Goya Awards 2022: A first for Cate Blanchett, British film win, and legends galore
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Goya Awards 2022: A first for Cate Blanchett, British film win, and legends galore. Read this and thousands of other news stories and articles on thinkSPAIN, the leading English language website for Spain.
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IT'S NEARLY two months until the Oscars, with nominations for Spain's most famous off-screen acting couple, although it will have been 20 years since the country last took home a statuette â so film fans there are trying not to get their hopes up.

And Spain's own version of the Oscars, the Goya Awards, are fast becoming just as famous.

Saturday night's ceremony saw the first-ever International Goya presented, a brand-new category for 2022 â although its winner already has her feet firmly entrenched in the world of Spanish cinema.

âAlmodÃ³var is disgustingly talented!â

Australian screen star Cate Blanchett is due to star in Pedro AlmodÃ³var's dÃ©but full-length English-language film, based upon Lucia Berlin's short story collection Manual for Cleaning Women â and Cate herself is very much an admirer of the Spanish mainstream arts scene.

âWhen I was in high school I saw [Luis] BuÃ±uel [post-censorship film director], and it changed how I viewed the world,â Ms Blanchett, 52, admitted in her acceptance speech at Valencia's Palau de les Arts opera house after taking her trophy from Hollywood legend PenÃ©lope Cruz and AlmodÃ³var himself.

The star of Carol, Charlotte Grey and The House With a Clock in its Walls compared PenÃ©lope and AlmodÃ³var to other huge film-making twosomes such as Gena Rowlands and John Cassavetes, and Katharine Hepburn and George Cukor, and laughingly said AlmodÃ³var was 'disgustingly talented'.

She concluded by wishing PenÃ©lope and her husband, Javier Bardem, the best of luck in the Oscars, where they are nominated for Best Actress and Best Actor respectively.

Cate admitted she did not speak Spanish beyond 'thank you and good night' to the audience, but says she hopes to learn the language during her time on set with Manual for Cleaning Women.

JosÃ© SacristÃ¡n, 57 years of non-stop acting

This year's lifetime achievement award, or 'Honorary Goya', went to multiple prizewinner and prolific TV and film actor JosÃ© SacristÃ¡n, 84, whose first major production was in 1965 (La Familia y Uno MÃ¡s, or 'The Family and One More') and who has been acting and producing non-stop ever since â mainly involved in comedy features, SacristÃ¡n's most recent was in 2021, Cuidado Con Lo Que Deseas ('Be Careful What You Wish For').

Which films, cast and crew were nominated?

Real-life situations with a dash of comedy, or an unpacking of the past leading to shock discoveries, facing one's demons or both, gritty and topical issues, and a truly cult cast, were the 'theme of the year' for the 2022 Goyas; the winners will probably not surprise you, other than a few outsiders â famous British actors included.

Here are this year's nominations â see if you can work out how successful they might have been before you get to the bottom of this article, where we reveal the results.

El Buen PatrÃ³n ('The Good Boss')

Directed by: Fernando LeÃ³n de Aranoa

Starring: Javier Bardem, Almudena Amor, Celso Bugallo, Ãscar de la Fuente, Manolo Solo, MarÃ­a de Nati, Fernando Albizu, Mara Guil, Tarik Rmili, Nao Albet, YaÃ«l Belicha, Francesc Orella

Nominated for: Best Film, Best Lead Actor (Javier Bardem), Best New Actress (Almudena Amor), Best New Actor (Ãscar de la Fuente and Tarik Rmili), Best Original Script, Best Supporting Actress (Sonia Almarcha), Best Supporting Actor (Celso Bugallo, Manolo Solo and Fernando Albizu), Best Special Effects (RaÃºl Romanillos and MÃ­riam Piquer), Best Original Score (Zeltia Montes), Best Soundtrack (Pelayo GutiÃ©rrez, Valeria Arcieri), Best Director (Fernando LeÃ³n de Aranoa), Best Production (Luis GutiÃ©rrez), Best Artistic Direction (CÃ©sar MacarrÃ³n), Best Costume Design (Fernando GarcÃ­a), Best Hair and Makeup (Almudena Fonseca, Manolo GarcÃ­a), Best Cinematography (Pau Esteve Birba), Best Set Design (Vanessa Marimbert)

What's it about?

Blanco (Bardem), the charismatic owner of a company that manufactures industrial weighing scales in small-town Spain, is apprehensively awaiting a visit by a committee which will decide the firm's future â but everything seems to be conspiring against him.

Racing against time, Blanco does his best to solve his staff's various problems â staff he considers part of his own family, practically his children â but in trying to keep them sweet, crosses just about every red line imaginable.

Madres Paralelas ('Parallel Mothers')

Directed by: Pedro AlmodÃ³var

Starring: PenÃ©lope Cruz, Milena Smit, Rossy de Palma

Nominated for: Best Film, Best Lead Actress (PenÃ©lope Cruz), Best Supporting Actress (Aitana SÃ¡nchez-GijÃ³n and Milena Smit), Best Director (Pedro AlmodÃ³var), Best Artistic Direction (AntzÃ³n GÃ³mez) Best Cinematography (JosÃ© Luis Alcaine), Best Soundtrack (Marc Orts, Sergio BÃ¼rmann)

What's it about?

Two single women who give birth at the same moment meet for the first time in the hospital and become close friends, despite seemingly having nothing in common.

Janis, in her late 30s, a smart, chic, professional photographer, is pregnant by her ex-husband, a historian and anthropologist who works at the same hospital she is about to give birth in; Ana is a troubled teenager and about to be a single mother.

From the moment of their first encounter through to when their babies are hitting the terrible twos, Janis' and Ana's friendship and parallel lives are explored as their back-stories slowly come to light â and turn out to be inexorably intertwined with each other.

Madres Paralelas was nominated for a Best Film Not in the English Language BAFTA.

Libertad ('Liberty')

Directed by: Clara Roquet

Starring: MarÃ­a Morena; Nicolle GarcÃ­a

Nominated for: Best Film, Best New Actress (Nicolle GarcÃ­a), Best New Director (Clara Roquet), Best Supporting Actress (Nora Navas), Best Hair and Makeup (Elisabeth AdÃ¡nez, Nacho DÃ­az), Best Cinematography (Griselda Jordana)

What's it about?

This coming-of-age drama focuses on Nora, 14, who has reached that uncomfortable 'in between' stage of pre-grownuphood: Children's games are beneath her, but adult conversation too deep and serious. She finds herself, for the first time in her life, feeling directionless and unsure of herself.

Enter 15-year-old Libertad (whose name translates as 'Liberty', or 'Freedom'), and Nora's confusing existence undergoes a radical transformation as her older, rebellious and charismatic new friend shows her a summer she'll never forget.

Maixabel

Directed by: IcÃ­ar BollaÃ­n

Starring: Blanca Portillo, Luis Tosar, Bruno Sevilla, Urko OlazÃ¡bal, MarÃ­a Cerezuela

Nominated for: Best Film, Best Lead Actor (Luis Tosar), Best Lead Actress (Blanca Portillo), Best New Actress (MarÃ­a Cerezuela), Best Original Script (IcÃ­ar BollaÃ­n, Isa Campo), Best Supporting Actor (Urko OlazÃ¡bal), Best Original Score (Alberto Iglesias), Best Soundtrack (Juan Ferro, Alazne Amestoy), Best Director (IcÃ­ar BollaÃ­n), Best Production (Guadalupe Balaguer Trelles), Best Cinematography (Mikel Serrano), Best Costume Design (Clara Bilbao), Best Hair and Makeup (Karmele Soler, Sergio PÃ©rez), Best Set Design (Nacho Ruiz Capillas)

What's it about?

Middle-aged Maixabel Lasa, played by Blanca Portillo, lost her husband Juan MarÃ­a JaÃºregui in 2000 when he was killed in a bomb blast by the now-defunct separatist terrorist organisation ETA.

Two years after ETA's last violent act (in summer 2009), five years after its last major blast (in December 2006, when the cell blew up the car park at Madrid airport Terminal 4), and two years before ETA had formally disbanded and handed in its weapons, Maixabel gets an unusual request.

It's 2011, and one of the terrorists behind the explosion that killed her husband of 16 years has broken off all ties with ETA, but is still serving a long custodial sentence at Nanclares de la Oca prison in the province of Ãlava (of which the capital is Vitoria).

He wants to talk to Maixabel face to face and, despite crippling indecision at first as old wounds are reopened, decides to do so.

Maixabel won the Irizar Basque Film Award at San SebastiÃ¡n Film Festival in September.

MediterrÃ¡neo ('Mediterranean')

Directed by: Marcel Barrena

Starring: Ãbon Cormenzana, Ignasi EstapÃ©, Eduard FernÃ¡ndez, Tono Folguera, Giorgos Karnavas, AdriÃ MonÃ©s

Nominated for: Best Film, Best Lead Actor (Eduard FernÃ¡ndez), Best Special Effects (Ãlex Villagrasa), Best Original Score (Arnau Bataller), Best Production (Albert Espel, Kostas Sfakianakis), Best Cinematography (Kiko de la Rica) Best Original Song (Te Espera el Mar, or 'The Sea Awaits You', by MarÃ­a JosÃ© Llergo)

What's it about?

Two beach lifeguards, Ãscar and Gerard, travel to the Greek island of Lesbos after seeing a photo of a drowned child in the Mediterranean leaves them emotionally reeling. Once there, they come face to face with a chilling reality: Every day, thousands of people risk their lives on the sea fleeing armed conflict, and yet nobody makes any attempt to save them.

Along with Esther and Nico, Ãscar and Gerard form a sea rescue squad in a bid to redress the balance.

Josefina

Directed by: Javier Marco

Starring: Emma SuÃ¡rez, Roberto Ãlamo, Miguel Bernardeau

Nominated for: Best Lead Actress (Emma SuÃ¡rez), Best New Director (Javier Marco), Best Set Design (Miguel Doblado)

What's it about?

Prison guard Juan watches from a distance every Sunday as Berta turns up to visit her son, one of the inmates. One day, spontaneously, Juan pretends to be another prisoner's father on a visit, inventing a daughter behind bars, Josefina.

Berta's and Juan's emotionally empty lives are probed separately and, as their paths cross more and more, together; finally, they decide to step outside their grim reality and meet each other beyond the prison gates.

Chavalas ('Lasses')

Directed by: Carol RodrÃ­guez ColÃ¡s

Starring: Vicky Luengo, Elisabet Casanovas, Carolina Yuste, Ãngela Cervantes

Nominated for: Best New Actress (Ãngela Cervantes), Best New Director (Carol RodrÃ­guez ColÃ¡s)

What's it about?

Best friends as teenagers, Desi, Soraya, Marta and Bea meet up again years later as adults in their old neighbourhood, and attempt to make up for lost time.

A comedy-drama in which four women reminisce about the young girls they were, the grown-ups they want to be, and who they are now, they unwittingly end up solving each others' problems and dilemmas through their long and deep catch-up conversations.

Las Leyes de la Frontera ('The Border Laws')

Directed by: Daniel MonzÃ³n

Starring: Chechu Salgado, BegoÃ±a Vargas, Marcos Ruiz, Cintia GarcÃ­a, Guillermo Lasheras, Jorge Aparicio, Elisabet Casanovas

Nominated for: Best New Actor (Chechu Salgado, as Zarco), Best Adapted Script (Daniel MonzÃ³n, Jorge Guerrica EchevarrÃ­a), Best Cinematography (Balter Gallart), Best Costume Design (Vinyet Escobar), Best Hair and Makeup (BenjamÃ­n PÃ©rez, Sarai RodrÃ­guez, Nacho DÃ­az), Best Original Score (Dandy Piranha, Alejandro GarcÃ­a)

What's it about?

Student Ignacio CaÃ±as is 17, awkward, introverted and generally feels like a square peg and a bit of a misfit. Then he meets Zarco and Tere in the Chinatown district of his city, Girona â two juvenile delinquents, who lead him astray and into their underworld; suddenly he finds himself involved in a crimewave of break-ins, robberies, bag-snatching and shoplifting.

Based on the novel of the same name by Javier Cercas.

Lucas

Directed by: Ãlex Montoya

Starring: Jorge Motos, Javier Butler, MÃ¡ximo Pastor, Luis Callejo, Eva Llorach, Irene Anula, Jordi Aguilar

Nominated for: Best New Actor (Jorge Motos)

What's it about?

Lucas' world has fallen apart since the recent loss of his father, then one day, an older man, Ãlvaro, offers him money in exchange for ordinary, everyday pictures of him.

But Lucas has not realised that Ãlvaro wants his snapshots to use when setting up fake social media profiles.

Ama

Directed by: JÃºlia de Paz

Starring: Tamara Casellas, EstefanÃ­a de los Santos, Ana Turpin, Chema del Barco, Manuel de Blas, Leire MarÃ­n Vara, Pablo GÃ³mez

Nominated for: Best Adapted Script

What's it about?

Single mum Pepa is evicted from her home and ends up living on the street with her daughter Leila, six.

With nobody to help them, Pepa and Leila battle alone to get by and to find somewhere to live.

Pan de LimÃ³n Con Semillas de Amapola ('Lemon Bread with Poppy Seeds')

Directed by: Benito Zambrano

Starring: Eva MartÃ­n, Elia Galera

Nominated for: Best Adapted Script

What's it about?

Based upon the 'chick-lit' novel by Cristina Campos, the film centres on two sisters, Anna and Marina, who were separated as teenagers and who meet up again in a Mallorca village to sell the bakery they have inherited from a mystery woman neither of them knows.

The sisters, and their lives, are poles apart: Anna has practically never left the island of Mallorca in her life and is married to a man she doesn't love, whilst Marina travels the world working as a doctor for an overseas aid charity.

El Vientre del Mar ('The Belly of the Sea')

Directed by: AgustÃ­ Villaronga

Starring: Ãscar Kapoya, Roger Casamajor, Muminu Diayo, Marc Bonnin, Armando Buika, Mumi Diallo, Blanca Llum Vidal

Nominated for: Best Adapted Script

What's it about?

Based upon Alessandro Baricco's novel Ocean Sea, and reminiscent of Sebastian Junger's The Perfect Storm, the film starts with a French Naval frigate, the Alliance, running aground off the coast of SÃ©nÃ©gal, west Africa.

Without enough lifeboats to safely evacuate the entire crew, those on board build a precarious craft for the 147 men without a proper vessel.

The idea is that the lifeboats will tow the jerry-built boat ashore, but panic and confusion ensue, overwhelming the crew, leading to the tow-rope breaking off and the rickety raft cast adrift and left to its fate.

Tres ('Three')

Directed by: Juanjo GimÃ©nez

Starring: Marta Nieto, Miki EsparbÃ©, Carmen MÃ©ndez, Julius Cotter, Fran Lareu, Luisa Merelas, Iria Parada

Nominated for: Best Original Script (Juanjo GimÃ©nez, Pere Altimira)

What's it about?

A sound engineer spends much of her life alone in a studio, mixing and editing, overthinking about her relationship with her ex-partner, her elderly mother and her work colleagues.

Although she does not realise it, she is starting to fragment, emotionally and physically.

Way Down

Directed by: Jaume BalaguerÃ³

Starring: Freddie Highmore, Ãstrid BergÃ¨s-Frisbey, Famke Janssen, Liam Cunningham, Sam Riley, Axel Stein, Luis Tosar

Nominated for: Best Special Effects (Laura Pedro, Pau Costa)

What's it about?

British actor Freddie, best known for his rÃ´le as a 12-year-old alongside Johnny Depp as Charlie of Chocolate Factory fame and as autistic medic Shaun Murphy in The Good Doctor, gave us a sneak preview of his lead part in BalaguerÃ³'s action and suspense epic when he chatted with Pablo Motos on the silly celebrity talk show El Hormiguero â a heist is being planned on the Bank of Spain, in summer 2010, when the nation's FIFA World Cup win was just one match away and the entire population would be too distracted to notice.

Freddie plays the gifted engineer Thom Johnson, who is commissioned to find out how to access the Bank of Spain to get to the targeted haul.

La Abuela ('The Grandmother')

Directed by: Paco Plaza

Starring: Almudena Amor, Vera VÃ¡ldez, Karina Kolokolchykova, Chacha Huang, Michael Collis, Pierre-FranÃ§ois Garel

Nominated for: Best Special Effects (FerrÃ¡n Piquer, RaÃºl Romanillos)

What's it about?

A thriller that centres on Susana (Almudena Amor), who works as a model and lives in Paris, suddenly has to race home to Madrid after her grandmother, Pilar, suffers a stroke.

What Susana thought would be just a few days of looking after her grandmother turns into a terrifying living nightmare.

El Amor en su Lugar ('Love Gets a Room')

Directed by: Rodrigo CortÃ©s

Starring: Clara Rugaard, Ferdia Walsh-Peelo, Magnus Krepper, Henry Goodman, Freya Parks, Jack Roth, Valentina BellÃ¨

Nominated for: Best Production (Ãscar Vigiola), Best Costume Design (Alberto ValcÃ¡rcel)

What's it about?

A story within a story, the film carries the same title as the musical comedy theatre play written by Polish Jewish poet and satirist Jerzy Jurandot, and is based upon his creating it and a group of actors performing it in the Warsaw Ghetto of the early 1940s, where Jerzy and his wife Stefcia have been interned. In real life and in the film, Jerzy wrote light-hearted plays as escapism, to help those in the ghetto forget their grim, terrifying situation.

The cast, backstage, are agonising over a life-or-death decision: Should they try to flee the ghetto after the curtain call, even though they would be in mortal danger if they were caught?

Bajocero ('Below Zero')

Directed by: LluÃ­s QuÃ­lez

Starring: Patrick Criado, Javier GutiÃ©rrez, Florin Opritescu, Ãdgar Vittorino, Karra Elejalde, Luis Callejo, Ãlex Monner

Nominated for: Best Set Design (Antonio Frutos)

What's it about?

On a cold winter night, a vanload of prisoners is being transferred to another jail when it is held up by an armed gang on an empty highway, who seem to be looking for a specific person.

Driver MartÃ­n barricades himself inside the vehicle with the inmates to protect them, making himself a human shield and all that stands between the prisoners and the attackers.

During the long, freezing night held hostage, many of the men in the vehicle start to reflect on their lives of crime as these flash before their eyes.

Who won?

With a mind-blowing 20 nominations and despite having missed out on the shortlist for a Best International Film Oscar this year, it was almost a given that El Buen PatrÃ³n was going to take home at least one award.

And, in fact, Fernando LeÃ³n de Aranoa's office comedy with 'Bond baddie' Javier Bardem as the boss who likes to be liked but ends up getting on everyone's nerves pretty much swept the board, although Maixabel and Madres Paralelas were hot on its heels.

These are the main categories, and their winners:

Best Film: El Buen PatrÃ³n

Best Lead Actor: Javier Bardem for El Buen PatrÃ³n

Best Lead Actress: Blanca Portillo for Maixabel

Best New Actress: MarÃ­a Cerezuela for Maixabel

Best New Actor: Chechu Salgado for Las Leyes de la Frontera

Best Original Song: Te Espera el Mar, by MarÃ­a JosÃ© Llergo, for MediterrÃ¡neo

Best Adapted Script: Las Leyes de la Frontera

Best New Director: Clara Roquet for Libertad

Best Original Script: El Buen PatrÃ³n

Best Supporting Actress: Nora Navas for Libertad

Best Supporting Actor: Urku OlazÃ¡bal for Maixabel

Best Special Effects: Way Down

Best Original Score: El Buen PatrÃ³n

Best Soundtrack: Tres

Best Director: Fernando LeÃ³n de Aranoa for El Buen PatrÃ³n

Best Production: MediterrÃ¡neo

Best Artistic Director: Balter Gallart for Las Leyes de la Frontera

Best Costume Design: Las Leyes de la Frontera

Best Hair and Makeup: Las Leyes de la Frontera

Best Cinematography: MediterrÃ¡neo

Best Set Design: El Buen PatrÃ³n

Other categories

Best Short Film in the Fiction category is TÃ³tem Loba ('Totem She-Wolf'), a drama by VerÃ³nica Echegui starring Isa MontalbÃ¡n as EstÃ­balÃ­z who accepts an invite from her school friend Raquel (Elisa Drabben) to go with her to her village fiestas â and what starts off as a fun road trip turns out to be a complete nightmare.

TÃ³tem Loba beat nominees Farrucas, which starts with Handoum having a bad day in high school and shows her walking back to her home in the suburbs of AlmerÃ­a, on a day when her best friend, Fatema celebrates her 18th birthday; Votamos ('Let's Vote'), about a neighbours' association meeting in an apartment block that gets out of hand; Yalla, where 14-year-old Mufid reluctantly goes searching for the ball he kicked off the pitch during a match with friends, through which he is spied on by military drone; and Mindanao, about a corrupt mayoress in an east-coast city who spends her last hours of freedom surrounded by her entourage, or accomplices, and the love of her life, Amparo.

Best Animated Film went to Valentina, about a little girl who wants to be a trapeze artist but worries her Down Syndrome will put paid to her ambitions, until her grandmother points out that if a caterpillar can turn into a butterfly, Valentina can turn into anything she wants.

Rivals for the honour were Mironins, about three drops of paint who 'escape' from a Joan MirÃ³ picture and go off on adventures; Gora Automatikoa, where a failed film director teams up with his best friends, a pedantic artist and a funeral parlour worker, to find out how they can get an 'automatic Goya award'; and Salvar el Ãrbol ('Save the Tree'), where a newly-sprouted tree-seed and its 'tied' pixie decide to go off and rescue the trees in cities that are constantly dying out â along with their own 'tied' pixies.

Best Latin American Film went to a documentary this time, La Cordillera de los SueÃ±os, the title of which in the English-subtitled version is The Cordillera of Dreams, referring to the Cordillera or mountain range of the Andes, and the powerful secrets of the ancient and recent history of Chile nestled within them.

Best Animated Short Film was won by The Monkey, in which a primate 'stars' as a shipwrecked officer from the Spanish Armada in 1588 captured on the shores of Ireland, found guilty and sentenced to the gallows.

Best Short Documentary went to Mama, by Pablo de la Chica, about a woman who cares for baby chimps in a sanctuary in a war-torn African country.

Danish director Thomas Vinterberg's Druk won Best European Film â a comedy-drama in which four high-school teachers perform a social experiment to see whether alcohol can improve their lives and work â and was up against the British crime drama Promising Young Woman, by Emerald Fennell, starring Carey Mulligan as Cassandra, whose bright future is brought unexpectedly to a halt, causing her to lead a double life by day and night and giving her the chance to 'repair' her past by getting revenge on those who caused her harm.

Adieu les Cons ('Goodbye, Idiots') by France's Albert Dupontel, about a seriously-ill woman who tries to track down the son she was forced to give away when she was 15, with the help of an over-enthusiastic blind librarian and a man in the thick of a mid-life crisis; and the romantic sci-fi feature Ich Bin Dein Mensch ('I'm Your Man'), by Germany's Maria Schrader, were also nominated for Best European Film.