Cell 211 and Agora Dominate Goya Award Nominations

Last Saturday, Cell 211 [Celda 211 ] and Agora became the big stars at the press conference at which director Javier Fesser and actress Paz Vega announced the nominees for Spain’s Goya Awards. Daniel Monzon’s film, with 16 nominations, is competing with 13 nominations for the historical drama by Alejandro Amenabar. Both films are vying for the category of Best Picture with two of the other most popular Spanish films of the year: The Secret in Their Eyes [El secreto de sus ojos ] and The Dancer and the Thief [El baile de la victoria ]. The latter, which has garnered nine Goya nominations, was selected by the Spanish Film Academy to participate in the Oscars and represent Spain in the category of Best Foreign Film.

These four titles again appear in the category of Best Director. They are closely followed by Daniel Sanchez Arevalo’s Gordos, with eight nominations (six of them for its leading actors). El consul de Sodoma, the controversial biopic on Gil de Biedma, which premiered in cinemas last Friday, has obtained five nominations after being taken out of consideration for Best Artistic Direction because its would-be recipient, Anton Laguna, had been nominated in the same category for Call 211, not permitted in the Gaya Award rules, with the list of nominees having to be approved by notary public.

Actresses in the running for the Best Female Performance Goya are Lola Dueñas for Me, Too [Yo tambien ], Maribel Verdu for Tetro, Rachel Weisz for Agora, and Penelope Cruz for Broken Embraces [Los abrazos rotos ], with Pedro Almodovar’s film receiving a total of five nominations. Best Male Performance nominations include actors Luis Tosar (Cell 211 [Celda 211 ]), Ricardo Darin (The Secret in Their Eyes [El secreto de sus ojos ]), Antonio de la Torre (Gordos), and Jordi Molla (El consul de Sodoma ).