Antonio Banderas, National Cinematography Award 2017

The 2017 National Cinematography Award has been given to the actor, director and producer Antonio Banderas. In its decision, the panel gave the award to this actor for "being a film-maker with an extraordinary national and international career, who has blazed a trail for many other Spanish actors and actresses. His tenacious commitment to cinema as an actor, director and producer makes him most worthy of this award".

The National Cinematography Award is handed out by the Institute for Cinematography and Audiovisual Arts (ICAA), a body managed under the Ministry of Education, Culture and Sport, and is accompanied by 30,000 euros.

The panel

The panel was chaired by Óscar Graefenhain, General Manager of the Institute for Cinematography and Audiovisual Arts, with Guadalupe Melgosa, Deputy General Manager for Promotion and International Relations of the Institute for Cinematography and Audiovisual Arts, acting as deputy chair. On the panel sat Mariano Barroso on behalf of the Spanish Academy of Cinematographic Arts and Sciences; José Ignacio Muñoz, on behalf of the Actors and Actresses Union; Verónica Fernández, on behalf of Audiovisual Literary Authors (Spanish acronym: ALMA); Maria Rosario Villa, on behalf of the Confederation of Spanish Audiovisual Producers' Associations (Spanish acronym: FAPAE); Virginia Yagüe, on behalf of the Women Film-makers and Audiovisual Resource Specialists Association (Spanish acronym: CIMA); and Alex de la Iglesia, Fernando Bovaira, Agustín Almodóvar and Beatriz Bodegas, on behalf of the Institute for Cinematography and Audiovisual Arts.

Biography

Antonio Banderas (Malaga, 1960) is a film actor, producer and director.

He moved to Madrid when he was 18 years old. In the capital, he acted in small theatres until joining the film industry thanks to Pedro Almodóvar. The work they did together resulted in the actor receiving two Goya Award nominations for the films Matador (1986) and ¡Átame! (1989). They made five films together during that period: the two afore-mentioned titles, as well as Laberinto de pasiones, La ley del deseo and Mujeres al borde de un ataque de nervios (1988). Mujeres al borde de un ataque de nervios received international acclaim and was nominated for an Oscar in the Best Foreign Language Film category. Pedro Almodóvar and Antonio Banderas subsequently worked together on La piel que habito (2011) and Los amantes pasajeros (2013).

In the 1980s, Antonio Banderas also worked with other Spanish directors, such as Francesc Betriu, Réquiem por un campesino español, and on such comedies as La corte de Faraón by José Luis García Sánchez and Bajarse al moro by Fernando Colomo.

Antonio Banderas made his English-speaking film debut in 1992 alongside Armand Assante in The Mambo Kings. He soon received two particularly important roles: the first, as the homosexual partner of Tom Hanks in Philadelphia (1993), a film by Jonathan Demme about AIDS that won two Oscars and definitively opened the gates to Hollywood for him; and the second role, playing the French vampire Armand in Interview with a Vampire alongside Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise. He played his first role starring role in an English-speaking film in 1994, Of Love and Shadows, which consolidated his place in Hollywood.

In the action and adventure genre, Antonio Banderas has obtained box office success with Assassins and the film that gave him his second starring role in Hollywood: The Mask of Zorro (1998), alongside Anthony Hopkins.

Antonio Banderas has received numerous awards over the course of his career. In 2008, he was distinguished with the Gold Medal for Merit in Fine Arts from the Spanish Ministry of Education, Culture and Sport, and received the Honorary Goya in 2014. He has also been recognised by the Golden Globes, the Fotogramas de Plata, the Premios Sant Jordi de Cine, the European Film Awards, the Premio Juventud, the Tony Awards, the Premio Donostia del Festival de San Sebastián and the Premio Platino, among many others.