The Spanish Film Academy has selected Alcarràs, by Carla Simón, Cinco lobitos, by Alauda Ruiz de Azúa, and As bestas by Rodrigo Sorogoyen to begin this year’s race for the Oscars for best international film. Subsequently, the Spanish Academy must select one of the three films -it will announce its final selection on September 13- and it will then be Hollywood that makes another pre-selection and later chooses the five finalists who opt for the coveted statuette.
Alcarràs by Carla Simón was a clear favorite for the nomination after having won the Golden Bear at the last Berlin Film Festival with the story of a farming family facing the disappearance of their way of life, set in the town of Lleida , where the Solé family has grown peach trees for generations.
But Alauda Ruiz de Azúa’s Cinco Lobitos was also a favorite, her first feature film as a screenwriter and director, which triumphed at the Malaga festival, a raw portrait of her debut in motherhood in which Amaia -played by Laia Costa, who together a Susi Sánchez won the acting award in Malaga- she has just become a mother and in the face of doubts and the absence of her partner, she returns to her parents’ house.
The third film in the shortlist for the Academy is the rural thriller As bestas (The Beasts) by Rodrigo Sorogoyen. A film that the director of The Kingdom defined as “rural horror” but which leads to a great love story and is shot in the style of a western and which, based on a true story, starts at the popular “a rapa das bestas” of Sabucedo, in which the horse’s mane is cut. A film in which a French couple arrives at a town in Galicia and the reception is not good from everyone.
