Spaniards may not crowd the streets by the tens of thousands to celebrate their auteurs the way they do their futbolistas, but there has been a palpable sense of exuberance in the industry this spring about a historic moment for Spanish cinema.
“I wish we lived it like that!” director Rodrigo Sorogoyen joked on the radio about the football analogy, after the April 9 announcement that his new film, The Beloved (El Ser Querido), would join Pedro Almodóvar’s Bitter Christmas (Amarga Navidad) and Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi’s La Bola Negra in an unprecedented three-film representation of Spain in this year’s Official Competition at Cannes.
“There’s a certain movement in Spanish cinema,” Festival Director Thierry Frémaux affirmed at the announcement, pointing also to the French release the previous day of Spanish director Carla Simón’s Romería, a 2025 Cannes competition title. “This country has continued to produce formidable artists.”
Spanish productions and co-productions can also be found in Un Certain Regard, Cannes Première, Special Screenings, Critics’ Week and Cannes Selection. The Croisette will be well stocked with the country’s most internationally renowned talents: Javier Bardem stars in The Beloved; Penélope Cruz and Glenn Close appear in La Bola Negra; and rising actress Victoria Luengo co-stars in both Beloved and Bitter Christmas, the latter alongside Barbara Lennie, Leonardo Sbaraglia, Aitana Sánchez-Gijón and Milena Smit.
