The first edition of the Goya Awardson March 17, 1987, was held at the Lope de Vega Theater in Madrid, located on the central Gran Vía. From then until 2019, for more than 30 years, the Spanish film festival only left the city once. It was in the year 2000, when it was the Barcelona Auditorium that saw Pedro Almodóvar raising his ‘big head’ thanks to Everything about my mother. In 2019, the Goyas traveled to the south to take place at the Palace of Congresses and Exhibitions of Sevillethe same place they returned to last year.
And since then, they have not returned to Madrid either. Two years in a row (2020 and 2021) they went to Malaga, to the José María Martín Crpena Sports Palace and the Soho CaixaBank theater; and another (2022), to the Reina Sofía Palace of Arts in Valencia. In 2024, The Goyas are celebrated in Valladolidin the middle of the wave of farmers protests Spaniards: more than a hundred have threatened to approach the most important Spanish film awards gala, where some 3,000 people are expected to gather, according to figures managed by the Film Academy. That is why a unprecedented security device inside a 9,000 square meter auditorium expressly built for the occasion and with an indoor red carpet in anticipation of rain.
However, How did the Goya Awards come to Valladolid? There are many reasons why this city was chosen: it has hosted almost 70 International Film Weeks (Seminci), it is declared by UNESCO as Creative Film City and is the home of famous artists such as Concha Velasco or Lola Herrera. But there is also another reason behind this choice: the insistence. confessed by the Academy itself, of the then mayor of the city, Oscar Puente. Valladolid’s candidacy took shape less than a year ago, when Puente traveled to Seville, home of the Spanish film awards in 2023, with the aim of the city of Pisuerga will host the next Goya gala. And from there he returned convinced that this possibility was “very real”, as he himself declared.
But the idea had already been in Puente’s head—who made his first steps as an actor when he was young—since he took office as mayor in 2015, that is, more than seven years of maturation of a project that was framed within the plan of the new The city government plans to project Valladolid as a “first-class city,” sources from the mayor’s previous team explain to EFE. However, it was not until the second term, starting in 2019, when this dream began to become a reality after the designation that same year of Valladolid as UNESCO Creative City of Cinemawhich gave a boost to an idea that until then was based on the background of the almost 70 editions of the International Film Week (Seminci) of Valladolid.
The meetings in Seville, keys
If those involved in this decision, the Film Academy and the previous government team in the city, agree on something, it is that The meetings that took place in Seville within the framework of last year’s Goya Awards were decisive for the election of Valladolid as the venue for this edition. On the same day that Valladolid’s election was announced, the president of the Academy, Fernando Méndez-Leite, stated that if the city was going to host the gala it was, in addition to being an “ideal” city, because of the ” momentum” of its mayor.
“His insistence has weighed a lot and it was the most worked project. It’s okay to make the jump to another area of the country. Valladolid receives something it knows, cinema,” Méndez-Leite said then. And this was a ruling that came after a team led by Puente himself, his number two in the city council, the now Minister of Equality, Ana Redondoand several technicians defended this proposal in Seville, which was later finalized in meetings in Madrid and Valladolid.
On one side of the balance hung the Seminci and the UNESCO designation; on the other, the complexity of hosting the gala without prior infrastructure. However, after several days of proposals, the balance tipped in favor of ‘yes’ thanks to the formula that the city council found, at the proposal of the Film Academy, to “create” an auditorium within a fairground. A proposal that followed the example of IFEMA in Madrid when it hosted this same gala, since only Seville has an auditorium capable of hosting more than 3,000 people and which Valladolid lacks.
A transitional infrastructure that the city council also planned to be used for host “two big concerts” after the gala to “amortize the investment and take advantage of the space”, although these ultimately did not come to fruition, the same sources explain.
The management of the gala, by a new Government team
After more than seven years since the initial idea, four of planning and weeks of intense work, Valladolid got the Film Academy to designate the city as the venue for the 38th edition of the Goya Awards. But the holding of the municipal elections and the change of color in the Valladolid Town Hall was going to prevent Puente from enjoying the gala as mayor of the city.
And the fact is that, with the arrival of the new team, after the pact between PP and Vox, there was also a restructuring of the councils and government areas in order to clarify which of the two formations was going to bear the burden of organizing two events. first-rate cultural events: the annual edition of the Seminci and these Goya awards. To this end, the mayor, Jesús Julio Carnero (PP), agreed to the disintegration, not without controversy, of various responsibilities of the Culture areauntil then competent in this type of events and managed by Vox, with the new creation of the Department of Tourism, Events and City Brand, in the hands of the PP.
Since then, the current team has repeated on numerous occasions that The Goyas are neither by Óscar Puente nor by Jesús Julio Carnero, but of Valladolid, a movie city that will host on Saturday, February 10, “the best gala in the history of the Goya,” as the current mayor, Jesús Julio Carnero, expressed in an interview with EFE. And thus, Valladolid becomes the sixth city to host these awards.
Where will the Goya be next year?
Grenade It will be the seventh city where the Goya Awards will be held. The Academy itself confirmed the selection of the gala venue for 2025, while announcing the Valladolid edition. “We have two years left and we want to add,” said the then Granada mayor, Paco Cuenca (PSOE) after the announcement, insisting on the “honor” and “pride” of bringing these awards to his city. “We announced it today,” he said then, “because we have already started working with the Academy.” And he highlighted Granada as land of creatorswhile quoting José Val del Omar, one of the great avant-garde of Spanish cinemaphotographer, film director and inventor.
For Cuenca, the Goyas give prestige to the city and allow “recognizing the tradition of Granada for cinema and betting on young talent” as, he assured, they already do with the Young Directors Festival. The ceremony will take place in the central Congress Palace in 2025. Of course, as with Valladolid, now it is another Government team that will be in charge of the Goya, that of Marifrán Carazo, the current mayor, from the Popular Party, elected after the last municipal elections.
Source: Lasexta
Bruce is a talented author and journalist with a passion for entertainment . He currently works as a writer at the 247 News Agency, where he has established himself as a respected voice in the industry.
