Almodóvar and Urbizu lead Goya nominations

by Sergio Ríos Pérez

10/01/2012 - Pedro Almodóvar’s The Skin I Live In [trailer, film focus] and Enrique Urbizu’s No Rest For the Wicked [trailer] are the two major favourites, with 16 and 14 nominations respectively, for the 2012 edition of the Goya Awards, which will be presented on February 19. They are closely followed by Kike Mailló’s Eva [trailer] with 12 nods; Mateo Gil’s Blackthorn [trailer] with 11; and Benito Zambrano’s The Sleeping Voice [trailer] with nine.

The Skin I Live In, No Rest For the Wicked, Blackthorn and The Sleeping Voice will vie for the Goyas for Best Film of the Year and Best Director. All of them will compete for a Best Screenplay award (Best Original Screenplay in the case of Blackthorn and No Rest For the Wicked; Best Adapted Screenplay in the case of The Skin I Live In and The Sleeping Voice).

The acting categories are full of prestigious names, with Daniel Brühl (Eva), Antonio Banderas (The Skin I Live In), Luis Tosar (Sleep Tight [trailer]) and José Coronado (No Rest For the Wicked) battling it out for Best Actor, and Verónica Echegui (Kathmandu: A Mirror in the Sky), Salma Hayek (As Luck Would Have It [trailer, film focus]), Elena Anaya (The Skin I Live In) and Inma Cuesta (The Sleeping Voice) competing for Best Actress.

Between them, the five films with the most nominations dominate almost all of the 28 awards categories, where two of the year’s biggest box-office hits, Santiago Segura’s Torrente 4: Lethal Crisis [trailer] and Carlos Therón’s Brain Drain 2 [trailer], are conspicuous by their absence. Among the titles left disappointed are Jaume Balagueró’s Sleep Tight; Álex de la Iglesia’s As Luck Would Have It; Max Lemcke’s Five Square Meters [trailer, film focus]; and Montxo Armendáriz’s Don’t Be Afraid [trailer, film focus], which, despite their positive reception from critics and the industry, have only a token presence among the nominees.

Meanwhile, shining out in the Best Animated Feature category is Ignacio Ferreras’s Wrinkles [trailer, film focus], which has also been shortlisted for the Oscar in the same category. To nab the Goya, it will have to beat off competition from Primitivo Pérez and José María Molina’s Carthago Nova; Ricardo Ramón and Joan Espinach’s Daddy, I’m A Zombie; and Roque Cameselle’s The Little Wizard.

Finally, European cinema is at the centre of one of the categories, which awards the best non-Spanish production made in Europe. The final nominees are Jane Eyre [trailer] by Cary Fukunaga; Melancholia [trailer, film focus], by Lars von Trier; The Artist [trailer, film focus] by Michel Hazanavicius; and Carnage [trailer] by Roman Polanski.

(Translated from Spanish)