The Apolo Awards () are annual awards given to the best LGBT-themed films that have been released in Spain. Since 2016 they have been awarded by LGBT culture outlet , with the intention to highlight high-quality filmmaking in order to encourage more LGBT-themed works to be distributed in the country.
History The Apolo Awards were founded in 2016 by Dos Manzanas. The magazine and website Dos Manzanas reports on LGBT culture in Spain as well as advocating for LGBT+ equality. After informally awarding LGBT-themed book awards in 2015, Dos Manzanas started the Apolo Awards, referencing Olympian god Apollo, with an aim to vindicate distributing LGBT-themed works in Spain by celebrating the high quality of LGBT+ films. They also award the Spanish distributors who help combat LGBT-phobia by showing the films. Many nominees and winners are thus the best international productions, with fewer Spanish films, as well as the local distributors of them.
For the 2016 awards, the Best Song category was added. In response to more LGBT-themed films being released, particularly by international streaming services, the 2021 awards upped the nominations per category to four (from three) for most, and to ten (from five) for Best Film. It also added three new categories to better appreciate more diverse films, each with five nominees: Best Comedy, Best Documentary, and Best Spanish Film.
Categories Production Best Adapted Screenplay (Mejor Guion Adaptado) Best Production Design (Mejor Dirección Artística) Best Cinematography (Mejor Fotografía) Best Comedy (Mejor Comedia)* Best Costume Design (Mejor Vestuario) Best Director (Mejor Dirección) Best Documentary (Mejor Documental)* Best Editing (Mejor Montaje) Best Film (Mejor Película) Best Hair and Make-Up (Mejor Maquillaje y Peluquería) Best New Director (Mejor Dirección Novel) Best Original Music (Mejor Música Original) Best Original Screenplay (Mejor Guion Original) Best Song/Original Song (Mejor Canción/Original) Best Sound (Mejor Sonido) Best Spanish Film (Mejor Película Española)* *Introduced for 2021 awards (VIIth edition)
Acting Best Actor (Mejor Actor) Best Actress (Mejor Actriz) Best Ensemble Cast (Mejor Reparto) Best Couple (Mejor Pareja) Best New Actor (Mejor Actor Revelación) Best New Actress (Mejor Actriz Revelación) Best Supporting Actor (Mejor Actor Secundario/de Reparto) Best Supporting Actress (Mejor Actriz Secundaria/de Reparto)
Awards Films are nominated based on the year during which they were first distributed in Spain; the awards are given in January of the following year.
2015 Production {| class="wikitable" |- | style="vertical-align:top;" width="50%" | ''Pride (Golem) The Club (Caramel Films) Grandma (Sony Pictures) The New Girlfriend (Golem) The Way He Looks (Surtsey Films) | style="vertical-align:top;" width="50%" | Pablo Larraín – The Club (Caramel Films) François Ozon – The New Girlfriend (Golem) Matthew Warchus – Pride (Golem) |- | style="vertical-align:top;" width="50%" | Stephen Beresford – Pride (Golem) Guillermo Calderón, Pablo Larraín and Daniel Villalobos – The Club (Caramel Films) Paul Weitz – Grandma (Sony Pictures) | style="vertical-align:top;" width="50%" | Daniel Ribeiro – The Way He Looks (Surtsey Films) Matthew Chapman and Julie Sayres – Reaching for the Moon (Splendor Films España) François Ozon – The New Girlfriend (Golem) |- | style="vertical-align:top;" width="50%" | Lyle Vincent – A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (La Aventura Audiovisual) Pablo García Pérez de Lara – Tchindas (Pirámide Films) Urszula Pontikos – Lilting (Surtsey Films) | style="vertical-align:top;" width="50%" | Bryan Mason – 52 Tuesdays (Cine Binario)Yorgos Lamprinos – Xenia (Karma Films) Sebastián Sepúlveda – The Club (Caramel Films) |- | style="vertical-align:top;" width="50%" | Hong Khaou – Lilting (Surtsey Films) Ana Lily Amirpour – A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (La Aventura Audiovisual) Sophie Hyde – 52 Tuesdays (Cine Binario) | style="vertical-align:top;" width="50%" | José Joaquim Salles – Reaching for the Moon (Splendor Films España) Michel Barthélémy, Pascal Leguellec and Nathalie Roubaud – The New Girlfriend (Golem) Alain Ortiz – The King of Havana (Filmax) |- | style="vertical-align:top;" width="50%" | Pascaline Chavanne – The New Girlfriend (Golem) Vassilios Barbarigos – Xenia (Karma Films) Marcelo Pies – Reaching for the Moon (Splendor Films España) | style="vertical-align:top;" width="50%" | Gill Robillard and Franck-Pascal Alquinet – The New Girlfriend (Golem) Louise Cockburn and Jill Fogel – A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (La Aventura Audiovisual) Denise Kum, Roo Maurice, Ivana Primorac and Amy Riley – The Imitation Game (Tripictures) |- | style="vertical-align:top;" width="50%" | Marc Serena and Verònica Font – Tchindas (Pirámide Films) Jamie Caple, Tony Gibson, Blair Jollands and Martin Trevis – Pride (Golem) Miguel Hormazábal, Roberto Zuñiga, Ivo Moraga, Salomé Román and Mauricio Molina – The Club (Caramel Films) | style="vertical-align:top;" width="50%" | Alexandre Desplat – The Imitation Game (Tripictures) Philippe Rombi – The New Girlfriend (Golem) Marcelo Zarvos – Reaching for the Moon (Splendor Films España) |} Best Song was not awarded
Acting {|class="wikitable" |- | style="vertical-align:top;" width="50%" | Romain Duris – The New Girlfriend as David / Virginia (Golem) Benedict Cumberbatch – The Imitation Game as Alan Turing (Tripictures) Willem Dafoe – Pasolini as Pier Paolo Pasolini (Good Films) | style="vertical-align:top;" width="50%" | Lily Tomlin – Grandma as Elle (Sony Pictures) Cheng Pei-pei – Lilting as Junn (Surtsey Films) Miranda Otto – Reaching for the Moon as Elizabeth Bishop (Splendor Films España) |- | style="vertical-align:top;" width="50%" | Roberto Farías – The Club as Sandokan (Caramel Films) Alfredo Castro – The Club as Padre Vidal (Caramel Films) Andrew Scott – Pride as Gethin Roberts (Golem) | style="vertical-align:top;" width="50%" | Keira Knightley – The Imitation Game as Joan Clarke (Tripictures) Glória Pires – Reaching for the Moon as Lota de Macedo Soares (Splendor Films España) Imelda Staunton – Pride as Hefina Headon (Golem) |- | style="vertical-align:top;" width="50%" | Pride – Ben Schnetzer, Monica Dolan, George MacKay, Bill Nighy, Andrew Scott, Imelda Staunton, Dominic West, Paddy Considine, Joseph Gilgun, Sophie Evans, Lisa Palfrey, Menna Trussler, Karina Fernandez, Liz White, Chris Overton, Jessica Gunning, Matthew Flynn, Jessie Cave and Freddie Fox (Golem) The Club – Roberto Farías, Antonia Zegers, Alfredo Castro, Alejandro Goic, Alejandro Sieveking, Jaime Vadell and Marcelo Alonso (Caramel Films) Girl Gets Girl – Celia Freijeiro, Cristina Pons, Sandra Collantes, María Botto, María Ballesteros, Adrián Lastra, Ismael Martínez, Jaime Olias, Eulalia Ramón, Estefanía de los Santos, Sabrina Praga, Paulina Gálvez, Beatriz Montañez, Marina San José, Jane Badler, Karina Matas Piper, Alberto Velasco and Mar Ayala (Versus Entertainment) | style="vertical-align:top;" width="50%" | Glória Pires and Miranda Otto – Reaching for the Moon as Lota de Macedo Soares and Elizabeth Bishop (Splendor Films España) Romain Duris and Anaïs Demoustier – The New Girlfriend as David / Virginia and Claire (Golem) Ghilherme Lobo and Fábio Audi – The Way He Looks as Leonardo and Gabriel (Surtsey Films) |- | style="vertical-align:top;" width="50%" | Kostas Nikouli – Xenia as Dany (Karma Films) Rubèn de Eguia – Virus of Fear as Jordi (Alfa Pictures) Del Herbert-Jane – 52 Tuesdays as James (Cine Binario) | style="vertical-align:top;" width="50%" | Tilda Cobham-Hervey – 52 Tuesdays as Billie (Cine Binario) Yordanka Ariosa – The King of Havana as Magda (Filmax) Sheila Vand – A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night as The Girl (La Aventura Audiovisual)
2016 Production {| class="wikitable" |- | style="vertical-align:top;" colspan="2"; width=100% | Carol (Vértigo Films) The Duke of Burgundy (La Aventura Audiovisual) From Afar (Caramel Films) The Handmaiden (La Aventura Audiovisual) Paris 05:59: Théo & Hugo (Surtsey Films) |- | style="vertical-align:top;" width="50%" | Todd Haynes – Carol (Vértigo Films) Park Chan-wook – The Handmaiden (La Aventura Audiovisual) Alantė Kavaitė – The Summer of Sangailė (Cine Binario) | style="vertical-align:top;" width="50%" | Lorenzo Vigas – From Afar (Caramel Films) Miguel del Arco – The Furies (Wanda Visión) Maysaloun Hamoud – In Between (Golem) |- | style="vertical-align:top;" width="50%" | Peter Strickland – The Duke of Burgundy (La Aventura Audiovisual) Olivier Ducastel and Jacques Martineau – Paris 05:59: Théo & Hugo (Surtsey Films) Céline Sciamma and André Téchiné – Being 17 (Vértigo Films) | style="vertical-align:top;" width="50%" | Phyllis Nagy – Carol (Vértigo Films) Lorenzo Vigas – From Afar (Caramel Films) Park Chan-wook and Jeong Seo-kyeong – The Handmaiden (La Aventura Audiovisual) |- | style="vertical-align:top;" width="50%" | Edward Lachman – Carol (Vértigo Films) Chung Chung-hoon – The Handmaiden (La Aventura Audiovisual) Dominique Colin – The Summer of Sangailė (Cine Binario) | style="vertical-align:top;" width="50%" | Matyas Fekete – The Duke of Burgundy (La Aventura Audiovisual) Kim Jae-bum and Kim Sang-bum – The Handmaiden (La Aventura Audiovisual) Stephen O'Connell – Viva (Betta Pictures) |- | style="vertical-align:top;" width="50%" | Ryu Seong-hui – The Handmaiden (La Aventura Audiovisual) Ana Solares and Héctor Iruega – Eisenstein in Guanajuato (Betta Pictures) Eve Stewart and Michael Standish – The Danish Girl (Universal Pictures) | style="vertical-align:top;" width="50%" | Nicolas Becker, Jonas Jocys and Julien Perez – The Summer of Sangailė (Cine Binario) Rob Entwistle, Martin Pavey and Tapio Liukkonen – The Duke of Burgundy (La Aventura Audiovisual) Jung Gun and Kim Suk-won – The Handmaiden (La Aventura Audiovisual) |- | style="vertical-align:top;" width="50%" | Paco Delgado – The Danish Girl (Universal Pictures) Andrea Flesch – The Duke of Burgundy (La Aventura Audiovisual) Sandy Powell – Carol (Vértigo Films) | style="vertical-align:top;" width="50%" | Jan Sewell – The Danish Girl (Universal Pictures) Jerry DeCarlo and Patricia Regan – Carol (Vértigo Films) Elena López Carreón, Mari Paz Robles and Marjut Samulin – Eisenstein in Guanajuato (Betta Pictures) |- | style="vertical-align:top;" width="50%" | Carter Burwell – Carol (Vértigo Films) Alexandre Desplat – The Danish Girl (Universal Pictures) Cat's Eyes – The Duke of Burgundy (La Aventura Audiovisual) | style="vertical-align:top;" width="50%" | "The sound of you coming (임이 오는 소리)" (Gain and Minseo) – The Handmaiden (La Aventura Audiovisual) "Hands of Love" (Miley Cyrus) – Freeheld (Filmax) "Zindagi" (Anushka Manchanda) – Angry Indian Goddesses (Karma Films)
Acting {|class="wikitable" |- | style="vertical-align:top;" width="50%" | Burghart Klaußner – The People vs. Fritz Bauer as Fritz Bauer (Caramel Films) Alfredo Castro – From Afar as Armando (Caramel Films) Tom Hardy – Legend as Ronnie and Reggie Kray (Tripictures) | style="vertical-align:top;" width="50%" | Rooney Mara – Carol as Therese Belivet (Vértigo Films) Cate Blanchett – Carol as Carol Aird (Vértigo Films) Alicia Vikander – The Danish Girl as Gerda Wegener (Universal Pictures) |- | style="vertical-align:top;" width="50%" | Luis Alberto García – Viva as Mama (Betta Pictures) Michael Shannon – Freeheld as Dane Wells (Filmax) Ronald Zehrfeld – The People vs. Fritz Bauer as Karl Angermann (Caramel Films) | style="vertical-align:top;" width="50%" | Sandrine Kiberlain – Being 17 as Dr. Marianne Delille (Vértigo Films) Noémie Lvovsky – Summertime as Monique (Golem) Daniela Nefussi – Don't Call Me Son as Aracy / Glória (Karma Films) |- | style="vertical-align:top;" width="50%" |