'The Black Ball' emerges as Spain’s Oscar contender with LGBTQ rights message

Cast and filmmakers of La Bola Negra attend its premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival in Toronto on September 15, 2026. — AFP pic

First Published: Thursday, 17 Sep 2026 10:06 AM MYT

TORONTO, Sept 17 — Spain’s Oscar entry The Black Ballhas proven buzzy across the festival circuit, as its powerful message championing LGBTQ rights emerges from intertwined storylines revolving around sexuality and the Spanish Civil War.

The drama featuring cameos by the likes of Penelope Cruz and Glenn Close received a standing ovation Tuesday at the Toronto Film Festival (TIFF), accolades that arrived the eve before Spain selected the film—known as La Bola Negrain Spanish—as its international feature film Academy Award contender.

Directors Javier Ambrossi and Javier Calvo, a creative duo affectionately known as “Los Javis” and who were until recently a couple, are famous in Spain particularly for their television work, if less widely known on the international stage.

But their stars are rising after a smash debut of the film at Cannes, where it won the best director award that was shared with Pawel Pawlikowski (Fatherland).

Along with Cruz and Close, The Black Ballstars Miguel Bernardeau, and weaves the stories of three gay men across different eras in Spain.

“It’s a tribute to the LGBTQ+ community” of the past that fought for human rights, Ambrossi told AFP.

Speaking to journalists at a press conference at TIFF, he said “we wanted to make it big.”

The story spooled into existence as they developed the film, he explained.

It started “fragile” and “intimate,” Ambrossi said, “but we understood there was a political statement behind it” that allowed for an “epic gay drama for everyone.”

Empathy and humanity

The filmmakers noted that many countries still have anti-LGBTQ laws, and people within the community can be persecuted or even killed for their sexuality.

Calvo emphasized that the film is “about empathy and humanity and seeing the other as a person.”

Early inspiration came from the unpublished play written by Federico Garcia Lorca, the poet who was executed by fascist forces at the beginning of the Spanish Civil War.

They said the four pages of unfinished writing sparked their curiosity and drew them in.

“We got obsessed with his work,” Calvo told journalists, saying they immersed themselves in Lorca’s writings, correspondence and biographies.

“We were trying to connect with what he wanted to do,” the filmmaker added. “It was years, years of working.”