The PP gives up on Albert Serra's bullfighting

MadridIn a strange protocol, Albert Serra is practically cornered in the photograph of authorities and winners prior to the presentation ceremony of the 2024 Bullfighting Award, which the PP has recovered through the Senate and the autonomous communities where they govern, after the Ministry of Culture led by Ernest Urtasun will eliminate it. It is clear that the conservatives want to oppose the Spanish government through this tradition, which is as controversial and divisive as politics in the State itself. And they have found in Serra their main ally, to whom they give great praise for the film, despite downplaying the role. Afternoons of solitude, which genuinely reflects how the bullfighter Andrés Roca Rey faces his bullfights. A film that was The big prize at the 2024 San Sebastian Film Festival and will be released in theaters on March 7.

"Serra has been able to open his doors to intimate moments," says the president of the Senate, Pedro Rollán. "Through a risky and artistic cinematographic language, he explores the essence of bullfighting as a ritual and the bullfighter as a hero, addressing universal themes such as fear, death and beauty," stresses Victorino Martín, president of the Fundación Toro de Lidia, who says: Poplar instead of Albert, as was the case with Artur when in Madrid they were referring to Artur Mas. Roca Rey himself also pays tribute to the talent of the director from Banyoles for "taking bullfighting to a new space with a unique vision."

Albert Serra, who claims to "do the opposite of what is expected" to explain his decision to make a film about bullfighting despite the opinions that advised against it, skips the protocol of greeting the authorities at the beginning of his speech. He thanks the award and focuses on praising the "surprising generosity" of Roca Rey for having agreed to this immersion in the liturgy of the bullfighter and the bullfight to discover its "human and genuine side." Afternoons of solitude, he says, is neither for nor against this practice, which in this ceremony is presented as "culture", as "poetic wealth" and even as a "miracle that sustains families". What the film does is go into detail to show all the angles: from the brutality of the animal's death to the emotions and rituals before and after the bullfight.

Criticism of Urtasun

"Nobody thought that bullfighting had such depth, and the film reflects it in all its splendour," Serra emphasises in his speech, in which he reveals that issues that we may not like at first "can end up loving". "This is the power of cinema," he says, before hoping that he had done bullfighting a favour and that the prize "lasts for many years". Surrounded by PP politicians - and also with the representative of the Junta de Castilla-La Mancha, governed by the PSOE -, bullfighters such as Cayetano Rivera, businessmen from the sector and cattle breeders, Serra applauds the attacks on Urtasun. "The prize was eliminated by a political decision. But here we are. Culture is not decided from an office. The bull has won," claims Roca Rey. "In the face of the sad censure of some, we are here today celebrating culture in freedom," adds the president of the Fundación Toro de Lidia. As ERC has denounced, the Senate - with an absolute majority of the PP - has not yet detailed the cost of these prizes. alternative in bullfighting.