The film “Alma Viva” by Portuguese-French director Crìstele Alves Meira is a candidate for the Goya Awards in Spain.

“Alma Viva” is nominated for the Goya Award for Best Ibero-American Film, along with “La memoria infinita” (Chile), “Puan” (Argentina), “La pecera” (Puerto Rico) and “Simón” (Venezuela).

Cristèle Alves Meira’s first feature film, produced by Midas Filmes, “Alma Viva” is a fiction that addresses emigration, mysticism and Trás.os-Montes culture and was shot in Junqueira, municipality of Vimioso, where the director has maternal roots.

“Alma Viva”, which premiered in 2022 at Critics’ Week in Cannes has already received two dozen awards, including six Sophia awards from the Portuguese Cinema Academy.

According to the list of nominees announced on 29 November by the Spanish Film Academy, in the category of Best Animated Film is the feature film “They shot the piano player”, by Fernando Trueba and Javier Mariscal, with Portuguese co-production by Animanostra and financial support from the Cinema and Audovisual Institute and participation from RTP.

The film has Brazilian music as backdrop, in particular the early years of Bossa Nova, also addressing the “brutality of dictatorial regimes” that marked Latin America in the 1960s and 1970s, says the synopsis.

The theme is the tragic life of the Brazilian pianist Francisco Tenório Jr., considered one of the fundamental names of Bossa Nova, who disappeared in Buenos Aires, in March 1976, while he was accompanying Toquinho and Vinicious de Moraes in a concert.

The 38th Goya edition is scheduled for 10 February in Valladolid and the most nominated films are “20,000 Species of Bees”, by Estíbaliz Urresola, with 15 nominations and “The Snow Society”, by Juan Antonio Bayona, with 13 nominations.