Arantxa Echevarría and Paula Ortiz seek Goya for best direction, an award that remains dominated by men

The filmmakers Arantxa Echevarría and Paula Ortiz They are nominated for better direction by ‘La Infiltrada’ and ‘The Red Virgin’ respectively, in the Goya Awards held this Saturday, February 8 in Granada. A category dominated by men since the first edition in 1987.

Both filmmakes seek to follow in the footsteps of Pilar Miró, Iciar Bollaín and Isabel Coixet only women who have managed to lift the statuette in 38 years against the 34 winning men of said award.

The first time a woman succeeded was Pilar looked in the 11th edition of 1997 with ‘The Hortelano dog’film that achieved twelve nominations and seven Goya awards. In this edition, Julio Medem were also nominated for ‘Earth’ and Imanol Uribe for ‘Bwana’.

Miró’s production was the main protagonist of the night, along with ‘Thesis’, by Alejandro Amenábar, who managed to win the award for best film and best novel direction, among others.

Years later, in 2004, it was the turn for Bollaín, who made ‘I give you my eyes’, the favorite of that edition with nine nominations. On that occasion, the production won seven Goya awards of the nine candidates he had, including the best direction to which they aspired, along with Bollaín, Cesc Gay for ‘In the city’, David Trueba for ‘Salamina soldiers’ and Isabel Coixet for ‘My life without me’.

The Bollaín film was the great winner of the night with seven awards, followed by ‘Mortadelo and Filemón’, by Javier Fesser, who won five Goyas. He also managed to take the award for best film and better original script.

Subsequently, in 2006, it was the turn of Isabel Coixet With ‘The secret life of the words’, a film starring Javier Cámara, Tim Robbins or Sarah Polley, and that had five nominations, half that ‘obaba’, tape with more nominations (10). The filmmaker and her tape got The Best Film and Best Address Award, as well as the Goya for Best Original Screenplay and Best Production Directorate.

In that edition, Coixet was proclaimed winner for best direction ahead of Alberto Rodríguez (‘7 virgins’), Benito Zambrano (‘Havana Blues’) and Montxo Armendáriz (‘Obaba’).

Twelve years later, specifically in 2018, Coixet repeated again thanks to his film ‘The bookstore’which won twelve nominations and three Goya awards: Best address, best adapted script and best film. On this occasion, the filmmaker managed to be appointed as the best filmmaker by beating Manuel Martín Cuenca by ‘The author’, Aitor Arreti and Jon Garaño for ‘Handia’ and Paco Plaza for ‘Verónica’. ‘The bookstore’ was not the favorite, since ‘Handia’ had 13 nominations and got a total of ten ‘big heads’.

In the case of Arantxa Echevarría o Paula Ortizhis films have achieved thirteen and nine nominations, respectively. In the case of Echevarría, if he wins this Saturday it would be his second Goya, after having received in 2019 the award for best novel address for ‘Carmen y Lola’.

For its part, Paula Ortiz She has been nominated three times, for ‘your window to mine’ as the best director Novel and for ‘The Bride’ as best director and best script adapted. However, he has not achieved any award.

Best novel address

In the case of the Award to Best novel addresswomen have triumphed eight times in the 21st century, although seven have been in the last seven editions of the Goya. On this occasion, Paz Vega y Sandra Romero They are nominated for this category by ‘Rita’ and ‘where silence’, respectively.

The two directors compete with Miguel Faus for ‘Calladita’, Pedro Martín-Calero for ‘El Crying’ and Javier Macipe for ‘The Blue Star’. In the last edition he won the Urresola Estibaliz Award for ’20 .000 species of bees ‘and won Álvaro Gago (‘ Matria ‘), ITSASO ARANA (‘ The girls are fine ‘), Alejandro Marín (‘ I am loving you madly) and Alejandro Rojas and Juan Sebastián Vásquez (‘Upon Entry’).

They have also won this Alauda Ruiz de Azúa (2023), Clara Roquet (2022), Pilar Palomero (2021), Belén Funes (2020), Arantxa Echevarría (2019) and Carla Simón (2018). In spite González-Sind that he won in 2003.