Best Ibero-American Film?

by Nathaniel R

Kill the Jockey and I'm Still Here are hoping for both Oscar & Goya nominations

The Spanish Film Academy Goya Awards (essentially Spain's Oscars) aren't held until February 8, 2025 but they've released a list of the eligible titles for their "Best Ibero-American Film" category. This category has been around since the beginning of the Goyas with Argentina, Mexico, and Chile frequently favored among nominees and winners of the category.  Here are the 2024 entries they'll choose between for the Ibero-American nominations for the 39th annual Goya Awards...

(Titles with country links are also Oscar submissions in Best International Feature Film)

• Agarrame fuerte (Uruguay)
  No US distributor currently
• Aire: Just Breathe (Dominican Republic)
  No US distributor currently
• I'm Still Here (Brazil)
  Opens November 20th in the US in limited release, expanding in 2025. Sony Pictures Classics is dreaming of more than just the International Feature category with some pundits eyeing Best Actress or Best Director citations. From director Walter Salles (Central Station)
• Chuzalongo (Ecuador)
  No US distributor currently. IMDb lists this one as still in post-production but they could be wrong
• Wake Up Mom (Panama)
  No US distributor currently for this thriller about a mother and her missing daughter.
• Kill the Jockey (Argentina)
  No US distributor currently. Reviewed twice here from Venice (where it competed for the Queer Lion) and TIFF. Perpetually busy international polyglot star Nahuel Perez Biscayart headlines. Though he's only been onscreens for 20 years he's already starred in 7 submissions from 5 different countries: Argentina - The Aura (2005), The Intruder (2022), and Kill the Jockey (2024); Austria -Stefan Zweig: Farewell to Europe (2016); Belarus - Persian Lessons (2020 - disqualified); France - 120 BPM (2017); Uruguay -The Employer and the Employee (2022). If you've liked him in any of those please try to find the very underseen but wonderful Argentine movie The Future Perfect (2016) which is about a Chinese immigrant in language classes in Buenos Aires. 
• El ladrón de perros  / The Dog Thief  (Bolivia)
  No US distributor currently. It's a drama about an orphan who thinks he's met his biological father. Chile's Alfredo Castro, another actor who is constantly in Oscar-hopefuls co-stars.

IN HER PLACE is now streaming on Netflix. From twice Oscar nominated director Maite Alberdi

• In Her Place (Chile)  -currently streaming on Netflix
  A murder trial drama about a writer accused of murdering her lover and a secretary on the defense side. Maite Alberdi directs so it's one to watch since she's already been nominated twice at the Oscars (albeit for documentaries The Mole Agent and Eternal Memory)
• The Buriti Flower  (Portugal) 
  No US distributor currently. This was a finalist for their Oscar submission but they went with Grand Tour instead.
• La mujer salvaje / Wild Woman (Cuba)
  No US distributor currently.
• La suprema (Colombia)
  No US distributor currently.
• Los últimos  / The Last (Paraguay)
  No US distributor currently for this environmental documentary.
• Memories of a Burning Body (Costa Rica)
  No US distributor currently.
• Niños de las brisas (Venezuela)
  This documentary about poor children was the original Oscar selection for Venezuela but the Academy rejected it due to a streaming release prior to its theatrical bow.
• Rita (Guatemala)
  This was announced as a possibility for Guatemala's Oscar submission but no formal submission announcement followed. Perhaps it was submitted without fanfare?
• Sujo (México)
  No US distribution currently for this crime drama about a cartel man's son but we suspect it'll happen. Mexican Oscar submissions tend to a) make the finalist list and b) find their way into US release.
• Yana-Wara (Peru)
  No US distribution currently. The director died during film.

The big winners at the Goyas last season were the disaster survival drama Society of the Snow and the absurdly charming animated film Robot Dreams which were both nominated at the Oscars. The winner of this particular category "Ibero-American Film" was Chile's Oscar-nominated documentary The Eternal Memory. So in short, the Goya voting preferences are not so unlike the American Academy's taste.

Comments

[cal roth]

"Ibero" means Iberian Peninsula - Portugal and Spain.

[cal roth]

Also: for those who have lived in Brazil or are Brazilians, it's kind of weird to see Fernanda Torres headlining such a serious drama - although she's done few of them in the past. She's such a gifted comedienne. Honestly, she's a riot, a blast, one of the funniest actresses I've ever seen in any country.

[Cláudio Alves]

Like cal roth said, Ibero refers to the Iberian Peninsula. which includes Portugal. That being said, I think this category should be directed at films from the Americas since Portuguese cinema can already be represented in the European Film Goya. Then again, unlike the Portuguese Academy, which gave the Spanish CLOSE YOUR EYES its Best European Film award just last year - I was part of the voting committee for that one! - the Goyas never recognized cinema from Portugal in that category. Instead, AMA GLORIA got into this Ibero-American race for some reason. It's a weird rule altogether.

Still, it's probably good to point out that THE BURITI FLOWER is a Brazillian co-production set in the Amazons, following the Indigenous population in an ethnographic register. It could have just as easily been submitted for Brazil.

[Frank Zappa]

The Buriti Flower is eligible because it’s a Portuguese production set in Brazil.

[Frank Zappa]

Cláudio beat me to it.

[Pedro]

Also, the category does not honor “South American” films. North America goes all the way from Canada to Panama (including the Caribbean), and South America begins at Colombia. Thus, it honors American (as in the name of the continents) films presumably in Spanish and Portuguese.