Pedro Barbadillo of the Mallorca Film Commission and producer Juan Carlos Caro are pushing for Palma to be the venue for next year's Goya awards. A proposal that Palma should be the venue is to be presented to the Academy of Cinema, of which Caro is a member. The city was nominated to hold this year's awards ceremony, which took place on 2 February, but lost out to Seville. This was only the second time that the Goyas had not been in Madrid; Barcelona staged them in 2000.
The proposal has the support of the Balearic government, the Council of Majorca and Palma town hall. The film commission falls under the Council's department for economic affairs, finance and tourism.
Caro, who has assumed the role of executive producer for the Palma bid, says that Meliá Hotels are also backing the proposal. If Palma were to win the nomination, the Palacio de Congresos would be used. A potential drawback is that the Palacio's auditorium has a capacity of 1,900. Seville's Palacio has room for 3,000 people, which was a reason why it was chosen this year.
Nevertheless, he suggests that Palma will get greater support from the academy this time, the proposal for the 2019 Goyas having been greeted very positively. Seville is expected to be in the running again, with Malaga and Valencia both also bidding. Caro suspects that Seville's nomination will be "difficult" as the academy is adopting an itinerant policy, which would rule out the city staging the Goyas for two successive years.
The meeting of the academy's board next week will set the ball rolling, and Barbadillo hopes that Palma will eventually be chosen as the Goyas would provide "magnificent promotion" for the city and make it the "capital of Spanish cinema".
