Platino Awards: Spain Dominates With ‘20,000 Species Of Bees’ & J. A. Bayona’s ‘Society Of The Snow’ Taking Top Honors
20,000 Species Of Bees, the debut lm by Basque lmmaker Estibaliz Urresola Solaguren, and Society Of The Snow, J. A. Bayona’s survival drama for Net ix, dominated the top honors at the eleventh Platino Awards Saturday evening.
The Mexican award show took place this year at the El Gran Tlachco theater in Xcaret Park, Riviera Maya. Bayona took best director on the night for Society Of The Snow. The @lm also won Best Feature while 20,000 Species Of Bees nabbed Best Screenplay and Best First Feature.
20,000 Species Of Bees debuted at the Berlin Film Festival, where lead actor Sofía Otero took the silver bear for best leading performance. The @lm is set during a summer in a village house linked to beekeeping and follows an eight-year-old and her mother experiencing revelations that will change their lives forever.
Bayona’s Society Of The Snow closed last year’s Venice Film Festival. Based on the book of the same name by Pablo Vierci, @rst published in 2008, the @lm charts the story of the 45 people who, on October 13, 1972, boarded Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 from Montevideo to Chile. There were @ve crew members on board and 40 passengers, including 19 members of the Old Christians Club rugby team. Tragedy struck when the pilot began his descent too early, crashing into the Andes and killing 12 immediately. The survivors clung to the belief that help was coming, but none did. After weeks of hunger, having exhausted everything in the plane’s hold, they were forced to do the unthinkable and eat the esh of those who had died. The story was told by Frank Marshall in the 1993 pic Alive. The @lm is Spain’s pick for the Best International Feature Oscar race.
Elsewhere, Robot Dreams won Best Animated Feature and Under Therapy by Gerardo Herrero took Best Comedy, capping off a good night for Spain in Mexico, with all main @lm awards bar Best Documentary (The Eternal Memory by Maite Alberdi of Chile) going to Spanish @lmmakers.