FILM OF THE WEEK
INTERVIEW | 'Las 13 rosas' and 'El orfanato' dominate the 2007 Goya Award nominations |
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| Written by the editor | |
| Tuesday, 18 December 2007 | |
 A scene from 'Las 13 rosas' (The 13 Roses) from Emilio Martinez-Lazaro. The film has been nominated for 14 Goyas. Photo (c): Alta Classics, all rights reserved. The nominations for the Spanish national film prizes, the Goyas, were announced earlier this week, with two very different films each bagging a staggering 14 nominations: Juan Antonio Bayona's El orfanato (The Orphanage), a horror story set at the titular location and Las 13 rosas (The 13 Roses) from director Emilio Martinez-Lazaro, the true story of 13 women detained and executed by the Franco regime in 1939. They share a Best Picture nomination with Gracia Querejeta's female drama Siete Mesas de Billar Francés (Seven French Billiard Tables), which has a total of ten nominations and the surprise Best Picture nominee La Soledad (Solitary Fragments), an avant-garde meditation on loneliness in the wake of a bus bombing mostly shown in split-screen. The small but powerful film also earned Jaime Rosales a Best Director nomination and was further cited in the Best Male Newcomer category for José Luis Torrijo's performance.
There could not be a bigger difference between La soledad and El orfanato, though both began their careers in sidebars at the Cannes Film Festival. The former attracted shy of 34,000 ticket-buyers upon its release in Spain this summer, while the latter is still playing in cinemas after two months and has already been seen by over 4 million people, making it the biggest locally produced Spanish-language title in history (it is currently the second most visited Spanish production of all time after The Others, but that film was in English). El orfanato has been chosen to represent Spain for the upcoming Foreign Language Oscar race. In terms of box office, Las 13 rosas falls somewhere in the middle, with around 500,000 visitors to date. The three films show that both commercial and artistic Spanish cinema are currently alive and well, though, as elsewhere, box office numbers vary wildly. Las 13 rosas was also nominated in the Best Director category, while newcomer Bayona received a nomination in the Best New Director category. Both Las 13 rosas and El orfanato scored a Best Original Screenplay nomination as well as some acting nominations. El orfanato's cast was nominated for Best Actress for Belén Rueda, Best Supporting Actress for Geraldine Chaplin and Best Male Newcomer for child actor Roger Princep, while Las 13 rosas scored nominations for Best Supporting Actor for José Manuel Cervino and Best Female Newcomer for Nadia de Santiago. Both films also excelled in the technical categories, with nominations for both films including Best Production Design, Best Editing, Best Score, Best Hair and Make-up, Best Sound and Best Special Effects. The Goyas, awarded by the Spanish Film Academy, were also kind to actor-turned-filmmaker Tristán Ulloa, who received nominations in three categories: for Best Adapted Screenplay for his adaptation of the Peruvian novella Pudor, for Best Director, a nomination he shares with his brother David Ulloa for Pudor, and Best Actor for his role in Icíar Bollaín's female drama Mataharis, a multiple nominee that also bagged nominations in five other categories including Best Director and Best Supporting Actress for both María Vázquez and Nuria González. The Alternative Film Guide has the full list of nominees of the 2007 Goyas. Winners will be announced in Madrid at the beginning of February. |
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