Linguistic diversity star of this year’s Goyas
Linguistic diversity is the star of this year’s nominations for the Spanish Film Academy’s awards, which will be announced on the 3rd Saturday of February. In a year with no outstanding box-office hit, the Basque film Handia, by Jon Garaño and Aitor Arregui, with the soundtrack in Basque, has gained the most nominations, 13, in fact, including those for best film and best director.
In Catalan, Carla Simon’s Estiu 1993 is still the film that is enjoying most success on the the international festival circuit, and the same Academy has shortlisted the film for presentation at the Academy Awards next year. Its austerity and unabashed simplicity leaves it out of the running for the more technical awards but it has a very respectable total of nine nominations, including Best Picture, Best Actor (David Verdaguer), Best Actress (Bruna Cusí) , Best original screenplay and best New Director.
The Bookshop, shot in English by the Catalan Isabel Coixet is the 2nd film in terms of the number of nominations with 12, ahead of Manuel Martín Cuenca’s El autor, based on a novel by Javier Cercas, with nine. Other nominations include Abracadabra by Pablo Berger (8), Paco Plaza’s Veronica (7), Oro by Agustín Díaz Yanes (6), La llamada, by Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi (5).