The Catalan Film Academy certified the success of "Alcarràs" by Carla Simón and "Pacifiction" by Albert Serra

The Academy of Catalan Cinema has certified the success of Alcarràs and has crowned it as the best film of the year at the Gaudí Awards. Carla Simón's film was the winner of a night in which it also took home the statuette for best direction, original script, production direction and the Audience Award. He shared the spotlight with Pacifiction, by Albert Serra, which won the Gaudí award for best film in a non-Catalan language, as well as for artistic direction and photography. Un año, una noche has won five awards, including best editing and adapted screenplay. The award list has also made room for Suro, with the best new director for Mikel Gurrea and distinctions for its protagonists, Vicky Luengo and Pol López.

With 14 nominations, the endorsement of 2022 awards and box office success, Alcarràs started as the favorite of the night and ended up making the forecasts good. Acting as a prophet at home, Carla Simón's second tape has brought those responsible for this song up to the ground up to five times on the stage of the oval room of the National Museum of Art of Catalonia. The director has thus repeated the success of her first film, Summer 1993, which also shone with its own light at the 10th ceremony. In collecting one of the great prizes of the night, that of the best screenplay, Simón dedicated the distinctions to the farmers of the western lands, who "persist, are stubborn and brave" to continue cultivating the land as a family, the profession "more old man of the world". "They've got it screwed up, that's why we ask you to buy fruit and local products and we ask the authorities to regulate the prices of fruit", defended Simón. For his part, Arnau Vilaró - co-writer of the film - has celebrated the cinema as something "magical" that allows you to invent "different stories and worlds" and "connect with the origins".

It was equaled in nominations Un año, una noche, Isaki Lacuesta's film about the Bataclan attack - presented, as 'Alcarràs a competition de la Berlinale-, a story based on the book Paz, amor y Death metal , from the survivor of the events Ramón González. Precisely, the film won the statuette for best adapted screenplay - new for this edition - for the work of Isa Campo, Fran Araújo and Lacuesta himself, as well as for best editing, original music by Raül Refree , better sound and better visual effects. "When I read the book I thought that this was inappropriate. Thanks to the protagonists who lived it, who have given themselves to the film", thanked Isa Campo when collecting the first of the awards.

One of the great awards of the night was decided in the final stretch, that of best film in a non-Catalan language, which went to Albert Serra's Pacifiction, a category in which films acclaimed by the public were competing and criticism like Mantícora, by Carlos Vermut; The maternal, by Pilar Palomero; and One year, one night. Considered to be the most affordable film in the cinematography of the Banyól director, it has also been awarded the award for best art direction and best photography. This is what the producer of Andergraun Films, Montse Triola, expressed during the gala, in which she recalled that, despite the fact that the film is not shot in Catalan, the whole team is. "We don't just want to work here, we want a cinema that goes to Europe and the world because we work with a cinema of the future," he declared.

Suro and La maternal fill the interpretive categories

In the chapter of interpretations, the gala has had two proper names: 'Suro' and 'La maternal'. In addition to the award for best new director -a category that premiered this year-, Mikel Gurrea's first opera won the award for the best female lead performance for Vicky Luengo and the male lead for Pol López, characters about the which the film orbits.

For their part, the two actresses of La maternal, Ángela Cervantes and Carla Quílez, went home with a statuette. The first as best secondary actress and debutante and very young Carla Quílez, who already received the Concha de Plata at the Festival of Sant Sebastià, has premiered the category of best performance revelation. Alex Brendemühl won the award for best supporting actor for 'Historias para no contar', directed by Cesc Gay.

Los renglones torcidos de Dios, which started with eight nominations, ended the night with two awards, the one for best costume and the one for make-up and hairdressing. 'The yellow roof', Isabel Coixet's film about the abuses at the Aula de Teatre in Lleida, won the Gaudí award for best documentary and the survivors themselves gathered with a standing audience, while Tadeo Jones 3. The table maragda, by Enrique Gato, the only candidate in the category, has gone up to collect a prize that was already secured.

As the best European film, the film directed and written by Alauda Ruiz de Azúa and starring Laia Costa 'Cinco lobitos' has won, a category in which the competitors were La isla de Bergman, by Mia Hansen-Løve; The worst person in the world, by Joachim Trier; and Petite Maman, by Céline Sciamma. Wild sunflowers, by Jaime Rosales, has left empty-handed.

The short film Harta, by Júlia de Paz, won the statuette in its category, while Six Nights of August, by Ventura Durall, was awarded the award for best film for television.

A symphonic gala to vindicate the trades of cinema

The actress Llum Barrera has been in charge of leading the traditional gala of the Catalan Film Academy, which has repeated location and had nearly 1,300 people as guests.

During the three hours that the ceremony lasted, which largely revolved around the figure of Agustí Villaronga, artists such as Queralt Lahoz, Judit Neddermann, Joan Dausà and Kelly Isaiah passed through the stage of the oval room of the MNAC, with the symphonic musical accompaniment of the Franz Schubert Philharmonia orchestra, directed by maestro Tomàs Grau. Among the popular faces who have presented prizes, the names of Greta Fernández, JA Bayona, Marta Etura, Mago Pop, Lolita Flores, Darko Peric, Miki Esparbé, Brays Efe, Enric Auquer, Vicky Luengo, Rigoberta Bandini, Alizzz, Raquel García stand out -Tomás, Miki Núñez or Lildami.

One of the leitmotifs that marked the evening was the defense of the trades in the world of cinema, from acting, directing and screenwriting to technical professions such as those responsible for sound, electrical or production departments, the expression which has given name and meaning to the Gaudí announcement and the communication campaign that has accompanied it.

A minute of applause in memory of Villaronga

The president of the Catalan Film Academy, Judith Colell, has claimed the legacy of Agustí Villaronga in the speech at the 15th Gaudí Awards gala. For Colell, "one of the greats, the greatest not only of Catalan cinema, but of European cinema and in capital letters", has died, a statement that had the audience standing and applauding for more than a minute. The vice-president of the entity, Carlos R. Ríos, then took over to demand that Catalan cinema not only live with awards, but to continue working to "cultivate the audiovisual imagination of a country". "We must take care, cultivate and move away from monocultures and large estates," he insisted.

In a year of a "good harvest" for cinema in the country, in which films have become internationalized "like never before", the Academy has claimed the necessary "symbiosis" of productions to make the Catalan independent cinema "raising the voice in the world" and the commercial "reinforcing the industry". "The public must have all types of Catalan cinema and in Catalan at their fingertips," added Ríos.

Once again, the gala has served to claim 2% of the budget dedicated to culture and a TV3 "pal de paller" and with the means to spearhead the projects that are promoted. At the same time, they asked for the approval of the budgets: "we can't agree on a motorway", said Colell to the applause of Aragonès and Iceta, who were in the audience. "Long live Catalan cinema and Agustí Villaronga, wherever he is," he concluded.

Who also remembered the filmmaker who died this Sunday was this year's Honorary Gaudí, Jaume Figueres. "This award does not go to a critic or an intellectual, but to a fan", he emphasized, after collecting the award and receiving the applause of the audience. Figueras has assured that if the 2022 harvest has been so enriching, the 2023 one promises "a lot".