Goya Awards 2021. Adú, by Salvador Calvo, favorite against the forecast of the Goya Awards with 13 nominations
Nominees Goya Awards 2021: List of all nominations
Chance, fate or a strange combination of the two has made the film most nominated for the Goya
with 13 nominations
(for a moment there were 14) summarizes in itself all the contradictions of the year that we are witnessing.
Never before has a production released at the beginning of the year been capable of so much.
Rarely has a director who barely combines two films in his filmography, despite his experience in the audiovisual field (he has been doing television for 20 years), went so far.
And in a completely unprecedented and unintentional way, on rare occasions a film seems so timely.
'
Adú
', we are talking about her, brings together in her argument the perfect summary of all the evils that beset us and
Salvador Calvo (Madrid, 1970),
he is the director, he can boast of having turned the normality of his job into the greatest exception in an exceptional year.
After shooting '1898.
The last of the Philippines' in 2016, the one who was responsible for teleseries ranging from
'Cain's father
' to '
Alakrana
' passing through
'The Adventures of Captain Alatriste
' has turned his second feature film into, in order: a) the 2020 Spanish film so far;
b) a thoughtful plea against the situation of an entire continent (Africa);
and c) a detailed description of the open wound of immigration in the midst of a pandemic.
To what extent was it a surprise to see yourself at the top of all the headlines? There were no forecasts and therefore every result was going to be surprising.
I have to admit that when they told me the release date, between the Goya and the Oscars very early in the year, I thought it was a disaster and that we were not going to have any repercussions.
The press was talking about something else, about other movies ... However, the box office went well and, suddenly, the lockdown came in March and all the cinemas were closed.
We had luck.
But the truth is that he did not think it would last until the end of the year for the awards season.
I only remember
'El olivo'
, by Icíar Bollaín, in a similar situation.
'Adú' was the sixth highest grossing film of the year.
In a year like this, with the collection on the ground, is this data perhaps a responsibility for the profession?
To think that my film has helped theaters is certainly a satisfaction
.
I do not understand cinema without movie theaters, no matter how much television I have done all my life.
I am clear about what is one thing and what is another.
And they will never be equivalent.
As a viewer, not as a director, I have a terrible fear that theaters will disappear. Do you feel that your film has in some way been almost a premonition of which we have dropped in 2020 and later? The problem of emigration has not made more to grow.
Just look at what is happening in the United States with the caravan of Guatemalans and Hondurans crossing Mexico on the way to the act that will make Biden president.
With the pandemic, priorities changed and emigration disappeared as a priority problem,
but it will return to the present in a brutal way. If it happens that we ever come out of the pandemic, do you think we will face the issue of emigration in another way?
Everything is part of the same problem, of how we relate to each other and to nature.
The system is sick and we have to rethink everything.
The pandemic has been a slap on the wrist, a wake-up call to developed societies that we have always believed ourselves to be safe.
Now yes: either we change or goodbye.
There is no more time.
Emigration is people who need work and food.
And that's it.
If there are people who need to leave their country to look for work, the responsibility is everyone's.
We are doing something wrong.
Do you think that this is perhaps the reason for a film like 'Adú': to draw attention to what is being done wrong? For me, the most surprising and gratifying thing has been to see the number of messages of thanks received from African viewers How did you find the protagonist?
I mean the boy, not Luis Tosar. The casting director found the boy on the street in the north of the country, far from the big cities of Benin, which, on the other hand, is a relatively quiet country.
She was fascinated by Moustapha Oumarou.
The kid could neither read nor write nor did he know what an elephant was.
What is not in the village was completely unknown to me.
It became the soul of the movie.
We are committed to covering your education up to age 16.
To him and to the girl Zayiddiya Dissou. How do you think our consideration of television has changed because of the confinement?
TV has been fighting for its prestige for a long time and confinement has been a huge advance.
Prejudices are over.
It is no longer a drag on a filmmaker's career.
But I am convinced that it should not and cannot compete with the cinema.
They are different.
And I trust that remains.
Although if you watch current television, depending on what things are being done much more interesting than in the cinema, how does it feel about losing a nomination (the special effects candidates were repeated with 'Regrettable stories' and the rules rule out the least voted of the two films)? That hurts, really.
Someone told me that this is greed and it must be.
But it hurts [laughs].
According to the criteria of The Trust Project
Know more
cinema
Goya Awards
culture
Goya Awards 2021Adú, by Salvador Calvo, favorite against the odds of the Goya Awards with 13 nominations
CultureThe best books, movies, records, songs, comics, plays and series of 2020
The 12 favorite films for the 2021 Goya Awards
See links of interest
Coronavirus today
2021 business calendar
Real Madrid - Red Star
Cagliari - Milan
Arsenal - Newcastle United