The Festival de Málaga (organised by Malaga City Council through Malaga Procultura) will present the Malaga Talent Award to the director Alauda Ruiz de Azúa in its 29th edition (to be held from the 6th to the 15th of March). The Festival awards this prize — in collaboration with La Opinión de Málaga — to professionals with a promising film career, as is the case of this filmmaker.
 
With a degree in English from the University of Deusto and Audiovisual Communication from the UPV, Alauda Ruiz de Azúa graduated in Film Directing from the ECAM. After writing and directing several nationally and internationally acclaimed short films, including They Say (Dicen, 2011), in 2021 she wrote and directed her début feature, Lullaby (Cinco lobitos), which received more than 30 awards, including three Goya Awards, the Feroz Award for Best Screenplay, the Forqué Award for Cinema and Education in Values, the Gaudí Award for Best European Film and the CEC Medal for Best New Director, among many others. The film participated in the Berlin, Seattle, Karlovy Vary and Malaga festivals (where it won the Golden Biznaga for Best Film, the Best Screenplay Award, the Best Actress Award and the Audience Award), as well as being a candidate to represent Spain at the Oscars.
 
In 2024, she released her first fiction series, Querer, produced by Kowalski Films and Feelgood Media for Movistar+, which won three Forqué Awards, three Feroz Awards, and the Grand Prix of the international competition Series Mania (Lille — France), among other awards.
 
In 2025, Sundays (Los domingos), her second feature film as screenwriter and director, was released in theatres, winning the Golden Shell at the San Sebastian Festival, the Irizar Basque Film Award, the Fipresci Award from international critics and the Feroz Zinemaldia Award from the Asociación de Informadores Cinematográficos de España (Spanish Association of Film Informers). The film has also recently received the Forqué Award for Best Film and is the most nominated film in the current edition of the Goya Awards, with 13 nominations.
 
Alauda Ruiz de Azúa has just been awarded the Gold Medal for Merit in the Fine Arts, a recognition granted by the Ministry of Culture to individuals and entities that have excelled in the field of artistic and cultural creation.