La Bola Negra, a Spanish war epic directed by Javier Ambrossi and Javier Calvo, has become an awards contender with best picture and best director Oscar nominations all but guaranteed, according to the filmmakers' ambitions.
The film stars Penélope Cruz in a blonde wig and Glenn Close speaking Spanish. It weaves together three narratives set in Spain: a 1932 casino rejection based on suspected homosexuality, a 1937 story of a nationalist soldier's tender feelings for a republican prisoner, and a 2017 plot involving a queer historian who inherits an unfinished story by Federico García Lorca.
Ambrossi said the directing pair wanted to break away from niche LGBTQ+ cinema. "I'm done with LGBTQ+ movies being niche," he said. "I was like, 'Let's make the biggest, gayest war movie ever.'"
The pair won the best director prize jointly at Cannes this year, sharing it with Paweł Pawlikowski for his Thomas Mann road trip film Fatherland.