Last night was the biggest night of the year for the Spanish movie industry: the Goya Awards 2013.
The nominations for the 27th awards focussed on a few movies, one of which was Grupo 7 (Unit 7), a police thriller set and filmed in Seville. Considered the joint-favourite along with silent black-and-white film Blancanieves, the cop movie had 16 nominations, including Best Film, Best Director and Best Actor.
A violent but gripping film, Grupo 7 is about a special anti-drugs and corruption unit charged with cleaning up the city of undesirables before Expo 92, using whatever means its members see fit. The movie is based on a real police unit, although last night, the Policia Nacional (@policia) took the unuusal step of using Twitter to air its criticisms of how law enforcement work is depicted on celluloid. Inaccurately and unrealistically, according to the Spanish National Police.
Adding some humour to this torrid mix, presenter of the Goyas, comedienne Eva Hache, took part in a spoof montage using real scenes from the film, with the theme of Find Curro - the icon of Expo 92 has been kidnapped, and the special unit has to rescue him safely. Watch it below - the real scenes are cleverly interwoven with Hache's turns.
In the end, Grupo 7 took home only two awards out of all those nominations - Best New Actor, for Joaquin Nuñez, who plays Mateo, one of the unit members (the bearded one who sniggers, in the spoof's first scene); Joaquin is from Sevilla. Best Supporting Actor went to Julian Villagran who plays Joaquin, brother of one of the policemen, and a crook (he's the tall one whom "detective" Eva Hache interrogates in the spoof); Julian hails from Trebujena (Cadiz).
Two of Andalucia's Goyas for 2013, and well deserved.