Emilio Gutiérrez Caba will receive Seminci’s Honorary Spike

• The Valladolid-born actor will be protagonist on the day dedicated by the Festival to  Castile and Leon’s audiovisual sector. The upcoming 66th edition has  programmed eleven titles -three feature-lengths and eight shorts-  that are connected in one way or another to this autonomous region.

Spanish actor Emilio Gutiérrez Caba (Valladolid, 1942) will receive the Honorary Spike at the 66th edition of the Valladolid International Film Festival during the Castile and Leon Film and Audiovisual Gala: an award that is a tribute to a nearly five-decade career as a stage, film and television performer that makes him one of the most prestigious and respected Spanish actors.

Gutiérrez Caba will receive the honorary award on October 25 at Teatro Zorrilla in the course of the main event of the day dedicated to Castile and Leon’s film and audiovisual sector. More particularly, the award will be presented during the Castile and Leon Film Gala, which will include the tribute screening of Enrique Gabriel’s film Small Lives (2010).

The son of Emilio Gutiérrez and Irene Caba Alba and the brother of actresses Irene Gutiérrez Caba and Julia Gutiérrez Caba, Emilio spent his childhood and adolescence in an environment marked by the stage which nourished his early acting vocation. Gutiérrez Caba studied Philosophy, but his interest in acting was consolidated during his time at the university. He made his stage actor debut in 1962 with the Lilí Murati company, while his first film role was in Jesús Franco’s 1962 movie Jaguar. He also formed his own company in 1968 with actress María José Goyanes.

Parallel to his prolific stage career, where he became a truly mythical figure, Gutiérrez Caba has accumulated an interesting filmography that includes his participation in high-quality film productions, such as the literary adaptations The Beehive (1982), by Mario Camus; Réquiem por un campesino español (1985), by Francesc Beltriú; Werther (1986), by Pilar Miró; or La sombra del ciprés es alargada (1990), by Luis Alcoriza.

He has also appeared in The Hunt (1966) and in Goya in Bordeaux (1999), both by Carlos Saura; Bicycles Are for the Summer (1984), by Jaime Chávarri; What Have I Done to Deserve This? (1984), by Pedro Almodóvar; or My First Night (1998), by Miguel Albaladejo. Particularly noteworthy is his work in Common Wealth (2000), by Álex de la Iglesia, for which he won the Goya for Best Supporting Actor, in addition to the awards from Spain’s Screenwriters Circle and the Actors Union . A year later, he bagged the same award , this time for his role in Ten Days Without Love (2001), by Miguel Albaladejo.

On television, Gutiérrez Caba has given life to characters like Saint John of the Cross in the TVE series St. Teresa of Avila (1984), by Josefina Molina, and more recently, Don Vicente Cortázar in Gran Reserva (2010), also for TVE , for which he received the Ondas Award for Best Actor and the Award for Best Leading Actor from the Actors Union.

Among his latest works, we find titles like The Tree of Blood (2018), by Julio Medem; Despite Everything (2019), by Gabriela Tagliavini; Federica Montseny (2021), by Laura Mañá; and Way Down (2021), by Jaume Balagueró, in addition to the theatrical show Después del ensayo, by Juan José Alfonso, and the series The Vineyard (2021) for Amazon Prime and HBO’s ¡García! (2021).

Cinema of Castile and Leon

Valladolid 66 is programming eleven titles related to Castile and Leon in a section organised in collaboration with the regional Ministry of Culture in the Junta de Castilla y León and with the sponsorship of Valladolid-based daily El Norte de Castilla. The long features screening in fest section “Castilla y León en Largo” are El sueño del oro negro, by Magda Calabrese; Verano 2020, by Enrique García-Vázquez; and Sediments, by Adrián Silvestre.

The rest of the titles are short films taking part in the slot “Castilla y León en Corto”, a competitive section that has its own jury entrusted with awarding the prize for the best short: Actúa, by Herminio Cardiel; Acueductos, by Álvaro Martín Sanz; Castilla mal, by Sara Rivero; El secreto, by Gustavo Martín Garzo; Lo que importa, by Esther Pastor; Marinera de Luces, by Pablo Quijano; El rey de las flores, by Alberto Velasco, and The Repeater, by Grete Suárez.