Get the latest gossip

Film about children living in darkness on Madrid’s doorstep up for award

Even Though it’s Night, which chronicles the conditions of Europe’s largest shantytown, Cañada Real, in running for a Goya

Aunque es de noche(Even Though it’s Night), which was shot on location in the Cañada Real informal settlement, using a cast of residents, follows 13-year-old Toni as he prepares to say goodbye to his best friend, Nasser, who is moving to France, and to his own childhood. The footwork paid off: as well as finding their cast, it enabled them to explain the project to the families they met and gain the trust of a community that often feels poorly represented or demonised by the media because of the rampant drug trade in some sectors of the settlement. Photograph: Sintagma FilmsThe regional government of Madrid, one of the five authorities that share responsibility for the Cañada, blames the continuing lack of power on illegal marijuana plantations which, it says, put the electricity network under such huge strain that its safety cut-outs are triggered.

Get the Android app