‘Blancanieves’ and ‘El Bosc’ lead the race for the Catalan Film Academy Gaudí awards

Barcelona (ACN).- On Monday the Catalan Film Academy released the nominations for this year’s Gaudí awards, recognising Catalan productions or movies with a significant presence of Catalan artistic and technical staff. ‘Blancanieves’ with 12 nominations and ‘El Bosc’ with 11 are leading the race. They are followed by ‘Els nens salvatges’ and ‘Fènix 11-23’ with 8 and 7 nominations, respectively. Out of the 89 films in the competition, 30 have received one or several nominations, becoming candidates to receive one of the 22 awards. The nominations have been decided by the votes of the 333 members of the academy. ‘The Impossible’, ‘In The House’, ‘Le Havre’ and ‘The Intouchables’ are candidates for the Best European movie, since the Premis Gaudí also recognise foreign productions. This year it will be the 5^th time this award ceremony takes place, which aims to promote Catalonia’s film industry. Last year, ‘Mientras duermes’ (‘While you sleep’) and ‘Eva’ were the clear winners, while in 2011 it was the Catalan movie ‘Pa Negre’ (‘Black Bread’). The award ceremony will be held on the first Sunday of February and it will be presented by the Catalan stand-up comedian and TV-star, Andreu Buenafuente. The President of the Catalan Film Academy, Joal Joan – who will finish his term next April and will not run again – praised “the quality and variety” of the competing films. He was also satisfied with the “maturity” achieved by this award ceremony over the five years of its existence.

‘Blancanieves’, ‘El Bosc’, ‘Els nens salvatges’ and ‘Fènix 11-23’ will be running for the Best Catalan Language Film Gaudí Award. The movies ‘[REC]3’, ‘Red Lights’, ‘The Pelayos’ and ‘Una pistola en cada mano’ will be running for the Best non-Catalan Language Film. ‘The Impossible’, by the Barcelona-born director Juan Antonio Bayona, casting Ewan McGregor and Naomi Watts, is not in the second category because it has been considered to be a non-Catalan production, since the movie was originally shot in English and the participation of Catalan artistic and technical staff is minimal. However, ‘The Impossible’ has been nominated in the Best European Movie category, together with ‘In The House’, ‘Le Havre’ and ‘The Intouchables’. In addition, Juan Antonio Bayona (‘Lo imposible’) has also been nominated for Best Director, together with Pablo Berger (‘Blancanieves’), Cesc Gay (‘Una pistola en cada mano’) and Joel Joan and Sergi Lara (‘Fènix 11-23’).

Best acting nominees

Regarding acting, the Best Leading Actor nominees are Àlex Brendemühl (‘El Bosc’), Nil Cardoner (‘Fènix 11-23’), Àlex Casanovas (‘Fénix 11-23’) and Àlex Monner (‘Els nens salvatges’). The candidates for Best Leading Actress are Marina Comas (‘Els nens salvatges’), Ángela Molina (‘Blancanieves’), Maribel Verdú (‘Blancanieves’) and Maria Molins (‘El Bosc’).

The Best Supporting Actor candidates are Eduard Fernández (‘Una pistola en cada mano’), Francesc Orella ('Els nens salvatges'), Pere Ponce (‘El Bosc’) and Lluís Villanueva (‘Fènix 11-23’). Finally, the Best Supporting Actress nominees are Aïna Clotet (‘Els nens salvatges’), Candela Peña ('Una pistola en cada mano'), Clara Segura (‘Els nens salvatges’) and Ana Wagener (‘Fènix 11-23’).

Other nominations

The award for the Best Script will be disputed between Tomàs Aragay and Cesc Gay (‘Una pistola en cada mano’), Pablo Berger ('Blancanieves'), Patricia Ferreira and Virginia Yagüe (‘Els nens salvatges’) i Albert Sánchez Piñol (‘El Bosc’).

The movies competing for the Best Documentary Film Gaudí Award are ‘Al fossat’, by Ricardo Iscar; ‘Hollywood Talkies’, by Òscar Pérez and Mia de Ribot; ‘Jordi Dauder, la revolució pendent’, by Antoni Verdaguer; and ‘Pepe & Rubianes’, by Manuel Huerga.

Competing in the Best Short Movie category are: ‘Cartas desde la locura’, de Xavi Publa; ‘Coup de Grâce’, by Clara van Gool; ‘Elefante’, by Pablo Larcuen; and ‘Luisa no está en casa’, by Celia Rico.

The Best Animated Feature Movie will be disputed between ‘Els cadells i el codi de Marco Polo’, by Sergio Manfio; ‘Les aventures de Tadeu Jones’, by Enrique Gato; and ‘Papa, sóc una zombi’, by Joan Espinach and Ricardo Ramón.

The Gaudí awards also recognise the Best TV-movies, whose prize will go to one of the following titles: ‘Atrapats’, by Miguel Puertas; ‘Germanes’, by Carol López; ‘Mar de plàstic’, by Sílvia Munt; and ‘Tornarem’, by Felip Solé.

The Best Original Score will be for the music composed by Alfonso de Vilallonga (‘Blancanieves’); Lluís Llach (‘Jordi Dauder, la revolució pendent’); Zacarías Martínez de la Riva (‘Les aventures de Tadeu Jones’); or Marc Vaillo (‘Orson West’).

30 nominated films from 89 movies in the competition

On Monday, by reading the list of the nominees, a voting process that started on the 12^th of December has finished. In total, 333 academy members with the right to vote have been the jury for the selection of the candidates to win a Gaudí Award. They represent the Catalan film industry, including producers, exhibitors, actors, actresses, directors and technicians.

The nominees have been chosen from among the 89 movies that were running in this year’s competition. The movies included 10 short films selected by a qualified jury, 15 TV-movies, 20 European motion pictures, 3 animated feature films, 10 documentary films, 18 non-Catalan language movies, 11 Catalan language films and 3 “Catalan talent” films, movies with a significance presence of Catalan artistic and technical staff.

The 11 Catalan language films in the competition were: ‘Animals’ by Marçal Forés; ‘Any de Gràcia’by Ventura Pons; ‘Blancanieves’, by Pablo Berger; ‘El bosc’ by Óscar Aibar; ‘El secret dels 24 esglaons’, by Santiago Lapeira; ‘El sexe dels àngels’, by Xavier Villaverde; ‘Els nens salvatges’, by Patricia Ferreira; ‘Fènix 11-23’, by Joel Joan and Sergi Lara; ‘Insensibles’, by Juan Carlos Medina; ‘Les ones’, by Alberto Morais, and ‘Orson West’, by Fran Ruvira.

Some of the non-Catalan language films in the competition were: ‘[REC]3 Génesis’, by Paco Plaza; ‘¡Atraco!’ by Eduard Cortés; ‘7 días en la Habana’, by Benicio del Toro, Elisa Suleiman, Gaspar Noe, Juan Carlos Tabío, Julio Medem, Laurent Cantet and Pablo Trapero; ‘Amanecidos’, by Yonay Boix and Pol Aregall; ‘Bucle’, by Héctor Zerkowitz; ‘Dictado’ by Antonio Chavarrías; ‘Le Moine’, by Dominik Moll; ‘Red lights’, by Rodrigo Cortés; ‘Sueño y silencio’, by Jaime Rosales; and ‘Una pistola en cada mano’, by Cesc Gay.

Finally, the 20 European films in the competition were: ‘Carmina o revienta’, by Paco León; ‘Cesare deve morire’, by Paolo and Vittorio Taviani; ‘Elefante blanco’, by Pablo Trapero; ‘In The House’, by François Ozon; ‘Lo imposible’, by Juan Antonio García Bayona; ‘Fin’, by Jorge Torregrossa; ‘Grupo 7’ by Alberto Rodríguez; ‘La délicatesse’, by David Foenkinos and Stéphane Foenkinos; ‘La guerre est declarée’ by Valérie Donzelli; ‘L'Apollonide (Souvenirs de la maison close)’, by Bertrand Bonello; ‘Le Havre’, by Aki Kaurismäki; ‘Les femmes du 6ème étage’, by Philippe Le Guay; ‘The Intouchables’, by Olivier Nakache and Eric Toledano; ‘Salmon Fishing in the Yemen’, by Lasse Hallström; ‘The Angels' Share’, by Ken Loach; ‘The Guard’, by John Michael McDonagh; ‘The Iron Lady’, by Phyllida Lloyd and Abi Morgan; ‘Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy’, by Thomas Alfredson; ‘To Rome With Love’, by Woody Allen; and ‘We need to talk about Kevin’, by Lynne Ramsay.