actor and director Viggo Mortensen attended the festival this Saturday “Almería Western Film Festival” (AWFF) on the occasion of the presentation of the “Spirit of the West” prize to Argentine director Lisandro Alonso, friend of Mortensen and whom they rewarded for “his innovative contribution to the western genre”.
“Wanna share this award with Viggo Mortensenwith whom I have a great connection. I hope to continue making films and, why not, in Tabernas,” Alonso said during the ceremony held at the Fort Bravo Texas Hollywood Saloon.
Mortensen, who arrived in Almería this Saturday, will also participate in the closing gala of the 14th edition of the film festival organized in Tabernas (Almería).
As the AWFF organization recalled, ViggoMortensen starred in the film “Eureka” which Alonso directed and which had, among other natural settings, the Tabernas desert.
Lisandro Alonso
At the awards ceremony, Argentine director Lisandro Alonso said: His reunion with this land was “magnificent”. As he mentioned, he came with his two children and had the opportunity to show them the locations where he was filming some scenes of “Eureka” in the Tabernas Desert.
“Receiving this award is great. It’s a special reward. I have many memories of filming here. Someone put it in my head that to be a director you have to shoot a western and it’s a double pleasure to have filmed here because of the history that Tabernas has with the western. Everything that involves revitalizing cinema stimulates me and I try to see what new ways of making cinema surprise me. My manners are not the most conventionalbut it’s still a challenge,” Alonso said.
The filmmaker received this tribute from the mayor of Tabernas, José Díaz, the mayor, Rafael Molina, and the editor of the program. RTVE cinema days, Cristina Delgado.
“Lisandro Alonso is the contemporary western director pampered by the Cannes Film Festival, where all his films have competed. Alongside other contemporary filmmakers like Chloé Zhao, Carlos Reygadas and Oliver Laxe, he is probably the best representative of the international neo-western, focusing on the coexistence of indigenous tribes with capitalist societies, migrations or the exploration of territory from an existential perspective,” the AWFF said in a statement.
Lisandro Alonso’s first western feature film is “Jauja” (2014)a mythological film of hypnotic and sensory beauty, set between Denmark and Argentina in the 19th century, and starring Viggo Mortensen. The film was selected in the Cannes Film Festival and I got the Fipresci Price in the “Un Certain Regard” section.
He was also a finalist at the Rotterdam, Havana, Mar del Plata and Huelva Ibero-American festivals. The film had nine nominations for the Fénix Awards -winner for Best Actor for Viggo Mortensen- and six nominations for the Argentine Association of Cinema Critics awards, including Best Film and Best Direction.
In 2023, he returns to the Cannes Film Festival to present “Eureka”, his latest film, an existential neo-western about colonial violence, reincarnation and territory, with Viggo Mortensen again in the cast.
The price
Since its creation three editions ago, the prize “The Spirit of the West” It was awarded to directors Mateo Gil (2021), Víctor Matellano (2022) and John Hillcoat (2023).
Alonso, like his predecessors, received a poncho which is a replica of the one worn by the actor Clint Eastwood during the filming of Sergio Leone’s legendary westerns in Tabernas. This prize joins the festival’s honorary prizes to reward the career of cinema professionals who have contributed to the maintenance and renewal of the western over the last decades.
THE The closing gala will take place this Sundaydate on which the winners of the XIV Almería Western Cinema Festival will be awarded. The presentation will be given by Luis Larrodera and the musician Vicente Navarro will perform during the gala.
