The Spanish film industry has been undergoing an evolutionary process in recent years that has allowed it to have a leading role at the Oscars. In its more than 90 years of history, the statuettes distributed by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in Hollywood have gradually become more and more open to professionals from different countries, but Spain has been offering important representatives for decades.
The 2022 Oscars gala, will not be an exception and our country will have several artists at the Dolby Theater in Los Angeles: Javier Bardem, who competes in the Category for Best Actor; Penelope Cruz, who is up for the Best Actress award; Alberto Iglesias, who will fight for the Best Soundtrack and Alberto Mielgo who will try to return to Spain with the statuette for Best Animated Short.
In this 94th edition of the Oscars, Spain will not have any feature film that aspires to the awards. In fact, the work by Fernando Leon de Aranoa 'the good pattern', which made the first cut to qualify for Best International Film, was among the 15 semifinalists and did not end up making it to the final phase, so the flashes of the Red Carpet will not shoot the Madrid director.
First Spanish film to win an Oscar
This year it will not be, but throughout history, Spain has managed to win the Best Film award. On April 11, 1983, at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, 'Volver an emperor became the first Spanish film to win an Oscar. According to the film critic Diego Galan, this could be because of the work of the Madrid director Jose Luis Garci, "a cultural production in freedom, made by a new generation, has more possibilities of connection and appreciation for an equally free world".
The film, which would go down in the history of Spanish cinema, was initially quite poorly received by critics. However, with time, the evaluation of the critics was improving.
The work, an endearing nostalgic melodrama, in which the careful photography of Gijón and the excellent direction of actors stand out, tells the story of an exiled writer who, after the restoration of democracy in Spain, returns to his hometown after receiving in Stockholm the Nobel Prize for Literature, where he meets again with the woman who was the love of his youth.
