In film, as in high-level politics and corporate boardrooms, what counts isn't just muscle, but the ability to press the right button at the right time. And if there's anyone in this country who knows the levers of power at the Film Academy, it's Moriarti Produkzioak. Following in the footsteps of successes like Loreak and Handia, the duo of Aitor Arregi and Jose Mari Goenaga—along with their longtime production partner, Xabier Berzosa—could dream of winning the golden statuette for: Maspalomas.
We're talking about a film that, under the sweltering sun of Gran Canaria, dissects a reality rarely explored by Spanish cinema: homosexuality in old age. It's not a pamphlet of labels. Maspalomas is, above all, an emotional thriller about a father's reunion.
The story of Vicente (a José Ramón Soroiz who, it is said, borders on the imperial) is the chronicle of an escape and a forced return. A man who lived his sexual freedom in the Canary Islands oasis and who, due to a health setback, must return to the gray Basque Country of his origins, to confront a daughter (Nagore Aranburu) whom he left behind in the closet of secrets.
It's the clash between the Maspalomas of desire and the north of duty. A film that Berzosa defines as his biggest-budget work, lavished with meticulous care, and which enters the Oscar race not as a textbook favorite—as Marco might have been—but as that "dark horse" that, through sheer emotion, ends up winning the hearts of the American Academy.
The strategy is in place. The Moriarti brothers have learned from past mistakes, from when they were late to the international film agencies with Loreak. This time, the process is well underway. Will it go to the Oscars? The margin for error is minimal, but its strength is undeniable. Maspalomas isn't aiming to be an LGBTQ+ film; it's aiming to be a universal film. And therein lies its greatest danger to its rivals: the ability to move an Academy member in Los Angeles with the relationship between an elderly gay Basque man and his daughter just as much as a viewer in Playa del Inglés.
