The Goya for Best Artistic Direction goes to Juan Pedro de Gaspar for 'Blackthorn. Without destiny'

The four great films nominated for this year's Goya were dueling for Best Artistic Direction, but only one can win the award and it was Juan Pedro Gaspar, for 'Blackthorn. Without destiny.

Juan Pedro de Gaspar has won the 2012 Goya Award for Best Artistic Direction for his work on the film Blackthorn. Sin destino, by Mateo Gil, beating Laia Colet (Eva), Antxon Gomez (The skin I live in) and Antón Laguna (There will be no peace for the wicked).

Filmed entirely in Bolivia, this western by filmmaker Mateo Gil tells the life of Butch Cassidy, the most famous North American outlaw, whose investigation is narrated from the United States to Bolivia, where he found a paradisiacal refuge on a ranch so as not to end up in prison. Portrayed in his maturity, with the performance of Sam Shepard, the 'gringo' moves through the arid lands of Potosí and the Salar de Uyuni, where he meets a Spanish fugitive played by Eduardo Noriega.

“It was a very intense film because it had many sets that had to be built and it had the particularity that the technique of cinema in Bolivia is poorly developed, although they made up for it with an unusual enthusiasm that was truly surprising,” Juan Pedro de Gaspar explained to Panorama Audiovisual. “We really did things, we didn't use paneling, plaster molds, or wood…We made a stone ranch and an adobe cabin,” he added.

According to the artistic director of this 'Bolivian western', "the guidelines we had for this film were the concept of western films from the 70s, with slow rhythms, for which Mateo has a genuine fascination and which he has managed to transmit to the rest of the team. You stick to what he tells you he needs, to the color ranges that you discuss with the director of photography and then to the era, and the difficulty of finding vehicles in Bolivia." When looking for locations for the film, De Gaspar has indicated that "when you have a limited budget you try to look for locations close to the place where you are staying. We did a lot around La Paz, we also sent some units to Tupiza and then we also filmed for a month in the Salar de Uyuni and in a nearby mining city called Culacayo."