NOW. Bayona enters the press room of the Goyas. He gets a huge round of applause from the reporters. It's past two in the morning, usual European time for press conferences. Bayona has just swept away and made history - twelve statuettes for La sociedad de la nieve, the third most awarded film at the Goyas after Mar adentro and ¡Ay, Carmela! – and, with almost no respite, they soon have to take him to Madrid to catch a plane on his way to Los Angeles, where he has the luncheon for the Oscar nominees. he is happy And the first question doesn't fail: he has been seen crying profusely while accepting his first Goya for best film. "Don't we want other masculinities?", laughs with all the journalists.
"I was very excited. All films are always very difficult to make and I was moved to see the whole team recognized, especially Matías Recalt, the breakthrough actor, with whom teamwork is somehow rewarded", he explains. And he admits that after going up to pick up the Goya for best director he didn't have them all and he thought it could happen to him like other times with The Orphanage, The Impossible and Un monstre em ve ver. Director yes, film no: "We added three attempts and we didn't get there", he remembers. But it was yes and she returned to the stage with Penélope Cruz, Cecilia Roth, Marisa Paredes, Antonia San Juan and Pedro Almodóvar, who presented Valladolid with the great prize of the night to commemorate the 25 years of the Oscar winner Todo sobre mi madre and, with luck, pass the statuette's testimony to Bayonne.
And here, in the final stretch, in Bayona's speech after collecting the award for best director and Almodóvar's before opening the best film envelope, two of the ghosts of the night appeared: Vox, a match against which the Mancheque director threw the darts directly, and Netflix, the platform so often demonized as a threat to cinemas but which was the only one, Bayona recalled, which made possible after years of attempts La sociedad of the snow The third ghost, sexual violence against women in cinema and in society, had already marred the entire ceremony conducted by s. Javis and Ana Belén, which was conclusive: "It's over here too".
It was a gala with many Catalan prize-winners and a lot of Chess talent – among them Bayona and Estibaliz Urresola – and the rest of La sociedad de la nieve's rivals were light years away from the list: the other big favourite, 20,000 species of bees, by Urresola, won three awards, first-time director, screenplay and supporting actress; A love and Creature took nothing away; There is that one, only the best actor for David Verdaguer, the same as Cerrar los ojos by Víctor Erice with the Goya supporting José Coronado. Malena Alterio was the best actress for Que nadie duerma. Of course, Pablo Berger surprised by winning not only the award for the animated film for Robot dreams but also the adapted screenplay, the only award of the night that eluded him in Bayonne.
A Bayona who recalled that "for ten years we have been listening to people who told us that this film was not possible, that a film could not be made in Spanish with this level of ambition, and thanks to the appearance of Netflix ( thanks, Netflix), they were wrong. it can be done And I say they were wrong because the film, although there was no audience for the film, has accumulated 150 million viewers around the world, a film made in Spain in Spanish. And even though an agreement was not reached with the two biggest cinema chains in Spain, we rolled up our sleeves and went out on the road to fight it out and we already have 450,000 viewers in theaters."
A combative spirit that also presided over the gala, in which the situation in Gaza was denounced and in which Almodóvar finally spoke about the other elephant in the room: he took advantage of the presentation of the award for the best film to charge against the controversial vice-president of Castile and León Juan García-Gallardo, with whom Vox was attending the gala for the first time and who had asked on Friday that the cinema make "real claims" and talk about the problems of farmers and ranchers, those who "don't they are gentlemen". "The gentlemen are the ones who want to live by producing cinematographic works that nobody sees afterwards at the expense of millions and millions of euros that Spanish taxpayers pay with great effort", he said.
The presence of Vox at the gala was questioned - the Berlinale has withdrawn the invitation to the AfD party - and Javier Calvo, one of the Javis, before the start referred "to some words of Pedro Zerolo, who said: 'In my world, you do have a place in it, but I don't in yours'". Almodóvar joked with the audience: "One of these gentlemen is telling them that we collect the subsidies and then make very bad films that are of no interest to anyone. I will tell this man the obvious: the money that filmmakers receive as an advance, we return more than enough to the State through our taxes and Social Security, creating thousands of jobs". After the gala, García-Gallardo tweeted: “A lot
