Queen Letizia has been in charge this Sunday, as it has long done the most massive edition of Atlàntida Mallorca Film Fest, which this year received 45,000 people, more than ever in its history (about 5,000 more than last year). He did it, as he also used for years, the Master of Cinema Award, this time to the Spanish composer Alberto Iglesias for being, the festival says, “the best Spanish composer for cinema in history.”
It is, at least in data: 4 times Oscar nominated – the last this year for its work in The next roomby Pedro Almodóvar -, awarded twice at the Cannes Festival and 12 times in the Goya – more than any other person – and is also a National Prize for Cinematography and Gold Medal to Merit in the Fine Arts. You can’t talk about Almodovar without talking about Iglesias. A relationship that began in 1995 with The flower of my secret And that he continued with Trembling meat, All about my mother, Talk to her, Return, The skin I live, Pain and glory and the aforementioned The next room. And if there are more of his references in the history of Spanish cinema, he also has a long relationship with Julio Medem, with films such as The red squirrel, earth, lovers of the polar circle y Lucia and sex.
But he considers himself, he said it upon receiving the statuette in the hot Mallorcan night “an apprentice of this.” “Music is enigmatic, it crosses us without being completely understandable and with laws that resist being fixed,” Churches told the guests, shy and with a candid voice, and then defend the role of music in the cinema, that to which he is dedicated. “The cinema needed music to say things, then has tried to say what the word is not enough. With music in our ears he tries to remind us who we want to be and who we are.” And then a brief reflection on “the complex times” that are lived: “Art feeds the spirit, but reality seems not to do it. The most cruel forms of barbarism are there. Artists must try to unite the truth with beauty to influence the world.”
It is the first time, in more than half decade, that the speech of the award -winning in the closing is pronounced by a Spaniard. Before Iglesias, the prize was received by international stars: Michael Douglas, Irene Jacon, Isabelle Huppert, Judi Dench, Stephen Frears or Ken Loach. The queen was accompanied, in the background, the director of the festival, Jaume Ripoll, and the president of the Balearic Government, Marga Prohens.
Before the stellar moment of the night, with the last rays of sun illuminating the courtyard of the La Misericordia Cultural Center, in Palma, Yerai Cortés and its Flemish guitar began the afternoon with a brief concert, in the first glimpse of a gala that was deeply musical, presented by Miriam Garcías and the journalist of El País Carlos de Vega. And in addition to Cortés and the Churches award, the documentary was also projected THE SONG OF HANDSMaría Valverde’s spring opera on the history of three Venezuelan deaf interpreters preparing the opera signs language assembly Fideliofrom Beethoven, under the baton of Gustavo Dudamel.
The orchestra director and the actress were two of the main protagonists of the night and took the stage, in a symbolic gesture propitiated by De Vega, with the deaf applause of the public. At night, unlike other years, they did not parade for the blue carpet such rimbombantes international names. There was no lack of some of the most recognized faces of Spanish cinema: Chinese Darín, Carolina Yuste, Rossy de Palma, Alba Flores, Itzan Escamila, Edu Solo, Carla Tous or Greta Fernández.
The awards for the best of the festival were also presented. The award of the National Official Section for Jone, sometimes (Jone, sometimes), directed by Sara Fantova. With a special mention for Downriver a tiger, by Víctor Diago. The Best International Film Award for Julie’s silence, Leonardo Van Dijil, with another honor mention to How to be normal and the oddness of the world, by Florian Pochlatko. The designer is deadthe documentary about the controversial designer Miguel Adrover – everyone’s mouth for the recent controversy with Rosalia – from Gonzalo Hergueta, received the public prize. And the criticism picked it up Eat the Nightby Caroline Poggi and Jonathan Vinel, with another special mention for How to be normal and the oddness of the world, by Florian Pochlatko.