Eduardo Alvarez
Updated Wednesday, February 7, 2024-21:31
Fans of Kings Felipe and Letizia, plan for two at the movies
Leisure Cinema, large popcorn and Spanish film: the secret exit of Kings Felipe and Letizia
This Saturday,
Valladolid hosts
the 38th edition of the
Goya Awards
ceremony , the most coveted awards in Spanish cinema. And there is something miraculous about the fact that this awards ceremony has continued
for so long,
also arousing increasing
expectations,
if we remember that
the first gala was chaotic
and that very few industry personalities trusted then that it could establish itself as a
great showcase
of the seventh national art in the style of the Hollywood Oscars, although in a much more modest version.
Those first Goya were celebrated
on March 17, 1987
at the Lope de Vega theater in Madrid. And they were the only ones who had
the assistance of the Kings of Spain,
the then monarchs
Juan Carlos I
and Sofia. In fact, among the anecdotes of the night it stands out that the current Emeritus
received the first big head in history,
the so-called zero award.
Don Juan Carlos and Doña Sofía, at the 1987 Goya Awards. The King receives the Goya of Honor from the hands of José María González Sinde.Efe
In the middle of the ceremony, which was
broadcast by TVE,
the 41 artists and technicians nominated in that debut of the Awards - many fewer candidates than today - took the stage, where
they supported the Kings
. And there, the director
José María González Sinde,
the first president of the Film Academy, presented Don Juan Carlos with an honorary Goya, the work of Miguel Berrocal, which
weighed about six
and a half kilos, and which at that time had a strange device that, when pressed, caused a small filming camera to rise above Goya's head. The King came to the theater in an
impeccable tailcoat
and Doña Sofía wore
an elegant and sober light blue dress
, very much in her characteristic style. At the time of receiving the bobblehead, the sovereigns were surrounded by stars such as
Sara Montiel and Emma Penella.
Queen Letizia attends the Scorsese and Cortés dialogue at the Film Academy in Madrid
It is not known if because of how much
the Monarch was bored
during the ceremony, according to gossip, or exactly why, from
that year on Zarzuela declined the invitation
of the Academy, which goes to the Palace every year to convene the Royal Family to the big night of the cinema. In other monarchies, such as the United Kingdom, it is usual for
the Windsors to be present
at each edition of the Baftas. Prince William, heir to the throne, has been in fact president of the British Film and Television Academy since 2010.
Here,
the exception
occurred in 2000, when the then
Prince Felipe attended
the XIV Goya gala. He still remembers how he had to be shy when Pedro Almodóvar asked the audience
to sing
Happy Birthday
to the heir, who was blowing out 32 candles.
Like Kings,
Don Felipe and Doña Letizia have never attended
the ceremony. But in 2014 they received
an honorary Goya
from producer Enrique González Macho, then head of the Spanish Academy of Cinematographic Arts and Sciences,
this one without the strange device that incorporated the first bobblehead mentioned above. And that award
placed on a sideboard
in the Zarzuela Tapestry Hall has witnessed all this time the
countless visits
that the King has received to dispatch, in compliance with his constitutional functions.
The question, currently unanswered, is
when the cinephile Queen Letizia will parade
down the long Goya carpet.