Alberto Rodriguez, Rafael Cobos and Santi Amodeo. Three authors with a career that approaches or exceeds a quarter of a century and that the Carmen Awards, of the Andalusian Cinema Academy, have just recognized with the nominations of their fifth edition, as well as their success at the ASECAN Andalusian Cinema Prize.
The Tigers (Rodriguez), blows (Cobos) and animal paradise (Amodeo) is unquestionably at the top of this fifth edition of Carmen, with a tie of 15 nominations between the first two and 11, the third.
Beyond the data, the awards represent a powerful snapshot that reflects the artistic maturity of three of the most important authors of what theorists and journalists agree to call the new Andalusian cinema.
The filmography of Alberto (director) and Rafa (co-writer) is closely linked through a career that began in 7 virgins and culminates, for the moment, in Anatomy of a momentthe best series of the year for -for the moment- the Forqué Awards and the ASECAN Andalusian Cinema Awards.
Through the emotion of thriller or genre cinema – what Cobos himself calls peripeteia – they explored, in a second layer of reading, social marginalization, political corruption, police brutality, historical memory or Franco’s repression, among many other subjects.
In short, they made a powerful x-ray of the brutally violent legacy that Francoism bequeathed to this country, without leaving aside the human fascination or the emotion of genre cinema.
His works from 2025 demonstrate his maturity of narration, style and theme. The virtuosity with which, for example, Rodríguez describes the terrorist violence of ETA through an electrifying sequence in Anatomy of a moment or subtly depicts gender inequality in Los Tigres; with which Cobos embodies the historical memory of the country through two brothers face to face in blows; or with which Amodeo explores mourning in animal paradiseplace the three authors at an indisputable level of international excellence.
An encouraging future
Yes ok The Tigers was released in France, The minimal island has its own German remake (very interesting in its portrait of police brutality after the fall of the Wall) where its films have traveled to some of the major international festivals (Beijing, Toronto, Berlin, San Sebastián…), the debt of establishment international with these three great figures of our cinema is undeniable. But it will come.
And it should do so, for example, through the European Cinema Academy, which appears to be a privileged place to launch and honor a filmography that the European institution, in a Franco-German centralist mystique – which we have started to question for five years – has not yet given these titans the place they deserve.
If Alberto, Rafa and Santi embody, with names like Benito Zambrano or Manuel Martín Cuenca, the basis of this new Andalusian cinema, the nominations for best director at Carmen show a very interesting perspective, in which Amodeo and Rodríguez are joined by Fernando Franco (Subsuelo), one of the Andalusians, with Alberto Rodríguez, with the most Goya nominations – he won in 2014 for the realization of the novel with The wound – both for her role as director and editor, and, of course, Celia Rico, one of the most profound and subtle Andalusian authors of the moment, who, with The Good Letter, signs her third film and consolidates a cinematographic career that began so successfully six years ago with Viaje alquarto de una madre.
Is there a renewal of talent among the big names in Andalusian cinema? If we look at the category of documentaries and short films, we can take a look at this future, which seems encouraging.
There, in the Best Documentary category, we find a work that borders on perfection, like The swampwhose director, Manu Trillo, took almost a decade to meticulously depict Doñana’s social and natural environment, in a work that transcends both spheres to connect them with emotional visual poetry.
In this category we also find three documentaries with extensive experience in national and international festivals, preselected for the Feroz Arrebato Non Ficción, such as Antonio, the Spanish dancer (Paco Ortiz), a free man (Laura Hojman) and them in the city (Reyes Gallegos), who was finally nominated for the film press awards in this category. A natural, artistic and social heritage rediscovered by filmmakers with a deep vocation to connect art and reality.
While in the Best Documentary category we are talking about filmmakers with a consolidated career in their field, such as Hojman, Ortiz and Trillo, it is in the Short Fiction category that we can glimpse some of the talents who, beyond their mastery of short films, could emerge in the near future in feature fiction films, such as Dany Ruz, Andrea Ganfornina, Miguel Ángel Olivares or Nazaret Beca and Rodrigo Sancho.
own right
In All you need is lovea short comic story about the arrival of the Beatles in Francoist Spain through a humorous scene between two activists from the Women’s Section, we find a filmmaker, Dany Ruz, endowed with a great capacity for comedy and for condensing, in a few minutes, a story which alternates historical memory and the ability to make us laugh.
In a more tragic way, Andrea Ganfornina takes us with The wolf’s moan, in the scourge of sexist violence and achieves the feat of drawing us into this family and social tragedy by masterfully condensing its three acts.
To complete this triptych, Rock, paper, scissors It evolves between the waters of drama and the patina of humor to depict an issue as delicate as euthanasia. Miguel Ángel Olivares surrounds himself with high-level performers and confirms himself as one of our great cinematographic talents.
The three short films have similarities: more than 70 festival selections, twenty or thirty awards behind them and a particular artistic talent – that of Ruz, Ganfornina and Olivares – which, as cultural journalist Mercedes Utrera points out, raise the level of Andalusian short films above the national panorama.
In short, and despite the difficulties that the sector is experiencing in filming in Andalusia – due to fierce tax competition from other autonomous communities (but that’s another subject) -, the path started 25 years ago by Alberto Rodríguez, Rafael Cobos or Santi Amodeo shows signs of continuity through certain young talents, who are demanding, little by little, an artistic space that belongs to them in their own right. And talent.
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