'Sirat' will be the Spanish candidate for the Oscars
The Catalan production directed by Galician Oliver Laxe has been chosen by the academics
BarcelonaSirado, by Oliver Laxe, will represent Spain in the Oscar race. The Catalan production, a road movie across the Sahara in which a father searching for radish in radish her missing daughter, has prevailed over the other candidates: Pilgrimage, by Carla Simón, and Deaf, by Eva Libertad. The last Catalan film nominated for an Oscar was the animated film Robot dreams, by Pablo Berger, who was precisely the one who made the announcement of the film chosen by the Spanish Film Academy. If Sirado If the film were to win the Oscar for Best International Feature Film, it would be the first Catalan production to triumph in this category.
It will be the first time that the Galician director will compete for the Oscar, but not the film's lead actor, Sergi López: he was one of the actors inPan's Labyrinth, which in 2007 received six Oscar nominations and won three; the Vilanovino actor was also part of the cast of Black bread, which represented Spain in the 2011 Oscar race, although it was ultimately not nominated.
Sirado It was presented in the official competition at the last Cannes Film Festival, where it won the special jury prize (ex aequo with the German Sound of falling), a historic milestone for Catalan cinema, which had not received any recognition in the official section of Cannes since the Palme d'Or in 1961. Viridiana, produced by Pere Portabella. Laxe's filmIt was one of the most talked-about films at Cannes for its ability to shock and surprise the viewer through its explosive exploration of a father's deep pain.
Before the festival ended, Laxe's film was acquired by Neon, the distributor with the best Oscar savvy in recent years: it was behind the triumphs of Parasites and ofAnora, and this year it distributes other international Oscar favorites such as the Norwegian Sentimental value by Joachim Trier, the Tunisian Hind's Voice by Kaouther Ben Hania and the winner of the Palme d'Or, A simple accident, by Iranian Jafar Panahi, which is a candidate to represent France at the Oscars.
The Spanish representative at the Oscars has not won the statuette since 2004, when Alejandro Amenábar won it for Deep sea, the fourth Spanish Oscar in the category after those of Start over (1982), Belle Époque (1993) and All about my mother (1999). The last film selected by Spain to achieve an Oscar nomination was the Netflix production The Snow Society by JA Bayona, who was also nominated for makeup and hairstyling. The last Catalan productions nominated for an Oscar were Chico and Rita by Fernando Trueba and Javier Mariscal (in 2012, for best animated film) and the short Timecode by Juanjo Giménez (in 2017, for best short fiction film).
The race for the Oscar for best international film will begin on October 1st, when the academies' deadline for submitting nominated films closes. Several committees of Academy members will then choose the 15 films that will be part of a shortlist which will be announced on December 16. The list of the five nominees will be announced, along with the rest of the Oscar categories, on January 22. The winning film will be announced on Sunday, March 15, at the 98th Academy Awards ceremony. Last year, 86 films were nominated, and the winner was the Brazilian drama I'm still here.