Bilbao-born writer Jokin Urruticoechea has won the 21st SGAE Julio Alejandro Feature Film Screenplay Award 2024 with Ultramar, a thriller with a markedly authorial character. Organised by the Fundación SGAE and offering 25,000 euros to the winner, the competition also recognised the work of the finalists – Kurro González (Valencia, 1977) for Lilit, and Carlos Lechuga (Havana, 1983) for La intrusa – with two honourable mentions, valued at 3,500 euros.

'Winning this award is a great joy. It’s one of the most important in the creative industry and, for the script, winning it has been a great showcase for production and carrying out the project', said the filmmaker, who thanked Fundación SGAE for supporting his project.

The jury, made up of Santi Amodeo (filmmaker and composer), Beatriz Gómez (screenwriter and script analyst) and César Sodero (screenwriter and winner of the XIX SGAE Julio Alejandro Screenplay Award 2022), highlighted the high literary quality of the text, a script that narrates how a terminally ill man returns to his childhood home to carry out a murder that, according to a strange local legend, could save his life.

Regarding the work, Jokin commented that the original project 'came into being as a thriller', the result of a family idea of wanting to shoot a story in the little house they have in Asturias, tucked away in the mountains. 'The idea of making a film was born there, taking advantage of the environment, the atmosphere of the place in winter, and designed with the intention of making it easy to produce', he explained, pointing out that 'it also has some drama and a touch of fantasy at the end'.

Silvia Pérez de Pablos, Audiovisual Director of Fundación SGAE, presented the award along with two members of the jury (César Sodero and Beatriz Gómez) this afternoon in Room 2 of Cine Albéniz, as part of the 27th Festival de Málaga programme and before the premiere of the film Historias, by Paco Sepúlveda. The event completes a series of activities organised by Fundación SGAE throughout the week within the framework of the festival, including the MAFIZ professional meeting and a round table on equality tomorrow, 8 March. You can check out all the activities here.
The award, which is celebrating 21 years of trajectory and has become the most important recognition of screenwriting in the Spanish-speaking community, is a boost to the quality of cinematographic literature. Creators including Marina Seresesky, Félix Viscarret, Pável Giroud, Adán Aliaga, Amílcar Salatti, Pablo Remón, Flora González Villanueva and Arantxa Echevarría are just some of the screenwriters who have been recognised by the event over the course of its two decades.

A total of 213 works from Spain and Latin America were submitted for the 21st SGAE Julio Alejandro Screenplay Award, in honour of the screenwriter of Luis Buñuel’s famous film Viridiana. The pre-reading committee, with the collaboration of institutions from the sector, screenwriters’ associations, and unions, was made up of screenwriters and script analysts including Tomàs Bayo, Beatriz Gómez, Ángel Manzano (representing the screenwriters’ union FAGA), Laura Martel, Ana Piles and César Sodero.