Today is the day. The Goya Awards. A Spanish version of the Oscar Awards. And my question is… who cares? Spanish cinema is losing more and more spectators. And the quality of Spanish films is getting worse. There are many reasons for this. First is the Spanish government regulation for film subsidies. Spanish government finance 33% of the budget of the film (with a limit of 700.000 euros). But not only this: there are other subsidies, from regional governments. This makes that the quantity of the films is higher, but not the quality.

Also, there is a question of the matters or subjects that are on the Spanish movies. Most of them are centered on the current times. And this films are not interesting the Spanish society (there are exceptions, of course). With sexually explicit scenes that are out of contexte, with a vile, vulgar and awkward treatment of the movie, most of the Spanis movies centered on the current times are a completely waste of time; useless. There is also another subject: to center the movie on the Spanish Civil War. But this is not managed in a neutral way: most of the films are only (in part because of the subsidies, in part because of the vile character of the director or the writer of the script) looking to justify one side of this war and to blame other part of this war. In general, their idea is, somehow, to create a king of counter-culture, critizising the religion, the values of the Spanish society. This can be seen on the film “Camino”, a film that is about a religious person, but that is not telling the real story: the family of the main character is very upset.

Taking all of this into account, the Spanish cinema is known all around the world for the presence of prominent figures (???) such as: Pedro Almodóvar, a leftist and homosexual person whose films are good in quality, but somehow the scenes are repeated all over the different films he has directed: people farting, urinating, saying badwords, masturbating, making sex… Is this real the Spanish society? Not at all, but the fame of Pedro Almodóvar can afford all of this. I remember while I was living on the USA, there was an interview with him on the TV, and he was inspiring a view of the Spanish society very far away from reality. What about the other people? Javier Bardem, Penélope Cruz and Antonio Banderas are coming (more or less) from Almodóvar filmography. The two men (and also Almodóvare) are very aligned with the current Spanish governement, and in some way did or are doing the dirty work in terms of critizicing the conservative party and their conservative basis. Only to remember the position of Bardem in things like the Spanish support to USA (Mr. Bush Administration) on the Irak conflict, the close relationship of Antonio Banderas with the leftist administration of Andalucía, or the declaration of Mr. Almodóvar about a coup d’état of the Popular Party in Spain in 2.004.

The Spanish film industry (with a few exceptions) is very far to Spanish reality; to Spanish way of life. Furthermore, the Spanish film industry, in general, is only seeing a face of the coin. As far as I remember, there is one or two films thar can, for instance, cover the terrorism problem in Spain in a neutral way. More over, as far as I remember, those guys (Bardem and his friends) refused to put on a pin in favour of the Spanish victims of the terrorism. The limit of the hypocrisy is that all of them want to success on a country (America) they use to blame. Some of them reached this limit (Bardem, Banderas); the others are looking to succeed.

As I said, there are exceptions that the mass is throwing away of the recongnition. Directors such as José Luis Garci (whose movies are much better that the rest of the films together) are blamed for his position, left aside…

So.. tonight is the Goya Awards celebration. But… Who really cares? This is a cerebration from the film industry to the film industry. Let them enjoy with their garbage. As Rhett said to Scarlett: “Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damm”.

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