Galicia
Like its neighboring autonomous communities, Galicia is undergoing conversion due to industrial dismantling. This is the backdrop chosen by Fernando León de Aranoa for his film Mondays in the Sun: a social drama that highlights the problems caused by the closure of the shipyards in Vigo. We follow the journey of several trade unionists, one of whom is masterfully played by Javier Bardem (1969-). The film won five prestigious Goya awards in Spanish cinema. In a completely different register, La piel que habito (2011) is among the most famous films that have been shot in Galicia. This thriller released in 2011 is also one of the most beautiful films of its director Pedro Almodóvar.
Asturias
Asturias has been a good place for cinema production and distribution. Many directors have worked here, such as José Luis Garci, who chose the Asturias hotel in Gijón and the village of Cudillero for his film Volver a empezar (1983), the first Spanish film to win an Oscar. Gonzalo Suárez filmed Oviedo in Oviedo Express, released in 2007, which transcribed Leopoldo Alas "Clarín's" classic, La Regenta, to the screen. In 2007, the director Juan Antonio Bayona, produced by the Mexican Guillermo del Toro, set the scene of The Orphanage in Asturias.
That same year, Woody Allen filmed in the streets of downtown Oviedo and in the Centro Niemeyer of Avilés, in Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2007). A stay that must have pleased him, since he is behind the creation of the Film Center, in the same building.
In July 2013, the first edition of the International Festival of Cinema and Architecture (FICARQ) was held at the Centro Niemeyer, which aimed to show the links between these two art forms. It has since been held in several cities such as Santander and Oviedo.
For more than fifty years, the Gijón International Film Festival has been an exemplary supporter of independent cinema, earning it the nickname of European Sundance. Valladolid also has its own film festival, the Seminci, which is held every year at the end of October. It is held at the Calderón Theater and has revealed several cult films such as Stanley Kubrick's Clockwork Orange (1971) and Ridley Scott's Thelma & Louise (1991).
Cantabria
The autonomous community of Cantabria also has its annual event dedicated to the seventh art. The Santander International Film Festival takes place every year in the impressive Cantabrian Festival Palace. Cantabria attracted Sergio Leone, who filmed The Colossus of Rhodes (1961) there. This autonomous community is also the location for the 2018 filming of Garabandal, God Knows, a Catholic film about a crime that hit the headlines in the small Cantabrian village of San-Sebastian de Garabandal in the mid-1960s.
Castilla y León
The region of Burgos in Castilla y León, between Salas de los Infantes and Covarrubias, was also used by Sergio Leone for his western The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.
The Spirit of the Beehive, by Víctor Erice, is perhaps one of the greatest masterpieces of Spanish cinema. Filmed shortly before the death of Franco, the action takes place in 1940 in a small village in Castile: a traveling cinema sets up shop to screen Frankenstein.
