25/07/2011

Crowning an extraordinary year, Majorcan director Agustí Villaronga has been awarded the National Film Award 2011 by the Institute of Film and Audiovisual Arts (ICAA) for “his poetic approach and ability to create a personal perspective”. The last 12 months have been particularly good for his latest feature, Black Bread [+see also:
trailer
film profile], from its screening at San Sebastian in September 2010, to its unexpectedly good reception on its commercial release in October (almost €2.5m in takings on barely 75 prints), and above all, its tremendous success at the Goya Awards ceremony in February 2011, where it scooped nine gongs, including Best Film and Best Director (see news).

Born in 1953, Villaronga was considered, until the success of his latest feature, as a cult director, whose work was outstanding but rather inaccessible to mainstream audiences. His debut feature, In a Glass Cage (1987), screened at the Berlin Film Festival, while his second feature, the disturbing Moon Child (1989), earned him a competition slot at Cannes. He went on to direct films including 99.9 (1997), The Sea (2000, also selected at the Berlinale), and the mockumentary Aro Tolbukhin in the Mind of a Killer (2002), co-directed with Isaac P. Racine and Lydia Zimmermann.

The 2011 edition of the National Film Award, worth €30,000, has not been without controversy: the jury’s first session was indeed cancelled because it didn’t meet the equality requirements between men and women. The jury, made up of representatives from the most important film institutions, like FAPAE, the Film Academy and the ICAA, included three women and seven men, whereas the Spanish Equality Law of 2007 states that neither gender should have a presence of under 40%.

(Translated from Spanish)