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OSCARS 2010 Spain

Spain gets piece of Oscar glory thanks to Secret in Their Eyes

by 

Against all predictions, which had Michael Haneke’s The White Ribbon [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Michael Haneke
film profile
]
down as favourite, Argentinean director Juan José Campanella won the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar for The Secret in Their Eyes [+see also:
trailer
making of
Interview Juan José Campanella [IT]
Interview Ricardo Darín [IT]
Interview Soledad Villemin [IT]
film profile
]
(see news) in the early hours of this morning.

Despite the fact that its director, main cast, setting and story are Argentinean (Argentina also submitted the film to Hollywood’s Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences), the title is a majority Spanish co-production with the South American country. It was 54% produced by Spain through Alicante-based El secreto de sus ojos A.I.E., and Gerardo Herrero’s Tornasol Films. Moreover, the film is sold internationally by Madrid-based Latido Films.

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In a further Latin touch, the coveted statuette was presented to the Argentinean director, who has lived in California for many years and directs TV series there, by Pedro Almodóvar. Campanella, who ironically thanked the Academy for not considering Na'vi (the invented language in Avatar [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
) as a foreign language, has achieved Oscar glory after a previous nomination in 2002 for Son of the Bride [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
.

Madrid-born producer Herrero also got up on stage at the Kodak Theatre. For him, this Oscar is the culmination of an outstanding career during which his great flair for co-productions has led him to work with directors such as Ken Loach, Sergei Bodrov, Manoel de Oliveira, Eric Rohmer, Francis Ford Coppola, Álex de la Iglesia and Alain Tanner.

This was the only award of the evening for Spain (albeit a shared one), since the rest of the nominees (Penélope Cruz, animated short The Lady and the Reaper and Spanish/Peruvian film The Milk of Sorrow [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
) did not triumph in their respective categories.

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(Translated from Spanish)

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