Nominations for the 35th Goya Awards, honoring the best in Spanish cinema, were announced Monday by the Academia de las Artes y las Ciencias Cinematográficas de España. Unusually this year, only one animated feature is competing in the category — La Gallina Turuleca (Turu, the Wacky Hen) — which has consistently had three to four contenders for the last two decades with the exception of a two-title competition in 2005.
The Academia did modify eligibility requirements this year to accommodate films that could not have theatrical release due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Directed by Victor Monigote and Eduardo Gondell, Turu, the Wacky Hen is a Spanish-Argentinean CG family film inspired by the popular character. While Turu is a laughing stock among her fellow poultry because she can’t lay eggs, she has a unique ability to understand humans, and a beautiful singing voice. When her beloved human friend suffers an accident and gets taken to the hospital in the Big City, Turu embarks on a great adventure to find her — becoming a star, falling in love and facing off with a wicked villain along the way.
In the Best Animated Short Film category, four titles have carried on to the final competition: Blue & Malone: Casos Imposibles by Abraham López Guerrero, Homeless Home by Alberto Vázquez (winner of one feature film and two short film Goyas), Metamorphosis by Carla Pereira & Juanfran Jacinto, and Vuela (Fly) by Carlos Gómez-Mira. Read more about the 10 shortlisted shorts here.
The Best Special Effects category contains several multiple nominees: Raúl Romanillos and Míriam Piquer, for Salvador Calvo’s drama about African immigrants to Spain, Adú (the most-nominated film this year with 13, including Best Film); Mariano Garcia Marty and Ana Rubio for Coven (nine nominations); Raúl Romanillos and Jean-Louis Billiard for Black Beach (six nominations); and Raúl Romanillos and Míriam Piquer for Unfortunate Stories (four nominations). Whichever way the Academia leans, the odds look good for Romanillos, who has already won the category six times with a dozen additional nominations!
The 35th Goya Awards will be held March 6 in Málaga for the second consecutive year, televised on TVE and TVE Internacional.
