Valencia warms up for the Goya Awards

Until February 13, the capital of Turia will be filled with meetings with Goya Awards nominees; projections; two exhibitions, one of them starring Luis García Berlanga; and 12 giant replicas of the awards statuette made by the city's Guild of Fallas Artists, which will also have 'cinema menus' to celebrate the annual festival of our cinematography.

Valencia is the setting for the award ceremony of the 36th edition of the Goya Awards, which will be held on February 12 at Les Arts. And, as a prelude to the gala, the Film Academy has scheduled different previous activities that were presented this Wednesday by the president of the institution, Mariano Barroso, accompanied by the president of the Generalitat, Ximo Puig; the mayor and vice mayor of Valencia, Joan Ribó and Sandra Gómez López; and the president of the Valencia Provincial Council, Toni Gaspar.

“Our language is emotion and emotion unites us in this city that has welcomed us with open arms,” he said. Mariano Barroso, who, like the rest of the participants, remembered two universal Valencians, Luis García Berlanga already Mariano Benlliure –the current Goya Awards statuette is a reproduction of the bust made by Benlliure in 1902–.

“That the Goya are now in Valencia is an extraordinary event because, after two very hard years, the light is beginning to be seen,” he highlighted. Ximo Puig.

For his part, the mayor Joan Ribo He indicated that by hosting the Goya 2022 award ceremony “Valencia renews its commitment to culture in general and to the audiovisual industry in particular.” The vice mayor Sandra Gómez López He highlighted that this will be “the gala of the reunion and recovery of Spanish society.”

Finally, Toni Gaspar He assured that Valencia was “a land prepared for great occasions.”

Its Town Hall, its streets and squares, its Film Archive, its university, the Bombas Gens art center and the Veles e Vents building are the settings for the different initiatives that will be developed in collaboration with the City Hall, the Generalitat and the Provincial Council of Valencia – sponsoring entities of the Spanish film festival –, the Film Library of Valencia, the Per Amor Al'Art Foundation, the Camilo José Cela University and CIMA.

Screenings and presentations at the Film Library

The Sala Berlanga of the Filmoteca de Valencia will screen, at 8:00 p.m., the productions nominated for the Goya for Best Film and Best New Director –Girls, Josefina, that's what life was like y Freedom–. This cycle, which begins with Chavalas, Carol Rodríguez's debut feature, has The good boss, a film with 20 award options that will be introduced by Almudena Amor, nominated for best new actress.

Clara Roquet, director and screenwriter of Libertad, with 6 nominations; Urko Olazabal nominated for best supporting actor for Maixabel, with 14 award possibilities; and Agustín Almodóvar, and Tono Folguera, producers of Parallel mothers –8– y Mediterranean, –7– respectively, will host these sessions at the Filmoteca.

Urban exhibition and meetings

The Goya Awards also take to the streets. The Plaza del Ayuntamiento is the setting in which large-format photographs of Valencians or people with a close link to this Community who have received a Goya Award are exhibited.

Visitors who visit this space from this Wednesday until next February 13 will be able to enjoy the images signed by photographers Pipo Fernández, Alberto Ortega, Papo Waisman and Luis Castilla.

On the other hand, the richness and diversity of Ibero-American cinema is in the four feature films that this year are up for the Goya in their category –Song without a name, The mountain range of dreams, The Siamese y The wolves–. And to talk about Ibero-American cinema, the director of the Peruvian film song without name, Melina León; the producer of the Chilean film The mountain range of dreams, Alexandra Galvis; Juan Pablo Miller, producer of the Argentine feature film The Siamese; and the producers of the Mexican title The wolves, Inna Payán and Leticia Carrillo will hold a meeting with the public at Vele e Vents on February 11, at 12:30 p.m.

That same day, at 5:00 p.m. at Bombas Gens, four creators of the program Film Academy Residences Nominees and winners of the Goya Awards – Javier Marco, Marina R. Colás, Pablo de la Chica and Pilar Palomero – will talk with film and acting students about the importance of training, the relationship with the industry and the processes of launching a project.

Bombas Gens also hosts on February 11, at 4:00 p.m., a solidarity screening with families of its social area program: the broadcast of the film Chavalas and the subsequent meeting with one of its protagonists who is nominated for best new actress, Ángela Cervantes.

The meetings are completed with a discussion table on the current situation of women in audiovisuals, in which the Valencian producer Lorena Lluch, the sound editor Laia Casanovas and the editor Vanessa Marimbert, who are also competing for a Goya Award, will participate. Moderated by Rosana Pastor – commissioner of the ‘Berlanga Year’ by the Generalitat –, the meeting will take place on February 11, at 7:00 p.m., at the La Nau cultural center of the University of Valencia.

Berlanga, protagonist

The Honorary President and co-founder of the Film Academy returns to his homeland with Berlanguiano. Luis García Berlanga (1921-2021), an exhibition that will be at Bombas Gens from February 8 to June 12.

Photographs, audiovisual material, scripts, posters and shooting plans make up this exhibition from the Film Academy curated by Esperanza García Claver. A journey that identifies the evolution of Luis García Berlanga's cinematographic career and, in parallel, moments of Spanish life portrayed by legendary national and international photographers who looked at and interpreted that native reality at the same time.

Finally, it should be noted that on February 11, from 7:30 p.m. to 10:30 p.m. and every 15 minutes, the façade of Valencia City Hall will offer images honoring the figure of the filmmaker Luis García Berlanga and the Goya of Honor of this edition, José Sacristán, and celebrating the presence of the Goya Awards in the city.