Unprecedented and valuable triumph for Colombia at the Goya Awards

On March 6, the Goya Awards ceremony was held, the highest award in Spanish cinema. On this occasion, the ceremony was carried out in a mixed way: virtual and face-to-face. Antonio Banderas was the host of the gala in which Latin America was present, not only through the Best Ibero-American Film Award , but also through many nominees in other categories.

El olvido que seremos, the first Goya for Colombia

According to El Heraldo (Colombia), the South American country had been nominated to the Goya 12 times , the most recent nomination was last year for the film Monos by Alejandro Landes . But now, after 35 years of awards, Colombia has won the highest award given to El Olvido que seremos by director Fernando Trueba. The film is an adaptation of the homonymous book by the Medellin-born writer Héctor Abad Faciolince who, in an interview with the Nius newspaper, assured that Trueba had refused to direct the film in the past because he considered it "impossible", until it became a reality.

El olvido que seremos is located in one of the darkest stages in the history of Colombia, in Medellín, one of the epicenters of violence in the late 1980s. At a crossroads between social decomposition, drug trafficking, paramilitaries and political instability occurs in this story, that of Héctor Abad Gómez, a doctor and human rights activist murdered during this time. The author of the book has assured the same newspaper that he prefers the tape over his book, which shows how concise the film has been .

For Colombia, the award has represented a great victory that gives prestige to its cinema, which has been pushing hard in recent years, it is enough to remember Monos by Alejandro Landes and Pajaros de verano by Ciro Guerra and Cristina Gallego . The victory is even more noticeable when we consider that this award was the only one obtained by Latin America in this edition of the Goya , where the Colombian actress Juana Acosta was also nominated in the category of Best Supporting Actress for El inconveniente de Bernabé Rico .

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The "rival" tapes of El olvido que seremos

The Colombian film competed with three other Latin American films for the award for Best Ibero-American film, all three with important honors that made the decision difficult. We refer to La Llorona from Guatemala, I'm not here from Mexico and AgenteTopo from Chile .

La Llorona is a film by Jayro Bustamante starring María Mercedes Coroy , who plays Alma, an indigenous Mayan who suffered the repression of the Guatemalan military government during the 1980s that led to a brutal genocide. It is Bustamante's second collaboration with Mercedes Coroy, who also starred in Ixcanul. La Llorona also won the nomination for Best Film in a Non-English Language in the recent Golden Globe edition and is Guatemala's representative for the Oscar .

For its part, I'm not longer here is a film directed by Fernando Frías de la Parra and distributed by Netflix. It takes us to the world of Ulises and Los Terkos , a group of young people who like Colombian music on the outskirts of the city of Monterrey in northern Mexico. An unfortunate situation, added to the poverty and violence prevailing in the city, force Ulises to flee to cross the northern border without leaving behind his culture and facing the stigmas of migration . The film was the winner of the most recent Ariel Award for Best Film and is Mexico's contender for the Oscar.

Present on Netflix since last February, Maite Alberdi's Agente Topo is the only nominee directed by a woman. In this story we see Sergio, an older adult hired to infiltrate a nursing home to investigate alleged abuse that occurs there. For Sergio it becomes difficult to be a mere spectator of reality, becoming a member of the place. The filming process made the fiction mix with the documentary, the organic development of the story incorporates what happens inside the retirement home where the filming was done. It was successful at the San Sebastián Film Festival and is part of the preselection for the Oscar on behalf of Chile.

Argentina, with great presence in the Goya 2021

Argentine cinema is the country with the most nominations and the most awards in the category of Best Ibero-American film, it has 18 statuettes and 27 nominations . Although this year the country did not compete directly in that category, there was nominees in other categories. The most important is, without a doubt, Pablo Agüero, director of Akelarre , the top winner of the night with 5 prizes in mostly technical categories : best artistic direction, best costumes, best original music, best special effects and best makeup.

Actor Juan Diego Botto was nominated in the category of Best Supporting Actor for the film Los Europeos by Víctor García León . For his part, Ernesto Alterio was nominated for Un mundo normal by Achero Mañas in the category of Best Leading Actor . To close the Argentine nominations, actress Griselda Siciliani was nominated in the category of Best New Actress for the Sentimental film by Cesc Gay, according to information from El Heraldo.