The great annual night of Spanish cinema, the Goya gala on Saturday, was, without a doubt, the crowning glory of As bestas. Rodrigo Sorogoyen’s impeccable film, a rural thriller in Galician, French and Spanish capable of making viewers uncomfortable with its inexorable tragic drift, took over all the loot. Although during the first part of a gala that ended at no less than 1:21 in the morning it seemed that Modelo 77, the prison drama set in the Modelo prison during the transition to democracy, could compete with As bestas –and in fact, for a long time he was ahead -, finally Sorogoyen’s film (Madrid, 1981) swept.
Nine statuettes, including those for best film, director, original screenplay, actor –French Denis Ménochet– and supporting actor –Luis Zahera–. There were still five Goyas left in technical categories for Model 77 and three not inconsiderable ones – Alauda Ruiz de Azúa for new director, Laia Costa for best actress, and Susi Sánchez for best supporting actress – for the drama about motherhood that is Cinco lobitos. But two not inconsiderable films from the great harvest of Spanish cinema in 2022 left empty-handed like this: Carlos Vermut’s Manticora, which hoped to win at least the Goya for its protagonist, Nacho Sánchez, and, above all, Carla Simón’s Alcarràs , winner of the Berlinale, nominated for an Oscar by Spain and who left the gala completely empty despite her 11 candidacies.
The first to raise the alarm was Rodrigo Sorogoyen himself at two in the morning in the press room of the Palace of Congresses and Exhibitions in Seville, the Fibes. “The Goya for best director surprised me, I didn’t expect it,” he snapped. And he added that “I thought that Carla Simón was going to win, it seems unfair that Alcarràs did not win any Goya, it is proof that the prizes are unfair. We do not give so much importance to the prizes. Alcarràs is a great movie and let’s not think about it anymore”. Sorogoyen, who already swept the Goyas with El reino, also stressed that “I thought that Nacho Sánchez was going to win the best actor.” The prize winner himself, Denis Ménochet, an actor in films such as Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds, admitted that “I didn’t expect anything, I thought Nacho was going to win.” Asked if he was going to continue performing in Spain, Ménochet joked that “yes, I’m going to live with Rodrigo.” And he finished with that “what I do is help tell stories, and with stories there is no language, there is no language.”
Sorogoyen was not the only one surprised because Alcarràs left empty-handed at a gala in which the co-presenter with Clara Lago, Antonio de la Torre, addressed Carla Simón to say, in a more than correct Catalan, “congratulations to the first woman in the history of Spanish cinema who has won the Golden Bear in Berlin”. The actor Javier Gutiérrez, who did not win the statuette for Modelo 77, reasoned that “I think Carla Simón deserved not to leave empty-handed, but the work of As bestas is so brutal that academics have decided to reward her massively.”
However, the controversy has been fueled on social media. With accusations even of catalanophobia. Former Minister Jordi Puigneró tweeted that “anything done in Catalan has more opportunities in Europe than in any of the Spains you want to believe.” And even videos of the neighborhood resistance against the police in Alcarràs during the 1-O voting have been circulated. In fact, although for most the triumph of As bestas is highly deserved, the fact that Alcarràs did not take anything is, in short, painful.
The founder of the Filmin platform, Jaume Ripoll, has another explanation. He tweeted yesterday that “the rosco de Alcarràs is the toll for his other great milestone: succeeding in theaters in April and not in November.” “I think – he explains to La Vanguardia – that it is one of the explanations for why he has not won any prize. The Goyas are a race, and Alcarràs came out first. And in the end others have taken advantage of the moment to arrive later. In addition, the fact that she has not been nominated and is not even a finalist in the Oscar shortlist has perhaps made some academics think that it was not necessary to give her more love than she already has. In any case, the Alcarràs release and distribution strategy has been perfect and its commercial success was unimaginable”.