IT'S NEARLY two months until the Oscars, with nominations for Spain's most famous off-screen acting couple, although it will have been 20 years since the country last took home a statuette – so film fans there are trying not to get their hopes up.
And Spain's own version of the Oscars, the Goya Awards, are fast becoming just as famous.
Cate Blanchett takes home the first-ever International Goya
Saturday night's ceremony saw the first-ever International Goya presented, a brand-new category for 2022 – although its winner already has her feet firmly entrenched in the world of Spanish cinema.
“Almodóvar is disgustingly talented!”
Australian screen star Cate Blanchett is due to star in Pedro Almodóvar's début full-length English-language film, based upon Lucia Berlin's short story collection Manual for Cleaning Women – and Cate herself is very much an admirer of the Spanish mainstream arts scene.
“When I was in high school I saw [Luis] Buñuel [post-censorship film director], and it changed how I viewed the world,” Ms Blanchett, 52, admitted in her acceptance speech at Valencia's Palau de les Arts opera house after taking her trophy from Hollywood legend Penélope Cruz and Almodóvar himself.
Australian actress Cate Blanchett (right) is working on a film with prolific director Pedro Almodóvar (left), his first full-length feature in English (photos: Wikimedia Commons)
The star of Carol, Charlotte Grey and The House With a Clock in its Walls compared Penélope and Almodóvar to other huge film-making twosomes such as Gena Rowlands and John Cassavetes, and Katharine Hepburn and George Cukor, and laughingly said Almodóvar was 'disgustingly talented'.
She concluded by wishing Penélope and her husband, Javier Bardem, the best of luck in the Oscars, where they are nominated for Best Actress and Best Actor respectively.
José Sacristán - pictured here at the Seminci festival in 2015 with his wife Amparo Pascual - gets this year's Lifetime Achievement Goya (photo: Rubén Ortega/Wikimedia Commons)
Cate admitted she did not speak Spanish beyond 'thank you and good night' to the audience, but says she hopes to learn the language during her time on set with Manual for Cleaning Women.
José Sacristán, 57 years of non-stop acting
This year's lifetime achievement award, or 'Honorary Goya', went to multiple prizewinner and prolific TV and film actor José Sacristán, 84, whose first major production was in 1965 (La Familia y Uno Más, or 'The Family and One More') and who has been acting and producing non-stop ever since – mainly involved in comedy features, Sacristán's most recent was in 2021, Cuidado Con Lo Que Deseas ('Be Careful What You Wish For').
Which films, cast and crew were nominated?
Real-life situations with a dash of comedy, or an unpacking of the past leading to shock discoveries, facing one's demons or both, gritty and topical issues, and a truly cult cast, were the 'theme of the year' for the 2022 Goyas; the winners will probably not surprise you, other than a few outsiders – famous British actors included.
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