Malaga hosts the strangest Goya Awards

A woman is photographed next to an image of Antonio Banderas in Calle Larios, in Malaga.García-Santos

Malaga has gone from celebrating the largest gala in the history of the Goya to the smallest in 13 months.

In a very quiet street Larios, the people of Malaga walk these days next to the photograph of Antonio Banderas after receiving his Goya for best actor.

He looks serious, like defying.

He seemed to notice the challenge that lay ahead, pandemic through, organizing the 2021 gala. The image is part of an exhibition of portraits of Andalusians awarded by the Film Academy - from Antonio de la Torre to India Martínez or Paz Vega - which is It extends along a road where there are no tourists.

Volunteers from Greenpeace and Doctors of the World sell a better world between images of actors, actresses, technical staff, directors, makeup artists or artists with whom a few are photographed.

The clouds and haze have enveloped the city all week in a strange atmosphere, without shadows, where everything seems to have stopped.

As if Malaga still does not believe that it is the host of the 35th Goya gala.

As if he thought that the 34th edition, when the world was different, was a dream.

The rain forecast is the only thing that seems to unite both editions.

Today even Calle Larios looks like a museum that turns off lights and closes doors at ten o'clock at night due to the curfew.

The Goya remember Mario Casas

"This year it's time for containment," stressed this week Mariano Barroso, president of the Academy.

The celebration of Spanish cinema will have its most complex, strange and most social distance edition in its history this Saturday under the direction of María Casado and Antonio Banderas, who are the host at their Soho Caixabank Theater.

Both will present it before the cameras of Televisión Española and a thousand empty seats.

There will be no guests or parties.

Only one television production in which to announce 28 awards that Banderas himself —who acts as director, screenwriter and presenter— has defined as "short, sober and elegant."

The stage will feature the music of Aitana, Nathy Peluso, Diana Navarro and Vanesa Martín, as well as the theater's own Pop Symphony.

Carlos Latre will also perform, and some thirty interpreters and directors —from Pedro Almodóvar, Alejandro Amenábar and Juan Antonio Bayona to Penélope Cruz, Antonio de la Torre, Leonardo Sbaraglia and Emma Suárez— will deliver the awards live.

The 166 nominees will await their moment of glory from the couch.

Some will connect thanks to camera teams moved to their living room (or the place they prefer, different production companies have opted for hotel rooms) and, others, through internet platforms.

"It will be more or less as always, but instead of focusing on the stalls, we will see everyone at home," they say from the organization.

"The path chosen by the Academy seems brave to me," Icíar Bollaín said last weekend.

International actors and actresses such as Robert de Niro, Al Pacino, Monica Bellucci, Sylvester Stallone, Isabelle Huppert, Laura Dern and Charlize Theron will also join the Goya.

Banderas has pulled the agenda.

Three statuettes —the three, by Antonio Banderas— have rested these days next to the bar of the Tercer Acto restaurant, which offers “gastronomy and applause” on the ground floor of the Soho Theater.

The huge technical team - both from the theater production company and from TVE - has a coffee there, when possible, that has prepared the gala over the last week.

All are PCR negative: tests are repeated on all personnel to avoid the slightest risk.

Casas de Campos Street, on the side of the scenic space, has been abuzz with mobile units and trucks.

The workers have pulled miles of cables, unloaded from floodlights to washing machines or a refrigerator and have set up their headquarters in what until not long ago was a bicycle rental business for tourists.

Adaptation to the pandemic

The gala has been adapting to the evolution of the pandemic, which a month ago was a huge drama in Malaga.

Today it continues to be so, although with a certain air of hope.

For this reason, a hybrid event between live, recordings and telematic connections has been drawn, which increases the complexity.

During the mornings the live rehearsals have been held, which will feature the music of the Pop Symphony, for which part of the first floor of the theater has been adapted.

Since Wednesday, every afternoon, the other musical performances have been recorded.

Antonio Banderas sees the difficulties with optimism: "The program for Amazon served as a dress rehearsal," he said Tuesday during a meeting on Twitter.

It was an option, but none of the streets around the theater will be wearing a red carpet.

Nor have there been hardly any previous activities in the city, except for the exhibition and screening at the Albéniz Cinema of the five works nominated for best film.

The sanitary restrictions - hospitality closed from 9:30 p.m. and a curfew from 10 p.m. - have given little reason to celebrate the cinema.

Much less so that the public can get close to see the stars of celluloid and television.

The thirty well-known faces who will travel to Malaga will be secluded at the Gran Hotel Miramar, whose royal rooms will host a short red carpet in front of a small number of television and photography cameras, as happened last summer at the Malaga Festival.

There they will pose, together with María Casado and Antonio Banderas, the president of the Film Academy, Mariano Barroso, and Ángela Molina, who will receive the Goya of Honor and will be the only one to pick it up

on site

.

Nothing more.

About thirty guests compared to 3,200 last year.

It is the only thing that has facilitated the organization of the gala, especially in security matters due to the absence of authorities.

The Academy assures that the ceremony will last two hours, so after the musical start and a monologue by Banderas, the filmmaker has found different ways to group some technical awards to speed up the gala, but that do not undervalue those categories.

The film that has received the most nominations is

Adú

, by Salvador Calvo (13 nominations), followed by

Akelarre

, by Pablo Agüero (9 nominations),

Girls

, by Pilar Palomero (9 nominations), and

La Boda de Rosa

, by Icíar Bollaín (8 selections).

The bookmakers consider

Girls

as the winner as Best Film

, which won the Golden Biznaga at the Spanish Film Festival last June in Malaga.

"Let's celebrate the cinema party, even if it's at home," Palomero stressed to EL PAÍS.

For now, that is the only option.