Salvador Calvo wins the Goya for best director for Adú

The drama about immigration starring Luis Tosar, 'Adú', wins four Goyas, including best direction.

Salvador Calvo In the 35th edition of the Goya Awards, he received recognition as best director by Adu, the drama about immigration starring Luis Tosar. The winner wanted to share the prize with his fellow nominees Juanma Bajo Ulloa (Baby), Iciar Bollaín (Rosa's wedding) e Isabel Coixet (It snows in Benidorm), whom he described as “reference”.

The director also wanted to share the award with the entire technical and artistic team because “they are the ones who have brought me here as well as the producers, with special thanks to Paolo Vasile, who has been brave and has opted for a different cinema. I would also like to dedicate the award to Pedro Costa, my mentor, who was the person who believed that I could make films and, in some way, opted for me to do it.”

Calvo also had an emotional memory for her deceased parents as well as for her family, her husband, the architect and interior designer Juan Luis Arcos, her daughter Alejandra (who spontaneously appeared on screen in the interviews prior to the gala), and for “all the children who travel the world aspiring to a better life in a world that is not ours but rather belongs to everyone and can truly be achieved.”

Adu tells the story of a six-year-old boy and his older sister who, in a desperate attempt to reach Europe and crouched before a landing strip in Cameroon, wait to sneak into the holds of a plane. Not too far away, an environmental activist contemplates the terrible image of an elephant, dead and without tusks. Not only does he have to fight against poaching, but he will also have to rediscover the problems of his daughter who recently arrived from Spain. Thousands of kilometers to the north, in Melilla, a group of civil guards is preparing to confront a large number of sub-Saharans who have begun the assault on the fence. Three stories united by a central theme, in which none of the protagonists knows that their destinies are doomed to cross.

Sergio Calvo's previous work in the world of feature films was The last of the Philippines and to his credit there are series like The Duchess, Without tits there is no paradise, Stolen children, Alacrana, Paquirri, What their eyes were hiding o Alatriste, among others, in a profuse career of more than twenty years.

An “absolutely necessary” film

To Adu, featured the production of Edmond Roch, y Alvaro Augustín, director of Telecinco Cinema, who knew Calvo's long history in television series. The result is a deeply human and technically well-resolved film, which has had enormous success in its dissemination through Netflix and that the director himself considers “absolutely necessary.”

The filmmaker elaborates that "there are 258 million emigrants in the world. Of which 26 million are exiles. Of these, approximately 6,100 die each year trying to reach a better world. A world that is prohibited to them for the simple fact of having had the bad luck to be born in the most disadvantaged area of the planet."

Without a doubt, the feature film Adú has been Sergio Calvo's consecration as a film director. The film was nominated for thirteen Academy Awards, ultimately winning four awards.