‘Second Prize’, by Isaki Lacuesta and Pol Rodríguez, the film chosen to represent Spain at the Oscars

The movie ‘Second Prize‘, of Isaki Lacuesta and Pol Rodriguez has been the Spanish film chosen by the academics to represent Spain in the category of Best International Film at the Hollywood Academy Awardswhich will celebrate its 97th edition on March 3, 2025.

This was announced on Wednesday by actor Eduardo Noriega at the headquarters of the Film Academy, beating the other two candidates: ‘The Blue Star’by Javier Macipe, and ‘Marco’, of Aitor Arregi and Jon Garaño.

After hearing the news, Isaki Lacuesta He has attended the media via telematics and has joked by pointing out that He only sees “weaknesses” in the film and hopes that “English subtitles will improve it”“I’m very glad that there were people who perceived it differently,” he said.

For his part, the producer of ‘Second Prize’, Christopher Garciahas assured at the Academy headquarters that they do not think that the film is a “local” story, because it addresses “a story of love and friendship that are universal things.”“Lorca, who is a tremendous inspiration for Isaki, came from Granada and arrived in New York and is universal. So we thought that this film could be a tribute to a generation of music.”he said.

In this sense, Isaki Lacuesta has added that “all stories are universal.” “With these topics, sometimes, we are a little self-conscious. A story about a band from Houston is universal.The story of a Pyongyang gang is universal. And suddenly it seems that the same cannot happen with our story.“, he replied.

Now, ‘Second Prize’ begins its path to the Oscar waiting to find out if it makes it into the Academy’s first cut, the so-called ‘shortlist’ of ten titles. Last year, the Spanish nomination went to ‘The Snow Society’, by JA Bayona, which managed to enter the five nominees for the Oscars.

In this regard, Cristóbal García has admitted that he has no idea what the process is like for the Oscars, but he hopes that the team will enjoy it and learn from it.We didn’t expect this, all the love we’ve received from the film has been wonderful and now we’ll have to get to work on something that’s quite unknown to us,” has stated.

INSPIRATION FROM THE PLANETS

‘Segundo Premio’ is inspired by the single of the same name from the album ‘Una Semana en el Motor de un autobús’ by Los Planetas. The film stars Daniel Ibáñez and the musician from Granada Cristalino, who play the band’s leaders, Jota and Florent, respectively, and Stéphanie Magnin plays May.

The film began to take shape many years ago with a first script by Jonás Trueba, But, as Isaki Lacuesta commented in an interview with Europa Press, the delay in the project seeing the light of day caused Trueba to “feel that it was no longer essential for him” and he offered it to her.

For now, ‘Second prize’which premiered on May 24, has raised almost 330,000 euros and has been seen by more than 56,000 people, according to provisional data from the Ministry of Culture up to September 8, collected by Europa Press.