Penélope Cruz receives the National Film Award in San Sebastián

The living room of the house of Penélope Cruz and Javier Bardem treasures more prizes than the showcase of a football team. The actress has been nominated for an Oscar four times, including in this latest edition, obtaining it in 2008 as a supporting actor for ‘Vicky Cristina Barcelona’. Last year she became the first Spanish actress to win the Volpi Cup at the Venice Film Festival for ‘Parallel Mothers’. She also won the award for best female performance at Cannes along with her companions from ‘Volver’ and the honorary César. In 2019 she was the youngest Donostia Award winner in history and at 48 years of age she has received thirteen Goya nominations, winning the statuette three times.

He only had the National Cinematography Award, which is granted by the Ministry of Culture “for the successes harvested in 2021, which join all those collected in an exceptional career.” The Minister of Culture and Sports, Miquel Iceta, presented it to him this Saturday within the framework of the San Sebastian Festival, which every year reserves the morning of the first Saturday for the traditional meeting at the Tabakalera Building. The mother and sister of the honoree, Mónica Cruz, the actor Luis Tosar, and authorities such as the First Vice President of the Government and Minister of Economic Affairs Nadia Calviño, the Government delegate in Euskadi, Denis Itxaso, the president of the Academy of Cinema, Fernando Méndez Leite, and the director of Zinemaldia, José Luis Rebordinos.

“His films are part of our memory and heritage as a viewer,” said Minister Iceta. “Penelope works a miracle in every film, her talent crosses the screen to embrace us. She flies away but she never forgets her origins. Your name is part of the history of cinema”, sentenced Iceta before handing him the award.

Goya Toledo, Penelope’s soulmate, recalled her beginnings and the actress’s invitation to sleep at her house when she arrived in Madrid. She highlighted the support of her mother, her acting teacher Cristina Rota and her representative Katrina Bayonas. “You are a family woman, it is your great priority, the family that you have inherited and with which you have grown up,” she complimented. “You are still the same as always. Despite the awards, nothing has changed that girl from Alcobendas who always knew she wanted to be an actress. You have an angel that flies over you and you have earned it. We love you”. An emotional Penelope Cruz in a pink Chanel suit was thankful for “the honor” and she recalled the importance of cinema in her childhood, the possibility of living lives and broadening her vision of her world. The support of her parents, she remarked, was vital: «Without them I would not be here. My mother’s dedication to her children continues to be a model for understanding life».

Cruz cited Bigas Luna, Fernando Trueba and Pedro Almodóvar, the latter the director with whom he has worked the most times, “one of the people who has best portrayed our country.” He announced that a third of the 30,000 euros of the award will go to the platform for those affected by the mortgage, another third to the Cris Foundation and the advanced therapy cancer unit of the La Paz hospital and another to the assistance fund created by Pilar Bardem in the management entity for performers and artists AISGE. She finally dedicated the award to her husband and her children, “the most wonderful thing I have in life.”

Already in an aside with journalists after the act, the actress looked back, to her childhood in Alcobendas, when she didn’t even have a cinema near her home and watched movies on a “400 kilo” Betamax video. “My parents could have told me that it wasn’t even a joke, we didn’t have any close references at the level of family or friends, no artist.” After school, Penelope did her homework and watched movies. “I realized that I wanted to do that,” she recalled. What she likes most about her profession is “starting from scratch.” And she never thinks too much when told that she is a role model. «I appreciate the compliment, but it is healthier for me to be somewhere else, that of an actress who continues with the same nerves and the desire to learn».

The triple destiny of the economic endowment of the prize was clear to him. «It seemed very important to me to donate the full amount and choose your destination well, because there are so many people who need it… Right now, for me, there are people who receive help from the Anti-Eviction platform who have their first and last names. They are in my life and I know what they are going through right now. I know Antonio Pérez in La Paz, a childhood cancer researcher who is raffled around the world. But he does not want to leave Spain. This project that he has together with the Cris Foundation is impressive, I have seen him save many lives, some of people he knew very closely. He gives everything to help. And, of course, I also saw Pilar Bardem fight very hard to create an assistance fund that helps many out of work actors, especially older ones.

Luis Tosar, friend and neighbor of the Bardem-Cruz couple’s urbanization on the outskirts of Madrid, also had a few words for his friend: «I know all the Penélopes: the mother, the friend, the companion, the actress… They are all powerful and they are all the same. We have laughed a lot and also cried acting. You are not aware of how much you mean to our industry and our culture, your work speaks for itself. Because to be a good actress you have to be a better person first.

More than thirty years have passed since that dancer from the National Conservatory appeared in a Mecano video clip and learned what popularity was from the hand of her first official partner, Nacho Cano. Later would come the dream jobs with Almodóvar, the jump to Hollywood, which included a three-year courtship with Tom Cruise, and the Oscar thanks to Woody Allen. Mother of two children, Leo and Luna, along with Javier Bardem, whom she married in 2010, Penélope Cruz is “committed to her craft and seeks excellence in her work, thanks to which she has created some of the most unforgettable characters in the history of our cinema”, according to the jury of the National Film Award.

The protagonist of ‘Jamón, Jamon’, ‘Belle Epoque’ and ‘Dolor y Gloria’ was 19 years old when she received the call from Pedro Almodóvar to participate in ‘Kika’. She has made the dreams come true that she had in her mother’s hairdressing salon in Alcobendas, when she would start doing her homework but in reality she would spy on her clients, fascinated. The National Film Award, which José Sacristán received last year, highlights Penélope Cruz as “one of the visible heads of a generation, that of the 90s, which brought about a renewal of Spanish cinema, participating in many of the emblematic films and internationally acclaimed.

Cross does not stop. Last year she premiered ‘Mothers Parallels’, ‘Official Competition’ and ‘Agents 355’. He has traveled to the Rome of the 70s in ‘The Immensity’, a love story directed by Emanuele Crialese that he presented in Venice, and these days he is shooting in Italy ‘Ferrari’, a biopic of the founder of the famous Italian car company with Michael Mann behind the camera. Adam Driver gives life to Enzo Ferrari and the Spanish woman gets into the skin of his wife Laura. At Zinemaldia he has also promoted ‘On the margins’, the directorial debut of his good friend Juan Diego Botto with a story about characters who try to stay afloat and survive for 24 key hours against the backdrop of evictions .

Cruz, Botto and Luis Tosar, star of ‘On the Margins’, have shown their support in San Sebastián for the Stop Evictions platform. Representatives of the organization, supported by councilors from the municipal groups of Elkarrekin Donostia and Ezker Anitza-IU, approached the Victoria Eugenia theater on Friday night to present the actress with a flag with the Stop Evictions logo.