Juan Antonio Bayona has been the great winner of this night that celebrated the best of Spanish cinema. The Barcelonan has collected his Goya for best director for The Snow Society, his vision of the aerial tragedy in Los Andes in 1972. It is the fourth ‘bighead’ after the first director for The Orphanage, and the other two for The Impossible and A monster comes to see me.
Very excited throughout the ceremony because the film has not stopped garnering recognition from the beginning, Bayona thanked Pablo Vierzi “the brainiac” and author of the book on which The Snow Society is based, where he pays tribute to the survivors and the deceased of the plane that crashed 52 years ago. “It is a prize that I share with all of Argentina and Uruguay.” Bayona’s opponents were Víctor Erice, nominated for Cerrar los ojos; Elena Martín for Creatura; David Trueba for They know that and Isabel Coixet for Un amor.
The director had wanted to bring this very difficult story of overcoming and loss to the big screen for a decade, but he found many closed doors until Netflix supported it financially. “People told us that a film like this could not be made in Spanish and with this ambition. Now it has 150 million viewers around the world,” he said, proud of a film that aspires to the Oscar for best international film.
Above all, Bayona thanked the audience for the award, which has been devoted to the film since it arrived in theaters on December 15 and on the streaming platform in January: “We need a strong, constant audience that comes to watch our films, because we are not in a good moment in Spanish cinema when it comes to producing it. Films are being produced with fewer resources than 10 years ago, when I started. With fewer resources we cannot deploy all the talent we have. To That’s why we need an industry that allows us to have the resources to deploy all the talent we have,” he admitted.
Furthermore, Bayona thanked the academics for the award and noted that his next goal will be the Oscar to “collect it on behalf of everyone.” “I want to thank the academics who have sent us to the Oscars. We raced up and down and we managed to get out, so I am very proud of the confidence that we are there. I hope I can collect it on behalf of everyone,” he stated.
He also had words of gratitude to the families of the real protagonists of the film because they have trusted him to bring the lives of their loved ones to the movies. “I think that in 2021, in December, I stood there, at 4,500 meters above sea level, in front of the tomb of the deceased, up there on the mountain, and I asked them for permission to tell this story and I told them that I was going to do it. the best I knew how. I hope that this award is a sign that I have lived up to history,” he concluded.
