Granada, (EFE).- The mayor of Granada, Francisco Cuenca (PSOE), has guaranteed this Thursday that the city is qualified and prepared, in terms of hotel capacity and connections, to host the Goya Awards gala in 2025, such and as the Film Academy has announced, to which this Andalusian capital presented, it says, an “unbeatable” candidacy.
In a press conference after the announcement made this Thursday in Madrid by the president of the Film Academy, Fernando Méndez Leite, the mayor explained that it will be the central Palace of Congresses and Exhibitions, with a capacity for 2,000 seats and a budget for a forthcoming expansion, the building that houses the gala, which this edition, that of 2024, will be held next February in Valladolid, which will thus take over from Seville, the last city to host it.
It has been precisely the fact that Andalusia has hosted several editions of the gala in recent years -Málaga was the venue in 2020 and 2021- which has led the academy to opt for another community this year, in this case Castilla y León, explained the mayor, who has emphasized: “What confidence we will have transferred with our candidacy so that they bet on Granada two years from now.”
Hotel capacity in 2025
In addition to the fact that Granada already has facilities to host the Goya 2025 gala -the Palacio de Congresos-, it has added its extensive hotel capacity, which by 2025 will be even greater because by then six more five-star hotels will have opened, has indicated.
With the acceptance of this candidacy, in which the City Council has been working for “months”, Granada moves away from “líos y quejíos” to aspire to what, according to the mayor, corresponds to it as a cultural city of international projection, with cinematographic links such as the which represents the avant-garde work of the experimental filmmaker José Val del Omar.
The mayor recalled that the galas held in Seville and Malaga reported 50 million euros directly and indirectly, something to which, he says, Granada aspires, which from now on will draw up a feasibility plan for 2025.
Cuenca has highlighted that, for the first time, the Film Academy has added in its announcement about the next gala, the city that will also host the next one, in this case Granada, where it had never been held before.
For the mayor, this announcement reinforces the “strength, solvency and management capacity of Granada”. EFE