LUIS BUÑUEL AWARD
EDUARD FERNÁNDEZ
Eduard Fernández (Barcelona, 1964) began his performing career after studying mime at the Institut de Teatre de Barcelona. His early work took him to a cabaret in the city and to the theatre with the company Els Joglars, under Albert Boadella. He also performed at the Teatre Lliure under directors including Lluís Pasqual in productions such as Waiting for Godot and Hamlet — the latter earning him both the Max Award for Best Lead Actor and the Fotogramas de Plata for Best Theatre Actor.
His film career consolidated in 1999 with Mariano Barroso’s Los lobos de Washington, which earned him his first Goya nomination for Best Breakthrough Actor. Since then, his roles have brought him four Goya Awards: Best Lead Actor for Marco, directed by Aitor Arregi and Jon Garaño; Best Lead Actor for Faust 5.0, directed by Álex Ollé and Carlus Padrissa; Best Supporting Actor for In the City, directed by Cesc Gay; and Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of Millán Astray in While at War, directed by Alejandro Amenábar. He has also earned a Silver Shell at the San Sebastián Film Festival 2016 for The Man with a Thousand Faces, directed by Alberto Rodríguez; four Gaudí Awards; three Silver Biznaga Awards; and the 2025 National Cinema Award, among many other honors.
In recent years his career has continued to shine for both critics and audiences alike, demonstrating his chameleonic versatility across a wide range of genres with titles such as Crooked Lines, directed by Oriol Paulo, and El 47, directed by Marcel Barrena (with whom he also made Mediterranean). The latter was one of the biggest box office and awards stories in Spain throughout 2024.
His talent has equally proven itself on stage and on television. The Teatros del Canal hosted the premiere of his stage production All the Love Songs, directed by Andrés Lima, for which he won the 2024 Max Award for Best Actor. On the small screen, he has appeared in Anatomy of a Moment, directed by Alberto Rodríguez; The House of the Spirits, by Francisco Alegría and Andrés Wood; Stories to Stay Awake, directed by Rodrigo Cortés; 30 Coins (for which he won the 2021 Feroz Award for Best Actor), directed by Álex de la Iglesia; and Criminal, directed by Mariano Barroso.
PREMIO LUIS BUÑUEL
The Luis Buñuel Award honours a career and a professional life in the world of cinema. It was established in 1998 gathering the feelings of the Management Committee, after the festival held several ceremonies in Buñuel’s honour and following the approval of his sons Juan Luis and Rafael.
The initial trophy was created by the renowned artist from Huesca Eduardo Cajal, produced in bronze and detachable. It represented the threshold of a door and, according to the author, was inspired by the feature film The Exterminating Angel.
Nine years afterwards, the image of the trophy was changed, concretely in the 34th edition, by the artist from Zaragoza Fernando Sinaga. It was a spread out fan that, according to the author, represented at the same time ‘seduction’ and the idea of ‘the secret and the occult’.
In the 42nd edition, a new trophy was requested to Huesca born artist Antonio Santos by the new direction. The new award, christened as The Chorus Girl, broke with the traditional trophy concept. The work, designed by Huesca born artist Antonio Santos, consisted of different parts that make up the figure of a chorus girl.
Since 2020, the designer of the trophy is Isidro Ferrer, Design National Award winner, a Madrid-born artist based in Huesca. The trophy portraits an ant, that is what the authors says: “Luis Buñuel’s entomological fondness and training is known, also his inclination to introduce several arthropods in his films”. The list that feeds his particular zoo is extensive: spiders, scorpions, crabs, butterflies, bees, flies, mosquitoes, grasshoppers, cockroaches, neuropterans, beetles. This varied fauna that sprinkles his extensive filmography holds symbolic significance. One of the most iconic scenes that best define this Buñuelian drive for insects might be that of the ants of his first movie An Andalusian Dog, from which the inspiration for this trophy-homage springs.
Among the most outstanding personalities who have received this award, there can be found José Luis Borau (1998), Michel Piccoli (1999), Silvia Pinal (2000), Patrice Leconte (2001), Aki Kaurismaki (2002), Jerzy Kawalerowicz (2003), Jean Troell (2004), André Techiné (2005), Pedro Armendáriz Jr. (2006), Vittorio y Paolo Taviani (2007), Bertrand Tavernier (2008), Theo Angelopoulos (2009), Ángela Molina (2010), Elías Querejeta (2011), Stephen Fears (2012), Adolpho Arrietta (2013), Carlos Saura (2014), Laurent Cantet (2015), Jean Claude Carrière (2016), Costa Gavras and Alex de la Iglesia (2017), José Sacristán (2018), Marisa Paredes (2019), Isabel Coixet (2020), Gonzalo Suárez (2021), Terry Gilliam (2022), Aitana Sánchez-Gijón (2023) and Victoria Abril & Víctor Erice (2024).