The film by Estibaliz Urresola, “20,000 species of bees”and the Javis series, ‘The Messiah’ They won two awards last night at the 29th edition of the José María Forqué awards. Winning the award for best fiction film (the highlight) is practically a direct pass to repeat on February 10 at the totemic Goya, where the jury’s choice has coincided in recent years, with the exception of 2020. If it also includes the Cinema and Values Education Prize and among the 15 nominations, the Basque film is the big favorite of the February 10 event.
The triumph of “The Messiah”, the fiction with the greatest number of nominations and which, in addition to charming the public and the critics, managed to convince Egeda, the group of national producers responsible for organizing the competition, not This seems like a big surprise either, with Enrique Cerezo at the helm. The first Spanish series presented at the Sundance festival next January won the award for best actor in a series with the interpretation of Roger Casamajoreldest son of Montserrat in “The Messiah” and best actress in a series for Lola Dueñas, one of the three performers who bring it to life.
Macarena Gómez and Pablo Chiapella were responsible for directing the gala which, as usual, opens the national film awards season. David Verdaguer He won the male performance award for stepping into the shoes of the legendary comedian Eugenio in “Saben That”, an evening that did not want to forget the value of comedy. On another side, Malena Altério He turned his role in “Let Nobody Sleep” into an award. This recognized Antonio Méndez Esparza’s adaptation of the novel of the same name by Juan José Millás.
Pablo Berger’s smile almost escaped the contours of his face when he learned that his film, “Robot Dreams,” won the unprecedented trophy for best animated feature film, which is presumably placed right next to the one for the best animated film of European cinema, which for the first time made a Spanish film. Its history is made up of milestones.
An evening to celebrate
The IFEMA Municipal Palace in Madrid hosted this last film festival of the year 2023, during which a vibrant tribute to the artist Concha Velasco could not be missing. Cristina Castaño’s voice broke as she remembered the “eternal and unparalleled yeyé girl.” Precisely, the interpretation of “Chica Yeyé” by singer Ana Guerra competed in emotion with the version of “A tu vera” by Ana Mena.
They also wanted to do justice to the career of Eduardo Campoy with a gold medal (honorary prize) already announced for more than 20 films and almost four decades of service to national cinema. Best Latin American film was awarded to the Chilean documentary “La memoria infinite”, by Maite Alberdi, also awarded at Sundance. The Spanish documentary prize was awarded to “Juan Mariné”. A century of cinema’ and the short film category was finalized with ‘Even if it’s night’, which documents the social reality of the Cañada Real de Madrid.
Thus, the season of national film festivals is inaugurated. Not everyone was able to win the prize -Juan Antonio Bayona will have to be content with his nomination for the Oscars and Víctor Erice came out empty-handed-, although everyone was applauded. Only the president of the Community abstained from participating in the last film festival of the year.
