Entertainment News
2007-01-30
Cruz,
Volver take top Spanish film awards
The tragicomic
tale of a mother's survival, Volver swept to a
triumphant victory at Spain's top film awards early on
The tragicomic
tale of a mother's survival, Volver swept to a
triumphant victory at Spain's top film awards early on
Monday, grabbing Best Movie, Best Director, and Best
Actress for Oscar hopeful Penélope Cruz.
The movie, set in
Spain's barren La Mancha region, won five prizes at the
Goya awards ceremony in Madrid, beating out Pan's
Labyrinth, which was last week chosen ahead of
Volver as a nominee for Best Foreign Language
Film at next month's Oscars.
Volver tells the story of Raimunda, played by
Cruz, a young and hardworking wife of an unemployed husband
whose roving eye falls upon her teenage daughter. At
the same time, Raimunda's sister has begun seeing the
ghost of their dead mother, visions that lead to the
unraveling of a mystery that has strained family relations.
Holding back
tears as she gripped her award statue, Cruz thanked Spanish
director Pedro Almodóvar for what she said was one of
the best experiences of her life. She will be hoping
to make a similar speech in Hollywood on February 25,
after becoming Spain's first-ever nominee in the
Oscars' Best Actress category.
Almodóvar's
award was his second Goya for Best Director, but the maker
of All About My Mother stayed away, blaming
nerves. In 2005 he resigned his seat at the Spanish Film
Academy over the way films were judged for the
competition.
Pan's Labyrinth, by Mexican director Guillermo
del Toro, scooped seven awards at the glittering ceremony,
including Best Script, plus Best New Actress for young
star Ivana Baquero.
The film, billed
as an "adult fairy tale," is the story of a girl who
learns about good and evil from a fawn in the Spanish forest
shortly after the country's civil war.
The Best Leading
Actor award went to Juan Diego, who plays a father
disgruntled at the reappearance of his grown-up son in
Vete de Mi.
He beat
Spanish-speaking New York actor Viggo Mortensen, best known
as Aragorn in Lord of the Rings, who starred as
swashbuckling Spanish hero Alariste. The film,
the most expensive ever made in Spain at $28 million, picked
up three awards out of 15 nominations. (Reuters)
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