The rural drama “As Bestas” was the big winner at the Goya ceremony, Spain’s equivalent of the Oscars, which on Saturday night also honored its lead actor, Frenchman Denis Ménochet, and honored director Carlos Saura, who died the day before at. 91.
Rodrigo Sorogoyen’s feature film, starring French actresses Marina Foïs and Denis Ménochet, won a total of nine awards, including best Spanish film, best director and best original screenplay.
“To be a good director, apart from always looking at Carlos Saura, you have to have the best team around you. And I did it, that’s my only merit,” answered the 40-year-old filmmaker of age when he received his award. on Saturday night.
The film’s lead actor, Denis Ménochet, won the award for best actor. This is the most important award received so far by the French actor, who has worked with filmmakers François Ozon (“Peter Van Kant”), Quentin Tarantino (“Inglorious Bastards”) and Ridley Scott (“Robin Hood”).
“I was lucky to work with actors that I respect,” said the actor in Spanish, citing Marina Foïs and the Spaniard Luis Zahera, “the best actor in the world” according to him, awarded Goya for the best supporting actor.
The film by Rodrigo Sorogoyen, a rising star in Spanish cinema, tells the story of a couple who fall in love in a poor corner of Galicia, in the north-west of Spain, whose settlement causes the threatening hostility of two neighboring brothers.
This feature film inspired by a true story has already been seen by 700,000 viewers. It was already a sensation in May at the Cannes Film Festival, where it was presented out of competition.
“What we liked was to imagine the motivation of the characters, to see how you can hate someone in your neighborhood so much, and (the motivation of) the two foreigners, people who are not welcome but who say to themselves ” In “I’m not going to leave here”, explained the director to AFP in Cannes.
The 37th edition of the Goyas was also an opportunity for the world of film to honor the Spanish director Carlos Saura, who died on Friday at his home in the Madrid area, and who was awarded an honorary Goya.
“The death of Carlos Saura changed the whole profession” because “he was one of the brightest representatives of Spanish culture,” emphasized the president of the Academy of Film Fernando Méndez-Leite at the ceremony in Seville, in the south of Spain.
The Goya was awarded to the two children of the filmmaker and his wife, the actress Eulalia Ramón. The latter read a message prepared by Carlos Saura, thanking those who joined him “in this great work of filmmaking”.
Born on January 4, 1932, in Huesca (Aragon, north), Carlos Saura made about fifty films, including “Cria Cuervos” in 1975. He has received numerous awards during his career, including Silver Bear in 1966 in Berlin for “The Fiach”.
The filmmaker, who should have come to collect his prize in person, is considered a key figure in the history of Spanish cinema, along with Luis Buñuel and Pedro Almodovar.
The Goya also honored French actress Juliette Binoche, who received an international award for her “extraordinary trajectory” in cinema.
While receiving her award, the actress sang the tune “Porque te vas”, an iconic song from the film “Cria Cuervos” by Carlos Saura. The Spanish filmmaker “made me very happy”, she said, before saying in Spanish that she was “happy” to receive this “great prize”.
During her 40-year career, Juliette Binoche was in many films, including “Les Amants du Pont-Neuf” and “The English Patient”, for which she received the Oscar for best supporting actress.