we would watch together and she would do her analysis for me. She was born in Rome in 1914 and would have been an opera singer had she been born in another era. My mother could be an actress and thanks to her, to them, today I am an actor. Thank you [voice cuts off] to both of you. Let's think about the magic that can make this world better and let's continue fighting for peace, for peace and for peace."
Víctor Elías, musical director of the Astarté awards gala, is a pianist so dedicated that Jerry Lee Lewis himself would feel invaded. Watching him play while Ruth Lorenzo leaves the audience with goosebumps performing Purple Rain is a moving experience. He continues with his career as an actor, however, and Fran Perea, his older brother in the series Los Serrano, directs him at the Teatros Luchana in Madrid, where Elías represents in the biographical performance Yo Sustained. “We have been there for five months but we will stop on April 24 because I am starting tours with artists and we will surely resume it in winter. I am very happy to be able to tell you that the Planeta publishing house has been interested and we will make a book with this text.”
In I sustained Víctor Elías opens up completely. “The only thing I'm trying to do is normalize the problems that we all have, including people who, in quotes, seem to have done very well all their lives and because they've been on TV, you haven't had any problems. Well, we all have them, from having financial difficulties to people whose parents have died, like me, at certain ages, which is not fair."
Víctor and Ana Guerra chose October 31 as the date for their wedding not because it coincided with Halloween but because it was an optimal date, with a whole weekend ahead capable of balancing agendas and hosting so many family, half of them, of Canary Islands. They decided to take the step out of pure love. This is how Víctor explains his feelings: “I am very romantic, I really wanted to get married, to be honest. Although they are things that society pushes us to experience at least once in our lives, well, when you are clear that it is that person and that no matter what happens, I speak for myself, he will always be by my side." When asked if there will be many escort agents among the guests, Víctor raises an eyebrow, so it is necessary to specify: the artist is Doña Letizia's second cousin. Will the queen attend her wedding? “I don't know, I have no idea, really, but she is invited, of course, as is my entire family. But… Well, I don't know,” he replies, aware that a queen's agenda is nothing like ours.
In addition to his pairing with Ruth Lorenzo, the audience wildly applauded the formidable Toom Pak percussion company and laughed heartily at the witticisms of Eva Soriano, who returned for the fifth year as host of the gala. She is an endless comedian and at the head of the radio program Special Forces (Europa FM) she had the arrests of entangling whoever pays the tickets to travel to London with the mission of meeting in person her double, the English dancer Ellie Gordon.
Having finished her Showriano program (TVE), Eva is left with “everything I have learned and what I surely still have to learn; “It has been a very cool experience.” The presenter suffered a 'hater' tsunami when the salaries earned by presenters on the public channel were published. Once the hangover is over, she speaks out on the matter: “I'm not going to go into whether I deserve it or not, you do a job and for that activity it is stipulated that you have half a salary. Let's see, I'm not going to say 'no, no, pay me less.' You may agree more or less if it is a lot or a little, but it is another thing to hold a professional responsible for what he or she charges. It's like anyone going to her boss to suggest that she reduce her salary. The only thing I preach is common sense, put yourself in my place. There is a budget item for entertainment and I have received a salary for doing my job, nothing more.”
The actress Nerea Garmendia, a member of this year's jury, has achieved great success with the series Itxaso (Netflix), in which she stars with Jon Plazaola, godfather of the seventh edition of Ibicine and with whom she also worked in All the way down (Antena 3) : “It has been a joy to be able to return to my homeland and film in Basque, although then dubbing myself in Spanish has been very difficult: the phrases in Basque are much longer and you have to fill in words so that they enter the mouth. But it has been quite an experience.”
For two seasons she has been the host of the talk show Akelarre (ETB) with Tania Llasera and Ana Goitia. From that set she left the audience speechless by revealing that her breasts have names: Txindoki and Aizkorri. "It has been wonderful to be able to do a program in which they asked me 'Nerea, be yourself, do whatever you want, bring out your hooliganism and everything you have in there." Right now, there is falling in love inside: Nerea is happy because in Luis Díaz she has found the best possible partner: “he is my perfect one, he is like me as a boy. His sense of humor is wonderful: I believe that humor is the basis of my life and with it everything is humor and love. He values me, respects me, gives me affection and he is very good. And he's younger than me! (laughs).”
