“Made in Spain”: the international success of Spanish cinema

A Golden Bear at the Berlinale for Catalan director Carla Simón, four Spaniards nominated this year for the Oscars, including the couple Penelope Cruz-Javier Bardem: the seventh Spanish art shines on the international scene, which has rolled out its red carpet for her.

“The fact that Penelope's nomination is for a role in Spanish (...) seems to me something extraordinary and historic, speaking of Marca España,” said an emotional Bardem, after learning that he and his wife would compete for two awards at the ceremony on March 27.

Unlike other countries with strong cinematographic DNA, Spain struggled for a long time to gain its own place on the international scene.

To this day, Luis Buñuel remains the only Spaniard to win the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival, for “Viridiana” in 1961.

But Spanish cinema has made progress and has been rewarded, as happened to Carla Simón a few weeks ago, with the success of her film “Alcarràs” in Berlin.

According to Variety magazine, the name Penelope Cruz sounds like a possible president of the jury of the upcoming Cannes Film Festival, an honor that Pedro Almodóvar, undoubtedly the most renowned Spanish director abroad, enjoyed in 2017, with two Oscars under his belt.

The performer from Madrid already won an Oscar in 2009, but it was as a supporting actress and for an American film (“Vicky Cristina Barcelona”, by Woody Allen).

If he did so now for his leading role as Janis in Almodóvar's “Parallel Mothers”, he would do so with an all-Spanish film, in which another member of the team, the Basque composer Alberto Iglesias, is also in luck.

The author of the film's music, Iglesias adds his fourth nomination for an Oscar, the first for the music of a film by the director from La Mancha, with whom he has collaborated on 13 films.

“It is a joy that there is such a strong momentum in Spanish cinema,” says Iglesias, who hopes to win her first statuette, during an interview with AFP. “It is not a sum of coincidences, there is an impetus,” he adds, highlighting the work of film schools “that have been working for a long time and creating new filmmakers”.

- Old barriers -

Spanish cinema has had a hard time “passing those barriers of major international festivals”, recalls Pilar Martínez-Vasseur, director of the Nantes Spanish Film Festival.

The public often failed to identify the films that were released abroad as Spanish, he explains, referring to examples such as “The Others”, starring Nicole Kidman, but of which very few people know that their director was Alejandro Amenábar.

“In Spain we still have the idea that Spanish cinema is bad, that it is a nest of reds, that filmmakers are paniaguated because they don't do anything,” regrets Martínez-Vasseur, who calls for greater support from the Spanish government.

The seventh art receives much less state funding on this side of the Pyrenees than in France, according to several industry specialists.

“The sector has learned to make its way in an ecosystem that has become globalized,” says Beatriz Navas, general director of the Institute of Cinematography and Audiovisual Arts (ICAA), under the Ministry of Culture.

“The change has not happened overnight (...) The 'cooking time' of the works must be the time necessary for it to achieve the recognition and prestige that guarantees it”, he emphasizes.

- “Best time” -

In addition to Penelope Cruz, Javier Bardem (nominated for “Being the Ricardo”) and Alberto Iglesias, Alberto Mielgo's short film “The Windshield Wiper” will also compete for an Oscar this year.

“It's the best moment in Spanish cinema”, celebrates José Luis Rebordinos, director of the San Sebastian Film Festival.

“A lot of cinema is being made, a lot of audiovisual in Spain, also with the phenomenon of platforms, which are bringing a lot of work and making Spanish technicians better,” he explains.

Spain, whose western-friendly landscapes attracted Hollywood productions since the 1960s, is an increasingly sought-after destination for platforms to produce their series.

The giant Netflix opened its first European studios in Madrid in 2019, in addition to having broadcast Spanish series of great global success such as “La Casa de Papel” or “Elite”.

In the last year, the left-wing government has shown its intention to turn Spain into the audiovisual “hub” of Europe, increasing production by 30% by 2025, with an injection of 1.6 billion euros.

“International critics are focusing more on our cinema thanks to figures such as Almodóvar, Javier Bardem, Penelope Cruz,” says Rebordinos. “I think they are opening paths.”

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